Basic Ledes: Merge Sentences

The best ledes are just one sentence in length. And often, when you have a two-sentence lede, it's easy to merge it into one. Like here:

County treasurer Vernon Sindelair pleaded guilty to embezzlement Wednesday morning. Sindelair was charged with embezzling over $1.7 million and faces up to 30 years in prison.

A cue to look for in whether you can abbreviate a lede is whether you refer to something twice, like you do to Sindelair and embezzlement. Usually, you can cut that down to one reference by rearranging word order and eliminating redundancy, like this:

County treasurer Vernon Sindelair pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to embezzling over $1.7 million and faces up to 30 years in prison.

Getting rid of the second references also allows us to merge the sentences. And we lose no significant meaning at all. It's just shorter and clearer and less choppy.