Long Long Long sentence

No, but I tend to skip over long descriptions. I always want to know what happens next.

deb22 said:

If you are reading a very descriptive story, do you skip over the long sentence?
I vary length, however, length is required in this particular piece. I am trying to slow down the reader but I don't want to lose them altogether.
Here is an example of what I mean.

Pakak's wings tilted forward, the wind blocked against his outstretched feathers stopped his motion, his frame dropping slowly floating on unseen pockets of air, landing him on a ledge protruding from the edge of the rocky slope. Ulu and I followed, our white wings gently turning in unison, the breeze trapped between our bodies lowered us to the outcropping, as easy as a cascading snowflake, and we settled all clumped together for a restful nights sleep.

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There's description, and then there's overwriting and repetition. One doesn't bother me, one irritates the bejesus out of me. Some people like it.

Why though, would you intentionally try to "slow the reader down?"

Long long sentences bug me. Especially wordy descriptive sentences which go on and on. I confess I skim - gloss over.

Pakak's wings tilted forward; the wind blocked against his outstretched feathers stopped his motion. He landed on a ledge protruding from the edge of the rocky slope. Ulu and I followed, our white wings gently turning in unison. The breeze trapped between our bodies lowered us to the outcropping, and we settled for a restful nights sleep.[/QUOTE]

Happy medium? Length can also mean more suff happens.

I also use long sentences but in your example, I'd use semi-colons and cut down a little, though. Long is okay (to some extent), but linking sentences with a coma is not makinga good long sentence.

Pakak's wings tilted forward, the wind blocked against his outstretched feathers stopped his motion; his frame dropped slowly, floating on unseen pockets of air, landing him on a ledge protruding from the edge of the rocky slope. Ulu and I followed, our white wings gently turning in unison. The breeze trapped between our bodies lowered us to the outcropping, as easy as a cascading snowflake, and we settled all clumped together for a restful nights sleep.

deb22 said:

I am trying to slow down the reader but I don't want to lose them altogether.


Pakak's wings tilted forward, the wind blocked against his outstretched feathers stopped his motion, his frame dropping slowly floating on unseen pockets of air, landing him on a ledge protruding from the edge of the rocky slope. Ulu and I followed, our white wings gently turning in unison, the breeze trapped between our bodies lowered us to the outcropping, as easy as a cascading snowflake, and we settled all clumped together for a restful nights sleep.

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The bolded sentences aren't long sentences. They're comma-splices (independent clauses joined together by commas without a coordinating conjunction).

And your logic is backwards. Long sentences speed things up, not slow them down. We stop when we come to a period at the end of a sentence, then start again at the next sentence. Without a period, we keep going.

Do you travel faster when all the lights are green or when you have to keep stopping at red lights?

deb22 said:

Thanks all for the quick replies.
I tend to read fast as well, if it's a novel.

Cornflake- This particular story is a journey, meant for the reader to feel the experience and travel along. If your just wanting to get from A to B quickly that's fine [I write many like that too] but in this instance it is more storytelling and speed is not the goal or intention of the story. Thanks for your input.

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I think you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of storytelling and some of the things some of us are saying.

Storytelling isn't, by its nature, slow, and the opposite of long, overly descriptive and repetitive sentences isn't speed.

There's an episode of the sitcom Roseanne, in which the electricity is out and everyone sits around telling stories. When it's one kid's turn (DJ), he starts talking about a dog, describing the dog, the dog is walking, and there's a boy, and the boy is walking with the dog, oh and the dog feels.... and at some point, his sister cuts him off with, "THE END,' because no one can take it anymore.

A story, a novel, a screenplay, whatever, has to move. Every scene should advance the plot. If it doesn't, it doesn't need to exist.

That doesn't mean everything is speedy or short - plenty are long and move at a slower pace. They all move with purpose though.

You do have a run-on thing btw, both in the excerpt and the post I quoted above.

Long sentences don't put me off so long as they suit the occasion, flow, and aren't difficult to follow.

Long sentences are fine, but poor grammar and run-on sentences are not.

Dickens is famous for long--even paragraph-length--sentences, and he's one of my favorite authors. It all depends on the story and narrative style.

When discussing grammar, it's best to remember run-on sentences aren't necessarily long. Here's a short run-on: He stopped I didn't.

Having made the point short isn't always better or beautiful, as others said, I don't have problems with well-written and purposeful sentences of length.

It's filibusters posing as writers who make me want to skip past the verbiage and throw the book.

guttersquid said:

And your logic is backwards. Long sentences speed things up, not slow them down. We stop when we come to a period at the end of a sentence, then start again at the next sentence. Without a period, we keep going.

Do you travel faster when all the lights are green or when you have to keep stopping at red lights?

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It's not about the speed of reading, but the pace of the story. Short sentences speed it up, while long ones slow it down.

shelleyo said:

It's not about the speed of reading, but the pace of the story. Short sentences speed it up, while long ones slow it down.

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The OP didn't mention story pace. She said:

deb22 said:

I am trying to slow down the reader

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In any case, I disagree with you, shellyo. Story pace is determined by how fast we get from one story point to the next. It has nothing to do with sentence length. A bunch of short sentences describing a setting won't necessarily get you to the next story point any faster than long sentences describing the same things.

guttersquid said:

The OP didn't mention story pace. She said:

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I assumed she meant pace, because making a reader read slower makes no sense to me. Is that really what she meant? Then I got nothing.

In any case, I disagree with you, shellyo. Story pace is determined by how fast we get from one story point to the next. It has nothing to do with sentence length. A bunch of short sentences describing a setting won't necessarily get you to the next story point any faster than long sentences describing the same things.

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Thrillers tend to have shorter sentences and often chapters when approaching climactic events and sections of a book. That's one technique used in speeding up the pacing, but not all of it. If the hero is trying to diffuse the bomb, you want shorter sentences, shorter beats, to build urgency and tension, which in turn picks up the pace. You don't want long sentences with asides, parentheticals and semi-colons, which slow it down. I didn't think this was just my opinion, but okay if it is. It works in my stories, which is what's most important to me.

shelleyo said:

If the hero is trying to diffuse the bomb, you want shorter sentences, shorter beats, to build urgency and tension, which in turn picks up the pace. You don't want long sentences with asides, parentheticals and semi-colons, which slow it down.

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But sentences with "asides, parentheticals and semi-colons" are different from simple long sentences.

guttersquid said:

But sentences with "asides, parentheticals and semi-colons" are different from simple long sentences.

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You're right and I'm wrong. Use all the long, long sentences in bomb-diffusing scenes you want.

deb22 said:

Pakak's wings tilted forward, the wind blocked against his outstretched feathers stopped his motion, his frame dropping slowly floating on unseen pockets of air, landing him on a ledge protruding from the edge of the rocky slope.

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This example isn't a problem of length of sentence, but is a problem of grammar and style. For starters, there's an obvious comma splice: "forward, the wind blocked" That nees a period, not a comma.

Farther along is a string of participial phrases that also are easy places to break the sentence, with favorable results.

If this is an example of the style of narrative for the entire piece, you (in my opinion as reader/editor) are suffering from the craving to jam too much information into individual sentences. Fear not that you will run out of periods. The universe contains an infinite supply of them.

caw

blacbird said:

Fear not that you will run out of periods. The universe contains an infinite supply of them.

caw

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I am just beating back a menopause joke, here...

To the OP: pretty much what has been said. Longer isn't always prettier, or better, and your example felt unnaturally stretched. You can still evoke the leisurely pace and style (I think) you're going for without forcibly elongated sentences.

JMHO...

blacbird said:

there's an obvious comma splice: "forward, the wind blocked" That nees a period, not a comma.

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I read it like that, too, but there's actually a grammatical reading that does not lead to a comma splice. This is one of the cases, where an audio book will get rid of the ambiguities you see in print. Editing for clarity, with total disregard for aesthetics:Past participles often look exactly like simple past tense verbs, but the image they give you is different.

Unless I'm missing a reading, the second sentence does have a comma splice, though.

If it is written well, and flows with clarity - and for me the example is neither written well nor flows with clarity - I have no objection to reading a long sentence.

deb22 said:

If you are reading a very descriptive story, do you skip over the long sentence?
I vary length, however, length is required in this particular piece. I am trying to slow down the reader but I don't want to lose them altogether.
Here is an example of what I mean.

Pakak's wings tilted forward, the wind blocked against his outstretched feathers stopped his motion, his frame dropping slowly floating on unseen pockets of air, landing him on a ledge protruding from the edge of the rocky slope. Ulu and I followed, our white wings gently turning in unison, the breeze trapped between our bodies lowered us to the outcropping, as easy as a cascading snowflake, and we settled all clumped together for a restful nights sleep.

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If a long sentence slows a reader down, then the long sentence is ill-constructed. Long sentences should flow. Reading them should feel like gliding. Ever seen the board game Chutes & Ladders (also known as Snakes & Ladders)? A long sentence should be like one of those long, curving chutes or snakes. If the reader has to slow down to read it, then the sentence has a problem. And if there are too many sentences like that, the writer has a problem.

If you need to slow the pace of the story, you slow down the pace of events. You insert quieter scenes where characters react, regroup, rethink.

In your particular example, you seem to have included a lot of unnecessary detail about how the wings function. I think this might slow down the reader all right, but not in a good way.

shelleyo said:

It's not about the speed of reading, but the pace of the story. Short sentences speed it up, while long ones slow it down.

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Not necessarily. Read Bernard Cornwell, who uses very long sentences in scenes of high action. Reading them is like riding a water slide.

I never skim. How can I possibly know what I miss that might be important? Besides, your sentences are not very long, and there are comma splices. This is poor sentence construction, not long sentences. But as I said, these wouldn't be long sentences, even if there were no grammar problems.

I don't know when and where and how it came to be the writers suddenly seem to think they're writing for children, but there's some some truly asinine advice out there about sentence length. I've seen seventeen words, twenty-three words, and twenty-seven words called the absolute limit for a sentence. Such people must read nothing except children's books.