# In Defence Of Longer Sentences



## topcol (Jan 30, 2018)

In Defence Of Longer Sentences

I’ve noticed that there appears to be a hard and fast rule concerning long sentences. According to many critiques, they are anathema and should be avoided at all costs. I’m puzzled as to how this prejudice has arisen.

Sure, rambling sentences, farragoes of inconsequentialities, complicated descriptions and long lists are undesirable as they may turn a reader off. Having said that, a consecutive series of short sentences can resemble the somewhat staccato format of Janet And John First Readers.

Anyone who has read even just one novel by Charles Dickens or Rudyard Kipling will have seen that they are both guilty of this ‘transgression’ time without number. Agatha Christie is another serial offender and Edgar Wallace yet another.

To take three contemporary authors, Len Deighton, Terry Pratchett and Philip K. Dick also include quite a few very long sentences in their works.

All the above are best-selling authors which I presume we all aspire to become.

topcol


----------



## H.Brown (Jan 30, 2018)

I use a mixture of both long and short sentences in my own writing and agree that alot of the classic and modern writers tend to use a mixture also to tell their stories. To me if the sentence is grammatically sound and reads well then it should not matter how long said sentence is.


----------



## Larry (Jan 30, 2018)

Adding to topcol's post: the late George Plimpton, a best-selling author, and a highly educated man who was fully aware of the "rules" of writing, routinely wrote very long sentences. It worked for him.


----------



## Terry D (Jan 30, 2018)

A sentence should be as long as it needs to be to deliver the information it needs to deliver. Sentence length affects the pace and rhythm of the paragraph in which it is used. Novel writers should always be aware of that flow, varying it to produce the effect they wish to achieve. There's no 'rule' against long sentences, even in contemporary writing, but today's readers have become accustomed to shorter constructions. Our readership today isn't Dickens' readership, or even that of Phillip K. Dick. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use longer sentences if it works for our stories, but it is the real world.


----------



## Birb (Jan 30, 2018)

I think it depends on both the writer and the reader. Everybody writes differently, some can pull off the long sentences some cant. Same with readers. I personally get bored by the longness, some find the detail to be refreshing. 

Either way, it's best to take what people say with a grain of salt. If you like describing things with long sentences then continue to do it. If you write to please others you won't be able to do well because you won't enjoy what you're writing. Just keep at it


----------



## Pete_C (Jan 30, 2018)

A properly constructed long sentence will be as easy to read as several short sentences. Of course, a poorly constructed one will trip up the reader. 

The reality is that it's all about the reader. The goal is to make the writing as accessible to them as possible, and often complex sentences will break the flow. 

Remember also that fewer people today sit in silence, alone, when reading. People read on trains, in waiting rooms, at work, in front of the TV, when kids are playing, etc.. Reading is no longer something that is solitary and peaceful. If the writing can't stand firm despite distractions, you might lose the reader.

Sentence length isn't constrained by rules, but by common sense and understanding that the reader might only snatch moments with your work.


----------



## topcol (Jan 31, 2018)

I fully agree


----------



## topcol (Jan 31, 2018)

Terry D said:


> Our readership today isn't Dickens' readership, or even that of Phillip K. Dick. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use longer sentences if it works for our stories, but it is the real world.



True enough,Terry D, but Dickens, Philip Dick, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie and many other writers from the past 300 years and more are still read worldwide and not just by old buggers like me. I remain hopeful that this will eventually crush the horrendous British English "would of/could of/might of" tendency.


----------



## bdcharles (Jan 31, 2018)

When it comes to long sentences, I'm definitely a believer.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Jan 31, 2018)

Although 4-part sentences are legal and valid by rules of English writing, _you ain't writing a term paper or a thesis here_.  This is fiction, and it needs to flow.  Personally I never go past a 3-part sentence otherwise it interrupts the flow of the paragraph (and looks terribly amateurish under modern fiction standards.)

Personally when I look at writing I like to look at guys like Bradbury who wrote a lot of short stories.  Bradbury had this whole talent for 'economy of words' where he could tell a book-sized story in 30 pages, and it would never feel cramped or rushed.  

Digressing in a story is not the same as long sentences.  Digressing to illustrate your characters is a very good thing.


----------



## Jack of all trades (Jan 31, 2018)

Sometimes I notice long, run on sentences, and sometimes I don't. I internalized the rule of only one subject and verb in each sentence, so my sentences are not (generally) run on. 

I will read long sentences that have a purpose, but rambling descriptions that are attempts to show off the author's vocabulary or style are usually skipped. Too many skipped sentences, or passages, and I will put the book down for good. 

So it's not the length by itself that is the problem. As with all writing, it's what's contained within the sentence that matters.


----------



## Kevin (Jan 31, 2018)

As authors it is important to not overly write any sentence as this may be too much for any customer. This includes the use of multiple big words and/or overly long sentences. "When at the assembly station be sure to set the timer as shown according to which item is to be assembled. Burger patties are time position "A" , while Filet of fish are time setting  "B". As always, this rule always applies. Please refer to the manual for instructions regarding time retention limits. No burger shall be stored longer than 10 mins. Filet of Fish no more than.... "


----------



## EmmaSohan (Jan 31, 2018)

There's reasons _not _to write a long sentence. I think you should have a good reason for writing a long (or short) sentence. But they exist.

For example readers presumably stop to think at the end of a sentence, so the ideas in a long sentence tend to blend together. If you want that blend, the long sentence works well.

A long sentence tends to make the grammar complicated, so the usual long sentence can be understood piece by piece. So there's a style. Dickens was the first I know of to write long sentences that were easily understood in a simple way.

The following is a long sentence by John Green. Why? One possible reason is that this sentence is about her medical problems and I don't think he wanted a book about her medical problems. So if the reader came out of this with a blended impression of her medical issues, that was fine.
But I woke up a bit when my parents came in, crying and kissing my face repeatedly, and I reached up for them and tried to squeeze, but my everything hurt when I squeezed, and Mom and Dad told me that I did not have a brain tumor, but that my headache was caused by poor oxygenation, which was caused by my lungs swimming in fluid, a liter and half (!!!!) of which had been successfully drained from my chest, which was why I might feel a slight discomfort in my side, where there was, _hey look at that_,a tube that went from my chest into a plastic bladder half full of liquid that for all the world resembled my dad's favorite amber ale.​


----------



## PenCat (Feb 1, 2018)

I can personally deal with longer sentences provided there aren’t too many twisty turns. It isn’t that I can’t comprehend them, but they can get tiresome and I’d rather spend my brain juice grappling with and exploring concepts and story rather than navigating some dude’s prose.

great example of what I think is better is neil gaiman’s style. I’m more than certain he knows a lot of big words, but he writes very simple sentences most of the time. simple sentences which carry big ideas in a way that anyone can access.


----------



## Sam (Feb 2, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Although 4-part sentences are legal and valid by rules of English writing, _you ain't writing a term paper or a thesis here_.  This is fiction, and it needs to flow.  Personally I never go past a 3-part sentence otherwise it interrupts the flow of the paragraph (and looks terribly amateurish under modern fiction standards.)
> 
> Personally when I look at writing I like to look at guys like Bradbury who wrote a lot of short stories.  Bradbury had this whole talent for 'economy of words' where he could tell a book-sized story in 30 pages, and it would never feel cramped or rushed.
> 
> Digressing in a story is not the same as long sentences.  Digressing to illustrate your characters is a very good thing.



Who said long sentences cannot flow? 

The people who hand out this kind of advice are exactly the people who should be ignored.


----------



## Pete_C (Feb 2, 2018)

Sam said:


> Who said long sentences cannot flow?



My guess is people who cannot construct long sentences.


----------



## Bayview (Feb 2, 2018)

I think it's useful to pay attention to the rhythm of your sentences. Some authors read their work out loud, and I think that can be helpful, at least for some.

In general, varying sentence length is probably wise. If _all_ your sentences are short, your writing can feel a bit staccato and disjointed. But if you throw a long sentence in there, that long sentence is going to get a lot of attention. If all your sentences are long, your writing can be either too convoluted or sort of lulling and soothing, which may or may not be the effect you're going for.

So, if there actually _is_ an attack on long sentences, I'll be happy to join in the defense. But I wonder if the attack is actually on overly convoluted writing, or a monotonous style of writing with _all_ long sentences, or something else that's been over-shortened and over-simplified into the criticism at hand.


----------



## bdcharles (Feb 2, 2018)

Here's an *interesting link* about the subject from John Fox.

Many of these examples are from classic literature, which may date back some, but it seems to me that what best pads out a sentence in a palatable way is either a childlike voice strung together with lots of "and"s and other conjuctions, or a simple attention to detail, where you could say "trees" but instead say "the shade trees–the water oaks, the maples and locusts and elms" (Faulkner, _The Evening Sun_). Subordinate clauses are a thing but I would argue that they are that much of a thing. The style also seems to change; longer sentences are more dramatic, more contextualising - in short, more tell, whereas things in real time tend not to occur in long sentences (if you know what I mean) but in discrete moments handily delimited by punctuation.

I'm glad also that John Fox picks up on the difference between a run on sentence and a long one. Just because a sentence runs on a bit doesn't mean it's a run-on sentence (I've seen that confusion in the past). I see a _lot _of run-on sentences and I don't really know why. _The Handmaid's Tale_ is full of them but it fits with Offred's persona. People use them to go for this sort of conversational style but the problem is that everything sounds the same, this sort of slap-dash chatty voice, which is fine but, you know, grammar and sameness. 

Anyway, like the forks of the mighty Euphrates after it tumbles into the Tigris and begins its mucky gulfward spread, I digress.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 2, 2018)

Bayview said:


> I think it's useful to pay attention to the rhythm of your sentences. Some authors read their work out loud, and I think that can be helpful, at least for some.
> 
> In general, varying sentence length is probably wise. If _all_ your sentences are short, your writing can feel a bit staccato and disjointed. But if you throw a long sentence in there, that long sentence is going to get a lot of attention. If all your sentences are long, your writing can be either too convoluted or sort of lulling and soothing, which may or may not be the effect you're going for.
> 
> So, if there actually _is_ an attack on long sentences, I'll be happy to join in the defense. But I wonder if the attack is actually on overly convoluted writing, or a monotonous style of writing with _all_ long sentences, or something else that's been over-shortened and over-simplified into the criticism at hand.



In my opinion, you can write a sequence of phrases, and as long as those phrases make sense by themselves, the sentence can almost be as long as you want. It doesn't have to be grammatical; I don't think anyone notices or cares.

When phrases are broken into two pieces that need to be reassembled, then grammar is needed to put them back together, and the long sentence gets difficult to understand. An example would be Hawthorne. Rushdie has a readable 377-word sentence that, whatever else I want to say about it, has a clear, simple grammatical structure.


----------



## Terry D (Feb 2, 2018)

Until this thread I never thought much about sentence length, other than knowing to vary them to manipulate rhythm and pace. I looked at a current work-in-progress and found that in the first two paragraphs I have sentences of 40, 33, and 56 words.


----------



## Jack of all trades (Feb 2, 2018)

Terry D said:


> Until this thread I never thought much about sentence length, other than knowing to vary them to manipulate rhythm and pace.



This!

Some write long, convoluted, and disjointed setences that should be edited. Others write sentence fragments, that also should be edited. I think successful authors stay on topic, write clearly, and keep the reader's interest, regardless of sentence length.


----------



## andrewclunn (Feb 2, 2018)

Do the crime, pay the time.  Longer sentences aren't so much about  disincenti... Oh wait.  Nevermind.


----------



## Larry (Feb 2, 2018)

duplicate


----------



## Larry (Feb 2, 2018)

Terry D said:


> ... I looked at a current work-in-progress and found that in the first two paragraphs I have sentences of 40, 33, and 56 words.



If they work, don't touch them.


----------



## Matchu (Feb 3, 2018)

Charlie,

English is not your first language, I see.  Well done, but remember I am NOT a blind man in a dark room seeking a black cat that is simply not there.[_c.RA1980_]  Please retain my pithy underlined extracts only, all best.

see below:

*It was Spring.

OR

I have also attempted a more sympathetic edit of sentence structure; the removal of the several dozen repetitions of IT - and your many redundancies - the flesh overhang, the words such as had - you dear schoolboy writer, never mind, good lad.  Let me investigate:

**It was* _the best & also the worst of times_, _ the age of wisdom & foolishness, the epoch of belief &_ incredulity, *&* the season of Light & Darkness,also *the spring* or possibly the winter of despair, everything & nothing before us going to Heaven, and back - in short, a period in comparison only.” 

You see, total clarity and how I have retained the 'sense' of your original garbled messages?

Thank you, 

C. Tooter
good luck finding a publisher!


----------



## SueC (Feb 3, 2018)

When I first joined WF, I was frequently chastised for long sentences. Too much gobbledy gook and not enough meat. _You took twenty words to say what you could have said in three._ So, I worked very hard to shorten them, but every now and then they just come up. It reminds when I was in third grade and my teacher, Mrs. Booth, would come into the classroom and demand silence. If I was in the middle of a sentence, turned to my little friend behind me, there was nothing I could do about my urge to continue talking, to finish my sentence. When my teacher would say, "Susie!", only then could I stop. I knew if she called me Susie I wasn't really in trouble, but my whole life I have been plagued by the long-sentence syndrome. Thanks to WF folks, I have also been able to embrace the brief, well placed, three word sentence too.


----------



## bdcharles (Feb 3, 2018)

SueC said:


> When I first joined WF, I was frequently chastised for long sentences. Too much gobbledy gook and not enough meat. _You took twenty words to say what you could have said in three._ So, I worked very hard to shorten them, but every now and then they just come up. It reminds when I was in third grade and my teacher, Mrs. Booth, would come into the classroom and demand silence. If I was in the middle of a sentence, turned to my little friend behind me, there was nothing I could do about my urge to continue talking, to finish my sentence. When my teacher would say, "Susie!", only then could I stop. I knew if she called me Susie I wasn't really in trouble, but my whole life I have been plagued by the long-sentence syndrome. Thanks to WF folks, I have also been able to embrace the brief, well placed, three word sentence too.



Indeed. Embrace brevity, but don't let your long sentence tendences go unused either. I don't have any antipathy towards long sentences per se. Obviously one wouldn't want an entire work made up of them, but same goes for anything and as long as they work for the text at hand, I say use 'em!  Plenty of writers do. Otherwise, what's the endgame - a sort of linguistic entropy where people communicate one perfect word at a time.

Actually I have a character that does that. It's his "formal speech".


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 3, 2018)

Matchu said:


> Charlie,
> 
> English is not your first language, I see.  Well done, but remember I am NOT a blind man in a dark room seeking a black cat that is simply not there.[_c.RA1980_]  Please retain my pithy underlined extracts only, all best.
> 
> ...



Actually, Chuck wrote something pompous, then _mocked _it. So, to be fair to Dickens, it's not exactly an example of a long sentence being good. It finishes:
[FONT=&quot]
 - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.[/FONT]


----------



## TKent (Feb 3, 2018)

I think it depends on the author's style and how well they execute the sentences. What effect they are going for. Donna Tartt regularly writes sentences the size of paragraphs. Fortunately, she uses a great deal of sentence variety so for the most part, her writing and rhythm work for me. And _The Goldfinch_ won a Pulitzer prize. When I am editing another writer's work and trying to figure out the best way to handle long sentences, I often use _The Goldfinch_ as a reference. The editor uses em dashes quite a bit to break things up.

Everything came alive in her company; she cast a charmed theatrical light about her so that to see anything through her eyes was to see it in brighter colors than ordinary— I remember a few weeks before she died, eating a late supper with her in an Italian restaurant down in the Village, and how she grasped my sleeve at the sudden, almost painful loveliness of a birthday cake with lit candles being carried in procession from the kitchen, faint circle of light wavering in across the dark ceiling and then the cake set down to blaze amidst the family, beatifying an old lady’s face, smiles all round, waiters stepping away with their hands behind their backs— just an ordinary birthday dinner you might see anywhere in an inexpensive downtown restaurant, and I’m sure I wouldn’t even remember it had she not died so soon after, but I thought about it again and again after her death and indeed I’ll probably think about it all my life: that candlelit circle, a tableau vivant of the daily, commonplace happiness that was lost when I lost her.


Tartt, Donna. The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) (pp. 7-8). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.


----------



## Jay Greenstein (Feb 3, 2018)

Well first, no one has defined what they call a long sentence. To be on the same page, shouldn't we? That aside, though, long sentences have their place, of course.  

My view is that from thirty-five to forty-five words it's a long sentence, and if it's necessary, can't be condensed or broken _and isn't part of a string of such length_, it's necessary and proper. For one thing, when you steadily shorten them in an action scene, as it comes to a climax, it helps create the rushed mood that will get the reader into the action.

I don't see sentence length in the range I mentioned as a problem for the hopeful writer. It's comma the spices we see so often, and sentences with so many diverse subjects in them they seem like a fruitcake.

When you get over 45 words you're into run-on length territory, and there's the risk of confusion. As we read there are a million real-world distractions clamoring for our attention. And though we don't notice it, we lose and re-locate our place in the text fairly often. With shorter sentences it's easy to find our place before our mental reading buffer empties and we never notice. But in a paragraph with several run-ons...

It's been commented that lots of short sentences are a turn off. And that'a as true as long sentences being boring. So the trick seems to be to have a mix of long and short.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 3, 2018)

Jay Greenstein said:


> Well first, no one has defined what they call a long sentence. To be on the same page, shouldn't we? That aside, though, long sentences have their place, of course.
> 
> My view is that from thirty-five to forty-five words it's a long sentence, and if it's necessary, can't be condensed or broken _and isn't part of a string of such length_, it's necessary and proper. For one thing, when you steadily shorten them in an action scene, as it comes to a climax, it helps create the rushed mood that will get the reader into the action.
> 
> ...



I tried to note all of Green's long sentences in _The Fault in Our Stars_ and did not bother with anything shorter than 70. I was surprised to read where some famous author thought 50 was a long sentence. Like you said, maybe 45 words is within normal variability and anything more than 70 is intentional and for effect. Well, any sentence length should be intentional and for effect, but more than 70 and the writer expects attention.


----------



## Bloggsworth (Feb 3, 2018)

If one gets the construction and punctuation right, nobody notices the length of the sentence, merely its content.


----------



## lumino (Feb 9, 2018)

I agree that too often long sentences are criticized, and not only that, but sentences with any kind of stylistic or rhetorical ornament. I can't provide my opinion as an authority though, since I am not a professional writer, but I have noticed that many modern day critics (not necessarily professional critics) are not in favor of long sentences or any stylistic display.


----------



## EmmaSohan (Feb 10, 2018)

lumino said:


> I agree that too often long sentences are criticized, and not only that, but sentences with any kind of stylistic or rhetorical ornament. I can't provide my opinion as an authority though, since I am not a professional writer, but I have noticed that many modern day critics (not necessarily professional critics) are not in favor of long sentences or any stylistic display.



Well, critics criticize? And, in their defense, there are good reasons for trying to hold the line on the conventions needed to communicate, and most people don't like something obvious that just draws attention. But that still leaves us with a lot of great changes.

I made a website describing new, useful things in grammar and punctuation. Kind of like how the dictionaries add new words. So that's at least a little like praise. The key-words "Disfluencies in Nonfiction (Nov 12)" get you there, though the actual home page comes in second.


----------

