If You are a Writer You are also an Editor
Often, when I edit any piece of writing, whether it is mine, or, moreso, that of another writer, I find that much of the work that has been neglected is to do with how the writer failed to practise effective sentence control, that deliberate process where nothing is intrinsic, but where much, if not everything, depends on syntactic control, sometimes linguistic risk, that the writer is willing to unfurl. All sentences, especially ones like my introductory one here, can be controlled; the writer has to make choices about how to express ideas: don't let anyone tell you that we are controlled by the sentence, that the sentence is a gift that comes fully formed from some sentence storehouse...we craft these things, we make them work, we knit words, we replace them, we sequence elements of sentences, we pile segment upon segment of lexical and syntactic matter to create prosaic style and semantic sinews. So, on and on, we edit. There are moments when words, phrases, and c...