Writing pacing sentences

[Jemini]

I have this weird problem that I write in long sentences and then see that the aforementioned sentences are hardly readable and then add dots all over to break them up into smaller, more comprehensible sizes, which turns my sentences weirdly choppy and lacking in the pacing department, which makes it a lesser of two evils, I guess, but still, it's not that nice in the end. Do any of you face, or have faced such a predicament? If so, how did you solve it?

Sounds to me like you need to work on your sentence structure. That's the real problem.

Basically, the way you structure a sentence is that you start with some kind of preposition or subject. In the sentence I just wrote there, it would be "basically" and "you" that were the things filling this role. After that, you work in some kind of verb. In this case, the verb was "start." The verb denotes the action you are performing. Then, you define the action. "with some kind of preposition or subject." That's what filled the role in my first sentence of this paragraph.

English has rules that will allow you to mix up the order a little, but the idea is that as soon as you have all three of those things you should have a way to conclude your sentence. In some cases, you can get away with omitting some of those parts as well. Usually, this is in response to something else. For instance, "yes" is something frequently used as a 1 word sentence, but it needs to be in answer to a question.

As for the use of commas, that has some more strict rules. You use a comma any time you make a complete sentence, and then follow it up with an incomplete sentence lacking the prepositions or subjects. Basically, it uses the 1st part that would have otherwise been a complete sentence as it's preposition. That is one case anyway. There are other cases such as using commas to isolate a portion of a sentence that could have also gone in brackets. Basically, it's an addition to the sentence and you could have otherwise still made a complete sentence if you removed whatever is between the two commas.

For instance... This dog, who is very fat, has a funny way of running. I could easily remove the "who is very fat" part from the sentence and then "This dog has a funny way of running" would have still been a complete sentence.

Also, as you have probably noticed me doing several times already in this post, there is another use of commas where you use it to isolate off a connecting word that references earlier parts of what you are writing. Words like "basically," "Also," "And," "But," and things like that. You can put a comma immediately afterward. The condition on this one is that everything after the comma has to make a complete sentence on it's own.

So, yeah, you can't just toss in random commas. There are a lot of rules surrounding them.

I'm sure that some of the things I just said were things you might have already known, but that's always something that comes up when you are trying to give instruction. Thing is, people do not often talk about and spell out these kinds of grammar rules. You are kind of expected to just know and absorb it by osmosis or something. English teachers sometimes teach it, but we all have bad memories of being forced to sit through that sort of stuff in school and kind of drone it out. It's not often that you see someone going over this stuff after you've reached the appropriate age to pick up a passion for writing.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Check every "and" or "but" to see if you can break the sentence there. Add transition words so it's not as choppy. Also check your commas.

I have this weird problem that I write in long sentences and then see that the aforementioned sentences are hardly readable and then add dots all over to break them up into smaller, more comprehensible sizes, which turns my sentences weirdly choppy and lacking in the pacing department, which makes it a lesser of two evils, I guess, but still, it's not that nice in the end. Do any of you face, or have faced such a predicament? If so, how did you solve it?

I have this weird problem that I write in long sentences. Then, I see that the aforementioned sentences are hardly readable. I try to fix this by adding dots all over to break them up into smaller, more comprehensible sizes. Unfortunatley, this method turns my sentences weirdly choppy and lacking in the pacing department. I guess that makes it a lesser of two evils, but still, it's not that nice in the end. Do any of you face, or have faced such a predicament? If so, how did you solve it?

 

[AliceShiki]

I have this weird problem that I write in long sentences. Then, I see that the aforementioned sentences are hardly readable. I try to fix this by adding dots all over to break them up into smaller, more comprehensible sizes. Unfortunatley, this method turns my sentences weirdly choppy and lacking in the pacing department. I guess that makes it a lesser of two evils, but still, it's not that nice in the end. Do any of you face, or have faced such a predicament? If so, how did you solve it?

If it means anything, I think your forum posts are always easy to read and flow easily! They don't feel particularly choppy to me~

... But yeah, I sometimes feel like my sentences are kinda choppy too, just... Well, I try to see if I can remove a few commas and periods and still end up with a sentence that has proper grammar in it. If I can, I go for it! The end result tends to be nice to me! ^^)/

 

[Deleted member 45782]

I have a habit of writing really long sentences to the point it become a run-on sentence. Sometimes reading it feels like there's no pause, its just one long continuous sentence and after reading it, it just doesn't sound as smooth. Just run on incoherent thoughts. And I agree with some, having too many long sentences doesn't make it flow too well.

So what I do is grab a cutting board, and slap my extra long sentence down and start chopping it into pieces until it feels just right. Of course, some sentences are okay to be long and its a lot better to balance your writing and have a mixture of both long and short sentences. I try to make sure my sentences do not go over four lines long though; three lines is still okay but four and its gonna become a blockquote.

Often times, if there's one sentence that just doesn't feel right I separate it out from the other sentences so its like its own paragraph. Much easier to write and clean it up before I join it back with the rest of the paragraph. Sometimes I use commas to join one independent clause and a dependent clause (sentence fragment). Other times I use semi-colons (join two independent related clauses, think of it sort of like two sentences relating to similar topic). Although I think besides the commas, I usually just put a period down to split the sentence and go from there.

The best is just practice. Still am trying to improve my chunky writing. Wish you the best of luck OP!

 

[Mysticant]

I would say form a healthy balance between basic and compound sentences. My structure rule atm is not more than 3 commas, not more than two 'and' in a single sentence. Next, two such sentences cannot be adjacent to each other.

Paragraph with context. Usually, a paragraph has an idea or two behind it. If more, you are probably just being confusing. In action scenes, I usually just put one action line per paragraph unless it is a rapid sequence. Paragraphing also helps to build anticipation like this, not just the train of thought.

Em dashes are fun. I never used it before writing my novel but they are a good way to conjunct a sentence besides 'and'. Overall just keep practicing IMHO, you will get your own style which hopefully does not conflict with readers.

 

[LucasWhorley]

The best advice I can give is to read more well written stories. Stuff from professional authors is always good, of course, but I'd alongside good writing, you should also read poor writing. When you do this, you'll start to pick up on the issues that other authors have with pacing which will make it easier for you to consciously notice when you've made a mistake in that regard.

I've also heard of some writers transcribing books/passages they enjoy and they say it helps. So you might want to try this as well.

 

[Ai-chan]

I have this weird problem that I write in long sentences and then see that the aforementioned sentences are hardly readable and then add dots all over to break them up into smaller, more comprehensible sizes, which turns my sentences weirdly choppy and lacking in the pacing department, which makes it a lesser of two evils, I guess, but still, it's not that nice in the end. Do any of you face, or have faced such a predicament? If so, how did you solve it?

By reading more. By reading published novels, you learn proper sentence structures and therefore when you write, you instinctively know, "This is wrong" or "Dean Koontz would never write like this." There is no other way. You can't create your own grammar, so you have to learn grammar from the right people. Published novels generally have gone through excessive levels of editing so that it's grammatically correct and appeals to the readers in most cases. So there is no better place to learn than traditionally published novels.