In honor of Mark Twain's birthday, here's a piece of writing advice from a letter he wrote to a student named D.W. Bowser: "I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief ...

Most forms of writing involve description. For example, in a short story characters and places need to feel real for the reader. Description of events, feelings and atmosphere helps to achieve this.

On the Internet, there are no average photographs, judging by headlines and tweets. Every single gallery is "fantastic," "stunning," and most frequently of all: "amazing." But is amazing always the ...

Adjectives should be rationed and adverbs questioned. When the Covid-19 was raging through the world, there was a poster: Is your journey really necessary? Let’s replace the word “journey” with ...

Is there something unforgivably, infuriatingly obfuscatory about the unrestrained use of adjectives and adverbs? Many celebrated stylists think so. Crime writer Elmore Leonard, who died last week, ...

Descriptive writing is a powerful tool that adds life and depth to your writing. Effective descriptions breathe life into your ideas and put the reader in the scene where those ideas live. If I want ...

You probably noticed this place is called Mount Scary. Well, that’s not because of the mountain. Allow me to explain. Y’see, she’s not just a yeti… she’s a scary yeti. Scary is an adjective. An ...