Mark Twain

"I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English–it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them–then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice."

Letter to D. W. Bowser, 20 March 1880

This passage written by Mark Twain is an example of how I feel writing should be. By this I mean that I think writing should be short, sweet and to the point, there is no need for the "fluff and flowers". All this does is drown out your original ideas in words and phrases that are unnecessary and can just completed be avoided. When this happens your audience will begin to lose focus and forget what the original point of your writing actually was. When Mark Twain explains how to use adjective and writes "They weaken when they are close together" he is explaining how when you use too many adjectives together it begins to make your writing lose focus. Do not over describe what you are trying to convey, just make your case clear and do not go overboard with adjectives. This will make your writing less meaningful because you are focusing so much on over describing one detail of your writing when you should focus your time on your writing as a whole.

"The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say."
Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1902-1903

What Mark Twain is trying to convey here is that you should only begin writing once you have all of your thoughts clearly laid out. When sitting down to write, you do not want to just jump into your writing because you often do not have all of your thoughts organized correctly and will not write your best material. This is a perfect example of how I write, because I go through many drafts of what I want to write before I find the perfect wording for it. Often when I write an essay I will type about 5 different versions of the same sentence until I like what I have. Then eventually I will pick a final version of what I want to keep in my writing.