Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac divided 20th century major American writers in two groups: the "taker-outers" and the "putter-inners."

Scott Fitzgerald and Henry James were "taker-outers" who "wrote and rewrote to render a book into a polished gem." Walt Whitman and Thomas wolfe, were, on the other hand, "putter-inners" who "reached out to embrace the whole impossible landscape of American experience to make a mighty book like the Mississippi river in flood."

I think, today, most writers are "taker-outers."