>When an author writes a book, they consider every word they put in. Every word has meaning and a reason for being there. I think that's true of authors writi

>When an author writes a book, they consider every word they put in. Every word has meaning and a reason for being there. I think that's true of authors writing poetry and some authors of novels such as Gustave Flaubert[1]. He spent years refining the same sentences over and over for a single novel. However, a lot of authors' output has a lot of fluff and fat and the final novel's sentences are hardly more polished than a 1st draft "brain dump". A lot of thrillers and mysteries sold at airport bookstores could be characterized like this. However, it's fine because the plot was interesting and readers will forgive a lot of flabby sentences they had to slog through. Some authors really "craft" their sentences. Some authors don't.[2] I think readers, as they read certain authors... implicitly perceive if... Each. Word. Is. Really. Important. ... and therefore, slow down to digest it as necessary. E.g., I would read Flaubert slowly but read Charles Dickens quickly. It gets more complicated with non-English writers like Flaubert because there would be 2 layers of word choices happening: it's Flaubert's French word choices and then the English translator's choices. Dickens, on the other hand, wrote to a schedule of installments. Even though he didn't literally get "paid by the word count", he did have to fill out a set number of pages each month and the quality of writing is uneven. [1]Flaubert believed in, and pursued, the principle of finding "le mot juste" ("the right word"), --from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Flaubert#Perfectionist_style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Flaubert#Perfectionist... [2]http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/50-shades-of-grey/feature/a512275/50-shades-of-grey-23-funniest-quotes-from-el-jamess-novel/ http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/50-shades-of-grey/feature/a...