Have you ever felt your writing lacked strength, boldness or vigor?

Memorize and follow this advice from two writing masters.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.

- W. Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, rule 13: Omit needless words.

Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to education and rank.

- W. Zinsser, On writing well.

Clutter kills manuscripts: eradicate of much of it as you can.