Weak writing: "He ran quite speedily." Powerful writing: "He bolted."

Weak writing: "He ran quite speedily."
Powerful writing: "He bolted."

Even back in the mid-twentieth century, beginning at least as early as the publication of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, smarty-pantses knew that descriptive writing was about choosing powerful, accurate

Nouns and Verbs,

not about piling on adjectives, adverbs, and qualifiers.

Don't say, "I ate it, and it was very good," say, "I plunged in my spoon, and devoured the feast."

As a human, you probably limit yourself to your favorite 800 or so words. But I know you can do better. As you check over your writing, find a noun or a verb that looks too simple, or too general. Then use a thesaurus to find something that hits the mark, something that expresses your idea with more force and truth than what you had thought possible.

This will also help you write concisely. Get straight to the point. Why say it with many words when you can say it with few?