Two good writing rules:
- With a phrase or a sentence, put the most important idea at the end and the second-most important at the beginning.
- Express similar ideas with phrases that have parallel construction.
The following disobeys both rules:
A diet means that the next meal will be light. To get ready, you’ll go a little heavy in the current meal.
In the first sentence, the meal appears in the middle of the sentence. In the second, the meal appears at the end.
An improvement:
A diet means you intend to go light in the next meal. In readiness, you pile on a little extra in the current one.
Behold, humor springs to life!
