Thursday, May 10, 2012

Sentences need editing

Found online: The day after a record-setting crowd of spectators had shuffled out of the world's most famous racetrack, police were gathered on the backside of Louisville's Churchill Downs to ask a 19-year-old groom to identify a body found in the back of a barn about 150 yards from where three-year-old I'll Have Another was resting after his come-from-behind win in the 138th Kentucky Derby.

The writer is trying to do too much with one sentence, and it's much, MUCH too long.

The day after a record-setting crowd had shuffled out of the world's most famous racetrack, police were gathered on the backside of Louisville's Churchill Downs to ask a 19-year-old groom to identify a body. It was found in the back of a barn about 150 yards from where I'll Have Another was resting after his win in the 138th Kentucky Derby.

I've added two words and made it two sentences. I cut out the fact that I'll Have Another is a three-year-old; all of the Triple Crown horses are three-year-olds. Similarly, I cut the fact that it was a come-from-behind win; the writer can use that elsewhere. I also cut "of spectators," since, by definition, sports crowds are made up of spectators. The writing is not perfect now, but it's better, tighter.

From the same story: 

That it was murder, police have said, was made clear by the wounds on his body and the location of the corpse, left in the back of Barn No. 8, an "unnatural place" for Perez to be, since the trainer who employed him, Cecil Borel, worked in another location amid the sprawling backside community where some 600 employees — many from all over Latin America — live among and sometimes above the stables.


Again, I'll divide it into two sentences and trim some fat.

It was murder, police said, because of the wounds on his body and the location of the corpse, left in the back of Barn No. 8, an "unnatural place" for Perez to be. His employer, trainer Cecil Borel, worked in another location amid the sprawling backside community where some 600 employees — many from all over Latin America — live among and sometimes above the stables.


More editing/writing blog entries

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