This is topic I just noticed in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.


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Posted by goatboy (Member # 2062) on :
 
That corel will not only give me a word count, but will tell me the average sentence length and the longest sentence length.

Mine is 13/44. Is that about average?
 


Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :
 
I'm an advocate of shorter sentences. 13 is pretty good.

44! time to cut
 


Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :
 
The "goodness" of a sentence has nothing to do with word count.
 
Posted by djvdakota (Member # 2002) on :
 
I'm on wetwilly's side here.

The thing that is the most telling to me is that your sentence lengths are varied. That's what is, IMO, most crucial when we're talking about sentence length.

Also, an understanding of what different sentence lengths do. Short sentences increase tension. Long sentences reduce it. If the shoe fits the situation, wear it. Even at 44 words.
 


Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :
 
I've got 13/158 on one of mine. and it's up to 84k words.
 
Posted by reid (Member # 1425) on :
 
I guess what we really need is a utility that gives the standard deviation of sentence lengths. So who's going to write the code?

Which reminds me...does anyone remember the program that a hatracker wrote that would give a list of every word used in a document along with its frequency? Does anyone still have the executable or remember the origional post? I lost it in a recent upgrade.

Thanks,
Brian
 


Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :
 
I did one...not sure if it is the one you were talking about. Anyways Here it is

I should update it sometime.

[This message has been edited by Lord Darkstorm (edited February 19, 2005).]
 


Posted by Eadwacer (Member # 2393) on :
 
Maybe I'll write one that has some fancy features (I use Delphi too).

As far as my stories go, my stats for sentence length in "The Dreamers":

Mean: 17
Median: 17
Max: 36
Min: 4
Std. Dev.: 8
Mode: 6 (occured six times)
 


Posted by reid (Member # 1425) on :
 
LD-

Thank you! I see that you've added an interface and some new functions since the revision I last used (assuming it was yours). I love the 'empty adverbs' finder (exposed 43 usages of 'really' in a 35K manuscript - ouch). I'd be happy to make a donation to the cause if you have a paypal account or P.O. box or something.

Brian
 


Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :
 
That's a cool program. Thanks LDS.
 


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