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Miller Chop"I can understand the preference that others [writers] have for the device of beginning a crime story with a more or less conventional sentence or two, then snapping the reader back in his chair with an abbreviated sentence that is used like a blunt instrument," Calvin Trillin once remarked. "One student of the form at the Herald refers to that device as the Miller Chop. The reference is to Gene Miller, now a Herald editor, who, in a remarkable reporting career that concentrated on the felonious, won the Pulitzer Prize twice for stories that resulted in the release of people in prison for murder. Miller likes short sentences in general — it is sometimes said at the Herald that he writes as if he were paid by the period..."
["Some years ago, Gene Miller and Edna Buchanan did a story together on the murder of a high-living Miami lawyer who was shot to death on a day he had planned to while away on the golf course of La Gorce Country Club, and the lead said, '...he had his golf clubs in the trunk of his Cadillac. Wednesday looked like an easy day. He figured he might pick up a game later with Eddie Arcaro, the jockey. He didn't.'"]
Miller, Gene (?- ) American crime reporter and editor [noted for his work with the Miami Herald]
[Sources: The New Yorker, 1986-02-17]More Gene Miller anecdotesRelated Anecdote Keywords:
Journalism Writing Style Brevity Technique
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