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I read the same paragraph four times this morning before I realized why it wasn't working.
(In my defense, it was before I washed my face. Everything's guilty before that.)
The paragraph was fine, technically. Grammar: correct. Spelling: correct. Also: completely limp.
Every sentence was doing two or three things at once, setting a scene, making a point, and sneaking in a joke, all in one breath. Poor sentence. Overworked. Underpaid.
Here's the rule I keep forgetting and relearning: every good sentence has exactly one job. Set the scene. Or make the point. Or land the joke. Pick one. Let the next sentence pick up the next job.
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When a sentence tries to do everything, it ends up doing nothing particularly well like a Swiss Army knife, technically useful, weirdly unsatisfying to actually use for anything.
So I went back in, split that overachieving paragraph into four small sentences, each with one job. Suddenly, readable. Suddenly, actually kind of good.
One job per sentence. Let each one earn its keep, then get out of the way for the next.
Stephen
