# When a sentence becomes too long.



## Gavrushka (Feb 12, 2014)

In my first year of writing, the concept of a full stop was something bewildering to me, and perhaps in the years that followed I overcompensated for their initial absence.

Is there an arbitrary maximum number of words in a sentence? The reason I ask is that I've one that is 45 words long, and splitting it is not a valid option. It _seems_ to read well, it has two commas, but it does make me itch!

I'll not post it (there is a reason for that) but is it acceptable to have the occasional sentence of such a size?


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## N J Xkey (Feb 12, 2014)

Well, I hope so because I have a 41 word sentence in the section of my novel I've just written. I can't see any way of splitting it either. But I suffer from sentence problems, always have. I remember when I was six (funny how certain things stick with you) my teacher told me that if I was in doubt I should just replace ALL my commas with full stops because the number of mistakes would be fewer! Clearly excessively long sentences have always been my problem  I'm working on the basis that if I can read it out loud without gasping for breath it's OK... But I'm hoping a proof reader will give me some help!


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## Jeko (Feb 12, 2014)

Extended sentences that use multiple clauses (hypotaxis), are as variably useful as shorter sentences (parataxis). Both have an effect that may or may not help the purpose of the paragraph. There is no maximum.


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## Gavrushka (Feb 12, 2014)

I think, like N J X, I'd thought you had to be able to read it aloud... My lungs imploded a dozen words from the end. - For me, it does read well and isn't burdened with too many clauses. 

I learned two new words today, however. - I do worry about my lack of knowledge of technical terminology.


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## FleshEater (Feb 12, 2014)

I take you've never read Cormac McCarthy.


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## Pluralized (Feb 12, 2014)

You should try writing a story using only 6-word sentences. Go!


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## Gavrushka (Feb 12, 2014)

Frayed roped in hand, hope lost.



			
				Flesheater said:
			
		

> I take you've never read Cormac McCarthy.



I'll buy one of his after I've finished Neuromancy. Have you a specific recommendation? I'm surprised how much can be learned from the styles of disparate authors.


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## Pluralized (Feb 12, 2014)

Short sentences have BALLS.


Also, long sentences can be used to convey complex meaning or to explicate nuanced situations or circumstances in your narrative. Use them both.

Don't sweat the length. 







That's what she said. Right?


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## Gavrushka (Feb 12, 2014)

I think one of the things that concerned me was that my writing was inflexible. - I was a mass of short sentences, rarely moving beyond a second clause. - But it's restrictive. - Short impact sentences became lost amongst their equally short cousins.

I'd not sweat at 20 or 30 words, but 40+ was well outside my comfort zone. - I feel a little better now.


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## Pluralized (Feb 12, 2014)

Gavrushka said:


> I think one of the things that concerned me was that my writing was inflexible. - I was a mass of short sentences, rarely moving beyond a second clause. - But it's restrictive. - Short impact sentences became lost amongst their equally short cousins.
> 
> I'd not sweat at 20 or 30 words, but 40+ was well outside my comfort zone. - I feel a little better now.




Seriously dude - write some short stuff.

Make it punchy. 

Gerald rips off the dog's head.

With his bare hands.

He's a strong guy, ripped like Zeus. 

You can do a lot with a little.

Great thread.


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## Sam (Feb 12, 2014)

Gavrushka said:


> In my first year of writing, the concept of a full stop was something bewildering to me, and perhaps in the years that followed I overcompensated for their initial absence.
> 
> Is there an arbitrary maximum number of words in a sentence? The reason I ask is that I've one that is 45 words long, and splitting it is not a valid option. It _seems_ to read well, it has two commas, but it does make me itch!
> 
> I'll not post it (there is a reason for that) but is it acceptable to have the occasional sentence of such a size?



I invite you to [attempt] to read Jonathan Coe's 2001 novel _The Rotter's Club _which is purported to contain a 14,000-word sentence.


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## Sam (Feb 12, 2014)

FleshEater said:


> I take you've never read Cormac McCarthy.



Really long sentences in McCarthy's work are rare. I think the longest sentence of his I've ever read was 300-odd words.


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## N J Xkey (Feb 12, 2014)

So essentially length doesn't matter, it's what you do with it that counts?


(I'm sure I've heard that somewhere before...  )


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## Pluralized (Feb 12, 2014)

Isn't it Proust whose sentences were notoriously long? I seem to recall a sentence from A La Recherche du temps perdu that was like seventeen times around a wind bottle? That's plenty.


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## Sam (Feb 12, 2014)

Proust loved long sentences, but his work was far greater and more profound than any twaddle Joyce ever penned. Sorry to the Joyceans, but in my opinion the guy was nothing more than a windbag.


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## Pluralized (Feb 12, 2014)

I can definitely picture Proust expositing while Joyce was yammering on. Funny thing is, Joyce was a good decade younger, if I recall correctly, and had his own sensibilities about literature. Proust just didn't give a #$%. He wanted to get the experiences out, and I think Joyce wanted to make sure his legacy was sound (he spent a lot of time working on figuring out how to record his writing, rather than figuring out how to express himself, which was Marcel's vision, as I see it).


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## David Gordon Burke (Feb 12, 2014)

I'm reading this in my spare time (along with a bunch of others)


I do notice that what is considered 'good' or 'bad' sentence structure is variable....like tastes in pop music. Here today gone tomorrow...(and forgotten faster than a Patterson novel)
I tend to disregard as much of what is or isn't considered fashion and just write. I like semi colons and dashes. I like my ideas to run on. I like readers that can make a peanut butter sandwhich without needing a recipe. 

The art of the classic novel(ist) IMHO was their ability to string ideas and sentences and paragraphs en masse, with full, long ideas. Not to imply they used excessive and extraneous word but....... And those authors didn't lose the thread of the thought or drop the ball. Although their phrases were long, they were smooth, vast and rolling. They were pleasant to the mind's eye and to the tongue when read aloud.
I'm trying to find a happy medium. I like a short sentence here and there to break things up. 

After all, life has a tendency to get complicated. If a writer for one moment thinks he can explain the world in a series of five word sentences....hmmm. Maybe if your world is similar to that of Cletus the *Slack*-Jawed *Yokel*. 

Here's a classic passage. 1 sentence 44 words. 1 sentence 27 words. 
“When a child first catches adults out—when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just—his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.” – John Steinbeck, _East of Eden_

David Gordon Burke


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## FleshEater (Feb 12, 2014)

Gavrushka said:


> I'll buy one of his after I've finished Neuromancy. Have you a specific recommendation?



My two personal favorites are The Road and Child of God.

For long sentences (though not as long as Sam pointed out, but the majority straining past 41 words) read Blood Meridian. 

Don't sweat anything. Write what sounds right to you. So many people worry over every detail. But I offer you a challenge; read as many bestselling authors as you can, and show where each of them followed all these benign rules. Granted, "bestselling" doesn't mean great story teller, or great writer, but who is to judge what's considered great? What defines great? What defines good? Ask readers that enjoy reading and likewise literary "snobs" and you'll have vastly differing opinions.


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## spartan928 (Feb 12, 2014)

Every read David Foster Wallace? Sentences go for pages and pages and are very effective. It's all how you do it. Long sentences have a sense of momentum so consider it a tool and use it as you see fit in your work.


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## FleshEater (Feb 12, 2014)

Nicely stated, Chris. 

I use long sentences when my characters are anxious, distraught, terrified, etcetera.


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## Gavrushka (Feb 12, 2014)

I've earmarked Child of God for purchase, and thanks 

@ D G B, I've never read any books on writing other than Stephen King's 'On Writing' and I have Elements of Style. - I've no real idea as to why I've not considered investing in more help books. - I think I may have reached the point where I can learn how to from reading the prose of various authors. - The range of authors I enjoy has expanded, and is now as much about how it is written as how well it is written.

I don't think I could go for a 14,000 word sentence, although I believe I created several in my earliest writing days!


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## Robdemanc (Feb 12, 2014)

A long sentence, if it fits, can sound great within a paragraph. It can make the sentence that comes after it sound great too, particularly if its a short one. The only issue is to make sure the sentence is long because it needs to be rather than just for the sake of it.


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## ppsage (Feb 12, 2014)

Despite one person or another's unremittant and vituperative campaign to expunge him from the pantheon of noted authors, never mind relevance to the thread, Joyce's work is not particularly marked by lengthy sentences, which perhaps someone able to read his work would be in a better position to judge. (49) Saramago and Faulkner, among Nobel literature prize winners, are noted for lengthy sentences. Long sentences are a staple of academic non-fiction, where constituent facts and relationships are often far more complex than in fiction. In my personal opinion, long sentences are more dangerous to craft, if readability for the hoi palloi is one's principal (principle?, see homonym thread) aim.


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## David Gordon Burke (Feb 12, 2014)

FleshEater said:


> My two personal favorites are The Road and Child of God.
> For long sentences (though not as long as Sam pointed out, but the majority straining past 41 words) read Blood Meridian.



There's nothing that I have read by McCarthy that you could go wrong with. (with the exception of Cities of the Plain...it veers off into Spanish for about twenty pages there at the end....I could see that being a deterrent to some readers. 

No Country for Old Men is pretty damn good too. 

For that matter, each and every one of his novels should be mentioned, studied and revered. I'd put him neck and neck with Larry McMurtry as the greatest living novelist of our times. (probably better than MmcMurtry who leans a bit too far into Hollywood territory and screenplay schlock)
_The Orchard Keeper_ (1965) 
_Outer Dark_ (1968 
_Child of God_ (1973)
_Suttree_ (1979) 
_Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West_ (1985) 
_All the Pretty Horses_ (1992) 
_The Crossing_ (1994) 
_Cities of the Plain_ (1998 
_No Country for Old Men_ (2005) 
_The Road_ (2006)

David Gordon Burke


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## Sam (Feb 12, 2014)

Perhaps you would care to read _Ulysses_, written by the noted author of whom you speak, which contains a sentence of 4,000 words. Or _Finnegans Wake_, which has one at approximately 500. Or _Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, _which has another at an approximate and measly 350. All of them are, by modern standards, long sentences. I know your comment is directed at me, ppsage, and I can appreciate where you are coming from. However, I should point out that I have read most of Joyce's work. It was compulsory for the English degree that I undertook. So I am in a position -- if only as a scholar -- to say that I believe James Joyce was a windbag with little merit and an ego that far surpassed his ability. I am not alone in thinking that. There are several notable critics, one of them a professor, who also agree with that standpoint.


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## Pluralized (Feb 12, 2014)

Sam - I happen to think Joyce was hard to read, but generally chalk that up to my own shortcomings. Do you think the time and setting of his work had anything to do with his long-windedness? Seems like he should at least get a hall pass for sort of being part of his time, you know?

Ulysses is a mess, for sure, but who knows? if I had a broken leg or something I might take the time to read it. 

Same goes for A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu.


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## David Gordon Burke (Feb 12, 2014)

Sam said:


> Perhaps you would care to read _Ulysses_, written by the noted author of whom you speak, which contains a sentence of 4,000 words. Or _Finnegans Wake_, which has one at approximately 500. Or _Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, _which has another at an approximate and measly 350. All of them are, by modern standards, long sentences. I know your comment is directed at me, ppsage, and I can appreciate where you are coming from. However, I should point out that I have read most of Joyce's work. It was compulsory for the English degree that I undertook. So I am in a position -- if only as a scholar -- to say that I believe James Joyce was a windbag with little merit and an ego that far surpassed his ability. I am not alone in thinking that. There are several notable critics, one of them a professor, who also agree with that standpoint.



Sam - you know, I'll have to back you up on this one.  There is art for art's sake, there is art for money's sake and there is art for ego's sake.  
I have not nor have I ever had the slightest inclination to read Joyce.  

Here's something I notice.  Next to none of the current generation of great writers ever comes out and states that they were influenced by Joyce.  (and if they do they are a wad of lying cretins)  Of the writers out of Ireland in the last 30 years, how many wrote like Joyce.  Exacly (I'd say) NONE.

Then look at a writer like Faulkner.  Who claims to have been influenced by him?  Lots.  
I'll give Faulkner's work a look.

David Gordon Burke


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## Deleted member 49710 (Feb 12, 2014)

My feelings about Proust are similar to Sam's about Joyce, but I have this terrible feeling that at some point I'm going to sit down and actually read _La Recherche_ with an open mind (I've only read the first 150 pages or so, required for an exam, and that resentfully) and I'm going to fall madly in love with it. Yeah, he has some insanely long sentences. 

They're more difficult to do well, IMO; you need to help the reader more, give them grammatical tools to navigate that you might otherwise drop (relative pronouns, repeated prepositions, conjunctions, etc.). And they need to suit their context, just like anything else. Spartan mentioned DFW, and his story The Depressed Person (recommended to me by Mr. Miller a while back) is a great example of a work where absurdly long sentences serve the subject matter very well. So is Proust, but as I said, I have yet to grow out of my irrational hatred for Proust, so I won't give him any credit.


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## Pluralized (Feb 12, 2014)

David Gordon Burke said:


> Next to none of the current generation of great writers ever comes out and states that they were influenced by Joyce.  (and if they do they are a wad of lying cretins)  Of the writers out of Ireland in the last 30 years, how many wrote like Joyce.


It's a curious thing, really. Joyce wrote in long, articulated sentences. I'm inclined to jump on the bandwagon and say "Bad!" but I don't think I'm qualified, nor are you. It's literature, which requires a little bit more thought and consideration before we just bag on these classic authors. Joyce has one big thing that you don't - notoriety. Now, why do you s'pose that is?


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## ppsage (Feb 12, 2014)

I don't claim that there are no long sentences in Joyce. However, in _Ulysses, t_he long sentences in the Penelope section are very atypical of the work as a whole. Though they are marked with capitalization and full stop, one might argue that they are not really sentences at all, by any utilitarian definition. They are the voice--or mind--of Molly, exclamatory, disjointed. The bulk of _Ulysses_, stylistically disparate as it is, is fairly routine, in terms of sentence length. It's much more unusual, or varied at least, in terms of syntax. My comments, as always, are directed at the persons interested in reading the threads in which I post. I make considerable effort to keep them of general interest. I do sometimes take as my subject, the contents of a specific post. I'm not inclined to judge the merits of an author, by resort to authority, but, in the case of Joyce, I do believe this stacking up of the opinion of savants would be an unequal contest.


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## Kyle R (Feb 12, 2014)

Joyce was a deceptive writer. Somewhere along the way he abandoned his good writing in favor of stylistic experimentation.

Unfortunately, his experimental works are what students are forced to suffer through, and it leads them to believe it was his only style of writing. 

If you read any of his earlier works, you'd see he wrote with a Hemingway-esque simplicity that also had a splash of Steinbeck-ian lyricism. (My attempt at sounding like a literary snob. )

Here's a quote from one of his earlier works, which also contains a very long sentence at the end (62 words):

When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses, where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. *—Araby, by James Joyce*

In my opinion, James Joyce could write with the best of them—that is, when he wasn't busy trying to write outside the box.


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## Gavrushka (Feb 12, 2014)

You know, from this thread, I think that reading has become as much of an art form as writing. All I am able to do is sit with my begging bowl, and catch the reading recommendations that others make. - There's been some mighty fine ones of recent, but I don't think I am ready for Joyce, Proust or Ulysses for that matter. The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton is awesome... ( a few years ago, I had the pleasure of reading it to my ex's son, and I am not sure which of us enjoyed it more.)

Why am I telling you all this?


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## ppsage (Feb 12, 2014)

> Joyce wrote in long, articulated sentences.


I have before me, as an informal and statistically invalid experiment, my threefold (_Dubliners, Portrait & Ulysses)_ volume of Joyce and Faulkner's _Light in August._ I open them randomly, though avoiding the Penelope section in the Joyce. In Faulkner, on every trial, I find multiple sentences of five or more lines. This in a Faulkner I chose as one written, in my opinion, with a simpler style. In multiple trials, I have found one in Joyce. Joyce often devotes multiple sentences to a seemingly small detail, which gives the impression (probably is, truthfully) of longwindedness (in many occupations--the explication of experience not excluded--an advantageous talent).


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## Sam (Feb 12, 2014)

ppsage said:


> I don't claim that there are no long sentences in Joyce. However, in _Ulysses, t_he long sentences in the Penelope section are very atypical of the work as a whole. Though they are marked with capitalization and full stop, one might argue that they are not really sentences at all, by any utilitarian definition. They are the voice--or mind--of Molly, exclamatory, disjointed. The bulk of _Ulysses_, stylistically disparate as it is, is fairly routine, in terms of sentence length. It's much more unusual, or varied at least, in terms of syntax. My comments, as always, are directed at the persons interested in reading the threads in which I post. I make considerable effort to keep them of general interest. I do sometimes take as my subject, the contents of a specific post. I'm not inclined to judge the merits of an author, by resort to authority, but, in the case of Joyce, I do believe this stacking up of the opinion of savants would be an unequal contest.



One need not be a savant to know what constitutes meaningful and purposeful literature. I thus find it hard to take seriously anything Joyce has written, given the fact that he wrote the most incomprehensible garble and proceeded to call it a novel_. _In case you are wondering, that would be _Finnegans Wake. _Feast your eyes on this: 

*Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over  the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his pensiolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe.  Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy.  The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and the upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.

*If that makes the slightest bit of sense to you, you are a better man than I.


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## Pluralized (Feb 12, 2014)

ppsage said:


> (in many occupations--the explication of experience not excluded--an advantageous talent).


All I have before me is a small copy of Dubliners, well-worn and kinda smelly. Don't know why, but I find the font and presentation to be mesmerizing and overall disturbingly hard to read. Perhaps it's the mass-market aspect, but I don't know how best to approach Joyce (or Proust!) without some sort of big-time bodily injury or otherwise time-intensive debilitation. 

I should also state, Joyce is really out of my league, intellectually, and my opinions are merely those of a jack-leg American casual apologist.

Hyphens!


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## ppsage (Feb 12, 2014)

> If that makes the slightest bit of sense to you, you are a better man than I.


Not really at issue. (Better man bit.)

I have yet to do _Finnegan, _not sure whether I will or not. I do know a bit about it, and I do actually see many _bits_ of sense in this quotation. A couple plays on wordings, some conjuncting of names into new unity (I do this sometimes myself, albeit with hyphens.) A general sense of what Tristam did. I understand that I will need help finding the whole context. This is what I did with _Ulysses_. When I got the audio recording, I listened a few hours a day, while I worked in my studio, and studied a bit on the internet during breaks. Mostly online Cliffnotes, but all manner of analysis is available. I think there's a youtube series on _Finnegan. _My work, I know, allows me luxuries not all have. Deliberately chosen for that, at least partially. I personally find listening to _Ulysses_ highly entertaining and do not at all mind the study necessary to making _sense_ of it. That others do not isn't really a problem for me, although, as with any pleasant experience, I'm always gratified to be able to share it and a bit dismayed to fail to do so. The time I spent on _Ulysses_ was some of the most enjoyable that I've had from literature and I count the effort as well spent and am grateful that the author persevered in his endeavors. It's useless to try to change my mind on this point. _Fait accompli_, I fear.

Afraid I have strayed a long way from sentence length, and apologize.


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## Schrody (Feb 12, 2014)

I love long sentences, some of my biggest were two-three lines (or more), and it sounds so good, it would be a shame to separate them. Gav, just go for it, I believe that long sentences are mostly the most effective ones.


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## Gavrushka (Feb 13, 2014)

Schrody said:


> I love long sentences, some of my biggest were two-three lines (or more), and it sounds so good, it would be a shame to separate them. Gav, just go for it, I believe that long sentences are mostly the most effective ones.



Thank you! Finally an answer that I managed to understand!  It is true though. Much of what we write is done so organically, and it is only when we seek to over-analyse it, it appears otherwise. Sentences were designed to be read once, not sweated other and dissected.


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## Schrody (Feb 13, 2014)

Gavrushka said:


> Thank you! Finally an answer that I managed to understand!  It is true though. Much of what we write is done so organically, and it is only when we seek to over-analyse it, it appears otherwise. Sentences were designed to be read once, not sweated other and dissected.



Glad I could help. Over analyzing is almost deadly when writing, and it could only destroy a good sentence/story. I agree with your last statement, although there are just beautiful, effective sentences you have to read over and over.


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## Bloggsworth (Feb 13, 2014)

A sentence is too long if you can't keep track of where it has come from and where it is going; if the flow is good and logical it can be as long as you want it to be - Readability is all.


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