'Once again, he found himself sitting in a cold, dark cell for a crime he had not committed.'
Like rolling dice, there are countless possibilities when it comes to rewriting sentences. So, how do you approach writing or editing a sentence? Do you let it breathe and come back to it later, or (like me) do you scribble it down as quickly as you can for fear of forgetting it and then move on?
Over the years, I’ve found real value in returning to certain lines and rewriting them multiple times. Not only does this give me an array of options, but it also allows me to play around with pacing, character, tone and grammar. After all, that’s what us writers love to do, and it's a real discipline that I've learned to do - sometimes begrudginly - when I know a line/s doesn't sit quite right.
See below some examples of how I played around with the line 'Once again he found himself sitting in a dark, cold cell for a crime he had not committed.'
Sometimes simplicity is best. Sometimes flair takes the story to another level, but you'll never know until you start moving things around.
'There he was again, knotted up in the corner of his cell under his name that he had gouged into the bleak, headstone-like wall the first time he was innocent, but tried as guilty and had escaped justice. He pondered whether his escape as an innocent man, made him as guilty as other criminals.'
'Noone cares about my innocence, nor my guilt. Even the guard has little interest in knowing whether I pushed Randall from the bridge, or whether he slipped from my grasp. Now the rats, scrounging around in my guts can gobble up my innocence and vomit out my guilt; but before they come for my brain, I’ll put up a fight for justice.'
'The key is a forged and rehearsed instrument with only one infinite possibility; the lock, a smug and resolute mechanism capable of liberating or denying litigious individuals of their right to speak their truths.'
'"No-one knows you’re immortal, if no-one knows about you. You’re only mortal if people know who you are," Ron told himself as he worked on plans to escape the confines of his four-walled dungeon, a ploy that included a drastic change in appearance and a month’s worth of self-learning to instantly hypnotise anyone, anywhere, at any time.'
'It stinks of life in here. It’s got that type of musty, phosphoric tinge in the air that tells you whoever survived here, shared their precious minutes of eating with the effluence of despair.'
'To keep a man requires taxes from the public, to keep a man out of jail requires him to pay his taxes. Some commit crimes like tax evasion, petty crimes, or even murder to earn a place in the penal block, but Ron had earned his right to be in the cell for being in the wrong place at the right time.'
'Clack! Clack! Clack! It took Ron a devil-sized dose of imagination, to imprint, to visualise the vaulted vocabulary of the triangular sequence of the simple lock.'
'No sooner had the waft of numbingly cold and stale air settled, like opening a tomb and stirring the soul of some ancient, brittle ancestor, than Ron comprehended the gravity of his situation.'
'Comrade Cell, you old blighter. Good to see you again. You love a good joke, so let’s continue to go along with it and pretend that I’m guilty, when I know I’m innocent, and you know think I'm lying.'
He sneezed, then wiped his nose with a hankie reveaing a crimson stringy gunge bridged between his nostril and the fabric. “The guard must have really thwacked me good. Shame I don’t remember it,” Ron thought as he folded the now blood stained hankie. This was routine for Ron. Routine for Ron be clobbered in the face for no apparent reason and to then wake up wondering why the hell he deserved it.
