“Be more specific,” I used to tell my writing students. “Don’t say cereal when you could say Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Don’t say your character walked into the room when you could say he sauntered in. Don’t say you were reading a book, say you were reading Charlotte’s Web or Goodnight Moon or The Grapes of Wrath. Specificity matters,” I’d tell them.

Keep reading the rest of this essay published on The Twelve blog.