At the same time he insisted on realistic detail, accuracy of diction, probability of motive, possibility of situation and action, and often attacked, either directly or indirectly, those authors whose works seemed to violate those principles.
The development of Clemens's critical sense began during his early experience in printing offices. As he said years later in "The Turning-Point of My Life" (included in What Is Man? and Other Essays, 1917), "One isn't a printer ten years without setting up acres of good and bad literature, and learning--unconsciously at first, consciously later--to discriminate between the two, within his mental limitations...." Travel letters and various humorous sketches for his brother Orion's newspapers were products of his printing days. The full development of his writing skills really began in the West during successive posts on the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise (where he first adopted the name " Mark Twain" in the winter of 1862-1863) and in San Francisco on the Daily Call and the Californian. There, in addition to straight reporting, he forged his own unique style, experimenting with hoaxes, burlesques, and imaginative sketches, and with various poses in the guise of " Mark Twain" and through other personae like "Simon Wheeler," of the famous jumping frog story.
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