posted
I see a lot of criticism over on the fragment and feedback thread towards long sentences. Which begs the questions, “Who cares?”
I mean, to me as long as your point is clear and grammatically correct it shouldn’t matter. Should it? Why is there this aversion to long sentences? It's never bothered me in my reading.
One of my favorite authors (even though he writes nonfiction) is Joseph J. Ellis. He is the king of long sentences, but you hardly notice as they are so wonderfully and eloquently crafted.
Here’s an example from his book “Founding Brothers” where he starts to discuss the infamous duel between Hamilton and Burr.
quote:And so, in an effort to give this episode its requisite density of detail, to recover the scene in its full coloration, here is a more comprehensive version, which attempts to include all the available and indisputable evidence that survives.
Great sentence, right?
So, what’s wrong with me saying,
quote:She cringed, knowing the song would be stuck in her head for the rest of the night, and her increasingly severe headache made it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the loud, bass-filled music, but she did her best to ignore it and get changed for work.
Besides the difference of eight words? And in more generally terms, what's wrong with long sentances?
posted
The only problem people have with longer sentences is that attention spans tend to decrease as time wears on. That being said, there's a line you can run between sparse, Hemingway-style writing, where you use simple sentences almost exclusively, and longer, more complex sentences bordering on the edge of run-ons. It depends on what you're trying to say. The example you gave wouldn't be hurt by breaking it up into two sentences, but it's your choice. The thing you have to ask yourself is whether you feel that your readers will have to re-read that sentence a few times to make sense of it. I did. Hope that helps.
Posts: 331 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
There is nothing wrong with long sentences per se. If someone told you that the length of the sentence youw rote is what is off about it then I suggest they did not quite understand what had tripped them up. Nevertheless, yours is not a correct sentence. Let us look in detail:
"And so, in an effort to give this episode its requisite density of detail, to recover the scene in its full coloration, here is a more comprehensive version, which attempts to include all the available and indisputable evidence that survives."
Let's get the base sentence out of this: "And so here is a more comprehensive version."
This is the heart of the sentence. It is made longer by virtue of the fact that it uses commas and conjunctions appropriately to expans upon this idea. It answers the WHY of offering..."in an effort to give this episode its requisite density of detail, to recover the scene in its full coloration,..." and it describes the version a little better..."which attempts to include all the available and indisputable evidence that survives."
Now let's look at your sentence:
"She cringed, knowing the song would be stuck in her head for the rest of the night, and her increasingly severe headache made it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the loud, bass-filled music, but she did her best to ignore it and get changed for work."
The base of this sentence is: "She cringed, knowing the song would be stuck in her head for the rest of the night." This is as stated, nothing parses into this to explain in more detail or develop any parts of this message. In fact, the sentence grows larger from what is commonly referred to as a comma splice. You have tacked on information at random by using a comma inappropriately. ", and her increasingly severe headache made it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the loud, bass-filled music," The "and" here is random...you've taken two loosely related ideas and smooshed them together by use of a conjunction and a comma. You might have said something like..." She cringed, knowing the song would be stuck in her head for the rest of the night and cause her head to ache, keeping her from concentrating." In this version the conjunction is joining two parts of a sentence both describing what made her cringe...and the "keeping her from concentrating" expands upon the headache.
You then splice the sentence further with the last bit: "but she did her best to ignore it and get changed for work." Now she's getting changed for work...all under the subheading of a cringe.
I'm not good with technical grammar terms. I'm one of those people we had a discussion about who knows the rules by feel rather than by technicalities. I know what you've done is a comma splice, which is a term I picked up only a few months ago to describe this pheonomenon. In laymen's terms, you're talking in stream of conscioussness. You start with one idea and follow it through fairly natural evolutions as you continue to write the same sentence but it is not one cohesive unit.
A sentence is about one (1) thing. You can expand upon elements of that one thing all you want. You can end up with a long sentence by doing this. But you cannot (at least not correctly) simply tack on extra ideas or "abouts" no matter how naturally they seem to flow from the first.
I hope I've made some kind of sense.
[This message has been edited by Christine (edited January 21, 2005).]
[This message has been edited by Christine (edited January 21, 2005).]
posted
Thanks, Christine. That was a good explanation. There's basically no point for my sentence being that long. There's no reason for it, styliscally or otherwise, like there seems to be in the Ellis quote.
Mmmmm...
This is my least favorite part of writing. The ticky-tack BS. I can't stand it. It's why most of my stories are never finished becasue somewhere somehow there's always a problem---it's never done.
quote:She cringed, knowing the song would be stuck in her head for the rest of the night. She rubbed her brow, trying to relive the pain, but it did nothing to curb her increasingly severe headache.
[This message has been edited by JOHN (edited January 21, 2005).]
First, with respect to your revision, you've repeated lead words in consecutive sentences. As a rule, you shouldn't start any two consecutive sentences (or paragraphs) with the same word unless you are intentionally trying to achieve an echo effect.
Often it is sufficient to replace one of the two uses ('She' in this case) with a synonym (such as the character's name). Other times, you probably want to rephrase the sentence or at least experiment with some structural inversions.
The second comment is related to your original question about sentence length.
Whenever people complain about the length of sentences, I am reminded of the scene in Amadeus where the emperor accuses Mozart of using too many notes. People who complain about a sentence being too long (or too short) without any other reference to structure, grammar or pacing strike me as rule mavens. They've often memorized the ten rules of good writing and if you violate one, you must be a bad writer. Writing is about artistic expression and every word, space and punctuation point is a tool for the artist.
To me, prose should have an almost musical quality. The rhythm of the words is very important, like the duration of notes in a melody.
In some cases, long, slow sentences can be used to evoke a sense of languor and ease. In other cases, shorter less complex sentences can be used to connote an increase in tempo, to reflect increased tension or urgency perhaps.
Sentence length can also be used as a characterization device. Some characters (or some narrative 'personae' if you have more than one) may speak in longer or shorter sentences to help distinguish the different voices.
A good rule of thumb I use is what I call the 'urgency meter'. If the scene needs to keep moving, nobody involved (neither characters nor narrator) should feel that they have the time to indulge in long, twisty sentences. These usually contain a bunch of asides or complex rationalizations that they simply don't have the time for. If the scene is more slowly paced, then longer sentences can come in to help convey that.
That raises the whole other issue of rhythm and the need for a piece to vary its cadence throughout so that the story doesn't get stuck in one mode.
posted
While it is true that it is a good idea to vary sentence length, structure, and beginning words, I did not think it was relevant to the current discussion on two counts: First, it didn't bother me, nor does it ever bother me, unless it is an extreme case. (More than two sentences in a row with the same beginning word.) Second, from what I've seen of John's posts he is a reasonably capable writer who needs practice and confidence more than anything else.
I've never felt that prose needed to be musical in nature. I've read that kind of prose and in the right circumstances am lulled by it. However; I much prefer a well-told story that a musical one. I find that I only begin to notice minor errors of grammar or style when there is something about the story that is not entertaining me. As for two sentences with the same beginning word, that is one of those things I would not even consider rewording in the rewrite unless several people commented on it, and then I would be looking for what bored them enough to notice.
posted
Hemingway is known for his ability with terse sentences, yet the first chapter in A Farewell to Arms is mostly composed of run-ons. Not only do they give a sense of time stretched out, but they also give an added tension due to the stream of consciousness style.
When the shorter sentences appear, it's a relief and a mirror of the character's reaction to the events.
I've fallen into the trap of simply saying, "It's too long". I should say "Your sentence doesn't match the immediacy/tension/lassitude/etc. of the moment," because that's really all sentence length is about.
posted
Christine: I think maybe I wasn't clear. While I used the term [i]musical[\i] I meant that, like music, the rhythm of the language used is an important aspect of the way it is received. You appear to have interpreted me to have meant something more akin to poetic. Understandable, but not what I was aiming at.
The rhythm of the text does not mean that it is repetitive, or sing-song or anything quite that concrete. It has to do with the flow of the text. It has to do with the 'breathing points' provided. It has to do with the pacing of the readers' experience.
I agree with you that attempts to make text musical in that other sense are only palatable in small doses. I should have used a different term.
posted
Allow me to make an editorial comment, here.
What John did in his original sentence wasn't technically a comma splice. A comma splice is a grammatical error, and John's sentence was grammatically 100% correct. I agree with the style issues everybody else pointed out, but the grammar was fine.
A comma splice is when you tack two complete sentences together with a comma, without using a conjunction. John's sentence, had it contained comma splices, would have looked like this:
She cringed, knowing the song would be stuck in her head for the rest of the night, her increasingly sever headache made it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the loud, bass-filled music, she did her best to ignore it and get changed for work.
As for run-ons, the length of a sentence has nothing to do with whether it's a run-on or not. It's the content that counts. A run-on is a sentence that contains multiple seperate ideas that should be separated into multiple sentences, whether the way they are combined into one sentence is grammatically correct or not. It's a style thing, as opposed to comma splices, which are a grammar thing.
I lay down and the house was yellow. This is a run-on, even though it is pretty short. The two ideas don't belong in the same sentence together. (They could, I suppose, depending on context, but normally they don't.)
quote:And so, in an effort to give this episode its requisite density of detail, to recover the scene in its full coloration, here is a more comprehensive version, which attempts to include all the available and indisputable evidence that survives.
This is not a run-on, although it is long. All the ideas belong in the same sentence together, as Christine mentioned.
As a side note, there is more than enough precedent that says you can actually put as many run-ons and/or comma splices in your story as you want, if you do it right.
posted
The long sentence wasn't technically incorrect, IMHO, but it was not parallel. She cringed, and her headache made it difficult could become She cringed, and found it difficult
That said...
I have no problem with long sentences, if they're clear. I do use short sentences for emphasis and especially for violent action.
posted
JOHN, Long sentances aren't bad. When I made the sugggestion on your latest thirteen, I was referring to the flow of the sentance particular. It seemed to me that there was too much going on in that sentance and it could be easily cut in two. It is mostly just a personal preference of mine. I don't see anything really wrong with it other than I had to read it twice to absorb the whole thing. That is mainly why I said what I did.
In a situation like this, I'd give it to someone to read aloud. If they stumble over that sentance or don't understand it, then change it. If they don't have any problems, then keep it. It's your story, and this is only my opinion, that's all.
posted
I'm going to agree with Christine's first post but suggest that John could have made the first two elements logical parts of a single sentence.
quote:She cringed, knowing the song would be stuck in her head for the rest of the night, because her increasingly severe headache made it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the loud, bass-filled music. All the same, she did her best to ignore it and get changed for work.
The first two ideas are directly related and should be put in a sentence that describes how they are related. The third idea could be worked into an overall sentence with the first two, but that would look bad
posted
All right, it's not a comma splice. Like I said, I know when things are wrong but I don't often know what they're called. I do, however, stand by what I said. That was not a grammatically correct sentence. If I have some time on Monday I'm going to see if I can look deeper into conjunctions and what they're supposed to do, because this isnt' it.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
This is one of those confusing situations with writing and grammar because some terms are being used interchangeably. Run-ons, comma splice, and fused sentences can all mean the same thing, or not, as wetwilly has proved. I’m inclined to subscribe to the view at http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/runons.htm
quote:When two independent clauses are connected by only a comma, they constitute a run-on sentence that is called a comma-splice….When you use a comma to connect two independent clauses, it must be accompanied by a little conjunction (and, but, for, nor, yet, or, so). The sun is high, put on some sunblock. The sun is high, so put on some sunscreen.
Here’s something interesting – a 239-word sentence that is grammatically correct. Wow. I wonder how that would look diagrammed. Maybe that’ll be my carry-around project. http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/run-on.htm
[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited January 22, 2005).]
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