Style

A good many writers have insisted that style can be neither taught nor learned. Like tears or sweat, they say, it is something that springs from within. You either have the gift or you don't. This is probably true, but only to a point. The good stylists work at their craft. Consciously or unconsciously, they master the little dog tricks of euphony and cadence. The novelist searches for the significant details that will put flesh on the bones of a character. Little by little we learn what works for us--bare and bony sentences, or china dogs with pouting eyes, or perhaps no "style" at all.

From WRITER'S ART by James Kilpatrick