From copyblogger, rapidly becoming one of my favorite blogs–The Mark Twain Guide to Better Blogging.
Here are a couple more that I think should be important to bloggers:
We write frankly and fearlessly but then we “modify” before we print.
- Life on the Mississippi
I think this would add more power to even the most radical writers, because rational, logical prose is always more persuasive.
To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself…Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.
- Letter to Emeline Beach, 2/10/1868
Often as bloggers we think the scroll wheel gives us the liberty to use your screen until your wrist is tired and you click away.
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, 3/20/1880
Remember readers come to learn. Some are there for the first time. So, always write for the naive.
Read more Twain to enjoy life more and write better.
