Editing

I have an ad trumpeting “Great Courses. It’s for “Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft.”
Sounds like one-a them right-side Facebook ads I never click, but it’s not Facebook.
It’s one-a them junkmail thingies I eventually shred.
Playing on dreamers seeking fame and fortune — essentially recognition.
I wonder if they could show me anything, like how to craft a better sentence.
I have my own ideas — one of which is to reduce wordiness. I would chop “Exploring the Writer’s Craft” off that title.
Copy-writers seem to do that, as if wordiness signifies erudition.
I hear it all the time. Company names followed by a catchy phrase from their mission-statement.
In my humble opinion a mission-statement shouldn’t be written. Who reads it? Only the writer.
During my final year at the Messenger Newspaper in Canandaigua a writers’ group formed.
I wasn’t part of it, despite my slinging words left-and-right.
One day a reporter came over to talk to another in an adjacent cubical. Both were members of the writers’ group.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” I said; “but when I wanna write I just get out my pen and start slingin’.”
“Easy for you to say,” they said. “You don’t need no writers’ group.”
I ain’t Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, but I do seem to have a talent slinging words.
That is, sentences I write seem to be fine as is, not in need of heavy editing.
I learned to leave well enough alone during my union newsletter at Transit. My wife advised me to leave what I wrote alone, that it was usually good enough.
And I didn’t have time for editing. She also pointed out what editing I did destroyed what I wrote.
I still proof and edit, but not much. Usually what editing I do is word reduction.
I computer-find “that;” all the “thats” in what I wrote.
Usually it reads fine without “that.”
I also get rid of passive voice, unless it absolutely needs it.
I also reduce wordiness; usually I can.
Just slinging words may generate verbiage I can usually take out.
So what makes a “great sentence?”
In my humble opinion it’s to convey in as few words as possible.
And greatness is not the ability to do that.
It’s observing and conveying things the reader doesn’t see.
To tell a story that interests my reader, yet not bollix it so much my reader is turned off.
I’ve also concluded my readers enjoy dialogue, even if it’s made up.
Lots of time I let readers fill in the blanks. Explaining everything is a sure path to boredom.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. During my final year I produced a voluntary newsletter for my bus-union. It was great fun, although time-consuming. I produced it in Microsoft Word® on our home computer. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended both. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well. After my stroke I began employ at the Messenger newspaper in nearby Canandaigua.