How long should a sentence be?

[clank46]

I realise the question is a little bit like asking how long is a piece of string, so let me try and be a little more specific.

Using the story page as a gauge each line is, on average, 14 words long. Should a sentence be say two lines long or is it acceptable to be five lines long? Is it better to be short rather than long?

So fellow writers and editors can you help a virgin writer?

 

[NotWise]

Should a sentence be say two lines long or is it acceptable to be five lines long? Is it better to be short rather than long?

I doubt that it's possible to give any fixed parameters for sentence length, but as soon as I write that I know that someone is likely to contradict me.

Long sentences increase the reading level of your story and make it harder for most readers to follow. I don't know exactly what constitutes a long sentence, but the longer the sentence, the higher the reading level. There are a number of text analysis tools that will (among other things) point out extra long sentences.

Short sentences--especially a series of short sentences strung together--can give a 'choppy' impression that is unpleasant for most readers. Dialogue can be an exception to that since most of us speak in shorter sentences than we write, and a series of short sentences in dialogue can promote a sense of (for instance) urgency.

I've read that sentence length should be varied. Combine short sentences with longer sentences to create the impression that you want.

 

[Nezhul]

heavily depends on the wording. Sometimes a huge sentence can turn out just fine, but sometimes you feel like even 10-word sentence should be divided in two.

My take? It's totally fine to have super-long sentences. But not often and it's harder to write them,

 

[sr71plt]

They should be shorter than my sentences are, for beginners.

What's more important is that the lengths should vary. If they are going over twenty words, though, you should be looking for a stopping point or whether or not you can take a clause out and make it a separate sentence.

 

[Scandilove]

I realise the question is a little bit like asking how long is a piece of string, so let me try and be a little more specific.

Using the story page as a gauge each line is, on average, 14 words long. Should a sentence be say two lines long or is it acceptable to be five lines long? Is it better to be short rather than long?

So fellow writers and editors can you help a virgin writer?

I've seen writing resources that suggest fledgling authors should follow the rule of twelve. That is, twelve words or fewer per sentence. I keep this in mind as a guide but rarely adhere to it. As has been said, the key is to vary sentence length and if going for longer sentences, ensure punctuation is tight.

 

[Nezhul]

They should be shorter than my sentences are, for beginners.

wow... So high and mighty.
I don't even know where to run from such radiant brilliance of experience and wisdom...

.if going for longer sentences, ensure punctuation is tight.

or better yet - always ensure that

 

[oggbashan]

Don't take my advice...

How NOT to do it...


The roseate Sun, Phoebus’ orb, was glinting in the puddles and dappling the fallen leaves of the ancient forest as Joan made her way along the footpath leading from her rustic rose-entwined cottage, so beloved of tourists and her infrequent visitors from the city who left as soon as they reasonably could because the cottage lacked the basic amenities than any twenty-first century city dweller expected as of right such as satellite television and even running hot and cold water, both of which were unavailable, towards the steeple crowned hill on which the Parish Church sat as it had done for more than a thousand years surveying the expanding and contracting village in the valley beneath and perhaps regretting the earlier centuries when it had been filled to capacity by local residents each in their proper place and order according to the standards of the time, but Joan diverted from the direct route to the Church at a junction and was now heading in the direction of the Evening Star, the planet Venus known as Aphrodite to the Greeks but whether Greek or Roman was the personification of sexual desire, which sexual desire Joan was expecting to assuage once she reached her destination but in the meantime she was diverted by the interplay of light and shade from the evening sun as it sank lower on the horizon turning the landscape to a darkening ruddy hue which darkened further as she walked wondering whether she would reach her destination and assignation before Phoebus’ chariot had passed beyond her view but even if she did not her path was clear because she was accustomed to walking in the direction of the Evening Star every evening that she had free from her avocation of breeder of large and hairy dogs that bore a faint resemblance to The Hound of The Baskervilles and at times she would take one of the so-called breed with her on her perambulation which would certainly deter any evil minded loiterers upon her way but unfortunately also frequently prevented the consummation of her assignation by refusing to leave her side and repulsing her intended with ferocious barking and frenzied attacks barely held in check by the strong leash essential for such savage dogs but this time she was without a canine companion and therefore she hoped that the consummation would be forthcoming without let or hindrance as she continued to walk alongside the nearly dark woodlands before emerging on a slight eminence whence she could see her goal of another rose-entwined cottage from the chimney of which a wisp of smoke was arising promising warmth in both the physical, mental and sexual encounter which Joan would shortly enjoy.

"He's lit my fire" she said to herself.

PS. Ignoring the last short sentence which I couldn't resist:

Words 450
Sentences 1
Reading Ease 0
Grade Level 62.8

And don't read this posted story:

https://www.literotica.com/s/breathless-stargazing

 

[NotWise]

wow... So high and mighty.
I don't even know where to run from such radiant brilliance of experience and wisdom...t

That was uncalled for.

 

[clank46]

Guys

Thanks for the help will now have to read through the story and see if I can break up that 450 word sentence!!!

Seriously it has been a help, will just have to wait for comments when I post story in a couple of days time.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I realise the question is a little bit like asking how long is a piece of string, so let me try and be a little more specific.

Using the story page as a gauge each line is, on average, 14 words long. Should a sentence be say two lines long or is it acceptable to be five lines long? Is it better to be short rather than long?

So fellow writers and editors can you help a virgin writer?

For what it's worth, my latest story here averages about 13 words per sentence, but I was aiming for an ornate "1001 Nights" style in that one so it's extra-wordy. About 10 per sentence would be more typical for my stuff.

Counting at 14 words per line, two lines (28 words) is on the long side but manageable. My first sentence in this post is 30 words and I think it's readable enough, but I wouldn't want to do that in every sentence.

Five lines (70 words) is a very long sentence and should probably be split up, unless you have some special reason for it.

Length ain't everything, though. A long sentence can still be easy to read if it's structured and punctuated well, and short sentences can be awful. "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo" is only five words, and technically it's a complete English sentence. But even if you know that "Buffalo" can be a noun, verb, or adjective, parsing that sentence is painful.

That was uncalled for.

Seconded.

 

[_Lynn_]

wow... So high and mighty.
I don't even know where to run from such radiant brilliance of experience and wisdom...

The Editor’s Forum is for authors and editors to discuss issues related to editing stories. People are forgetting this. It's not a place for personal arguments, attacks, or discussions not related to editing stories.

That was uncalled for.

Seconded.

Agreed.

 

[Nezhul]

That was uncalled for.

Seconded.

Agreed.

I just don't agree that it's constructive in any way. Do you? The guy literally barges in and the first thing he says is literally "Look at me! I have a lot of writing experience! If you have less than me, then you should look at MY awesome writing and not do such sentences, because in your inexperience you would be clearly unable to do that properly! Don't try to leap that high and know your place, newbie!"
That's bullshit in my book. But whatever.

Sorry for the flood, but the initial post was, as well, NOT related to discussing of editing stories but shameless self-exultation.

 

[sr71plt]

What I was saying was not to go look at my writing, because I habitually write long sentences. My editor comments on it and sometimes readers comment on it. I was saying not to do as I habitually do. Maybe I shouldn't have used the "for beginners," which was meant as a way of saying "for a start in responding to your question." I didn't mean to say that beginners should do it one way and pros another, and you wouldn't get that impression from reading my posts over the last ten years about writing. I've been very supportive of beginning writers maintaining their voice. I can see where that phrase might be construed--but only if that's what you wanted to do, misconstrue what I post so that you can backbite.

And the "barged in" is nasty in your continuing backbiting. I respond to people's questions about editing. I have the training to do it and I back it up with references. You want me to wait until you've answered, I take it.

Oh, wait, I see that you did respond before I posted. So your knickers are in a twist because I didn't agree with your opinion, I guess.

 

[ElsieElsewhere]

The real answer is 2156 words.

“Now they’re going to see who I am, he said to himself in his strong new man’s voice, many years after he had first seen the huge ocean liner without lights and without any sound which passed by the village one night like a great uninhabited place, longer than the whole village and much taller than the steeple of the church, and it sailed by in the darkness toward the colonial city on the other side of the bay that had been fortified against buccaneers, with its old slave port and the rotating light, whose gloomy beams transfigured the village into a lunar encampment of glowing houses and streets of volcanic deserts every fifteen seconds, and even though at that time he’d been a boy without a man’s strong voice but with his’ mother’s permission to stay very late on the beach to listen to the wind’s night harps, he could still remember, as if still seeing it, how the liner would disappear when the light of the beacon struck its side and how it would reappear when the light had passed, so that it was an intermittent ship sailing along, appearing and disappearing, toward the mouth of the bay, groping its way like a sleep‐walker for the buoys that marked the harbor channel, until something must have gone wrong with the compass needle, because it headed toward the shoals, ran aground, broke up, and sank without a single sound, even though a collision against the reefs like that should have produced a crash of metal and the explosion of engines that would have frozen, with fright the soundest‐sleeping dragons in the prehistoric jungle that began with the last streets of the village and ended on the other side of the world, so that he himself thought it was a dream, especially the, next day, when he. saw the radiant fishbowl. of the bay, the disorder of colors of the Negro shacks on the hills above the harbor, the schooners of the smugglers from the Guianas loading their cargoes ‐of innocent parrots whose craws were full of diamonds, he thought, I fell asleep counting the stars and L dreamed about that huge ship, of course, he was so convinced that he didn’t tell anyone nor did he remember the vision again until the same night on the following March when he was looking for the flash of dolphins in the sea and what he found was the illusory line, gloomy, intermittent, with the same mistaken direction as the first time, except that then he was so sure he was awake that he ran to tell his mother and she spent three weeks moaning with disappointment, because your brain’s rotting away from doing so many things backward, sleeping during the day and going out at night like a criminal, and since she had to go to the city around that time to get something comfortable where she could sit and think about her dead husband, because the rockers on her chair had worn out after eleven years of widowhood, she took advantage of the occasion and had the boatman go near the shoals so that her son could see what he really saw in the glass of; the sea, the lovemaking of manta rays in a springtime of sponges, pink snappers and blue corvinas diving into the other wells of softer waters that were there among the waters, and even the wandering hairs of victims of drowning in some colonial shipwreck, no trace of sunken liners of anything like it, and yet he was so pigheaded that his mother promised to watch with him the next March, absolutely, not knowing that the only thing absolute in her future now was an easy chair from the days of Sir Francis Drake which she had bought at an auction in a Turk’s store, in which she sat down to rest that same night sighing, oh, my poor Olofernos, if you could only see how nice it is to think about you on this velvet lining and this brocade from the casket of a queen, but the more she brought back the memory of her dead husband, the more the blood in her heart bubbled up and turned to chocolate, as if instead of sitting down she were running, soaked from chills and fevers and her breathing full of earth, until he returned at dawn and found her dead in the easy chair, still warm, but half rotted away as after a snakebite, the same as happened afterward to four other women before the murderous chair was thrown into the sea, far away where it wouldn’t bring evil to anyone, because it had. been used so much over the centuries that its faculty for giving rest had been used up, and so he had to grow accustomed to his miserable routine of an orphan who was pointed out by everyone as the son of the widow who had brought the throne of misfortune into the village, living not so much from public charity as from fish he stole out of the boats, while his voice was becoming a roar, and not remembering his visions of past times anymore until another night in March when he chanced to look seaward and suddenly, good Lord, there, it is, the huge asbestos whale, the behemoth beast, come see it, he shouted madly, come see it, raising such an uproar of dogs’ barking and women’s panic that even the oldest men remembered the frights of their great‐grandfathers and crawled under their beds, thinking that William Dampier had come back, but those who ran into the street didn’t make the effort to see the unlikely apparatus which at that instant was lost again in the east and raised up in its annual disaster, but they covered him with blows and left him so twisted that it was then he said to himself, drooling with rage, now they’re going to see who I am, but he took care not to share his determination with anyone, but spent the whole year with the fixed idea, now they’re going to see who I am, waiting for it to be the eve of the apparition once more in order to do what he did, which was steal a boat, cross the bay, and spend the evening waiting for his great moment in the inlets of the slave port, in the human brine of the Caribbean, but so absorbed in his adventure that he didn’t stop as he always did in front of the Hindu shops to look at the ivory mandarins carved from the whole tusk of an elephant, nor did he make fun of the Dutch Negroes in their orthopedic velocipedes, nor was he frightened as at other times of the copper‐skinned Malayans, who had gone around the world, enthralled by the chimera of a secret tavern where they sold roast filets of Brazilian women, because he wasn’t aware of anything until night came over him with all the weight of the stars and the jungle exhaled a sweet fragrance of gardenias and rotter salamanders, and there he was, rowing in the stolen boat, toward the mouth of the bay, with the lantern out so as not to alert the customs police, idealized every fifteen seconds by the green wing flap of the beacon and turned human once more by the darkness, knowing that he was getting close to the buoys that marked the harbor, channel, not only because its oppressive glow was getting more intense, but because the breathing of the water was becoming sad, and he rowed like that, so wrapped up in himself, that he. didn’t know where the fearful shark’s breath that suddenly reached him came from or why the night became dense, as if the stars had suddenly died, and it was because the liner was there, with all of its inconceivable size, Lord, bigger than, any other big thing in the world and darker than any other dark thing on land or sea, three hundred thousand tons of shark smell passing so close to the boat that he could see the seams of the steel precipice without a single light in the infinite portholes, without a sigh from the engines, without a soul, and carrying its own circle of silence with it, its own dead air, its halted time, its errant sea in which a whole world of drowned animals floated, and suddenly it all disappeared with the flash of the beacon and for an instant it was the diaphanous Caribbean once more, the March night, the everyday air of the pelicans, so he stayed alone among the buoys, not knowing what to do, asking himself, startled, if perhaps he wasn’t dreaming while he was awake, not just now but the other times too, but no sooner had. he asked himself than a breath of mystery snuffled out the buoys, from the first to the last, so that when the light of the beacon passed by the liner appeared again and now its compasses were out of order, perhaps not even knowing what part of the ocean sea it was in, groping for the invisible channel but actually heading for the shoals, until he got the overwhelming revelation that that misfortune of the buoys was the last key to the enchantment and he lighted the lantern in the boat, a tiny red light that had no reason to alarm anyone in the watch towers but which would be like a guiding sun for the pilot, because, thanks to it, the liner corrected its course and passed into the main gate of the channel in a maneuver of lucky resurrection, and then all the lights went on at the same time so that the boilers wheezed again, the stars were fixed in their places, and the animal corpses went to the bottom, and there was a clatter of plates and a fragrance of laurel sauce in the kitchens, and one could hear the pulsing of the orchestra on the moon decks and the throbbing of the arteries of high‐sea lovers in the shadows of the staterooms, but he still carried so much leftover rage in him that he would not let himself be confused by emotion or be frightened by the miracle, but said to himself with more decision than ever, now they’re going to see who I am, the cowards, now they’re going to see, and instead of turning aside so that the colossal machine would not charge into him he began to row in front of it, because now they really are going to see who I am, and he continued guiding the ship with the lantern until he was so sure of its obedience that he made it change course from the direction of the docks once more, took it out of the invisible channel, and led it by the halter as if it were a sea lamb toward the lights of the sleeping village, a living ship, invulnerable to the torches of the beacon, that no longer made invisible but made it aluminum every fifteen seconds, and the crosses of the church, the misery of the houses, the illusion began to stand out and still the ocean liner followed behind him, following his will inside of it, the captain asleep on his heart side, the fighting bulls in the snow of their pantries, the solitary patient in the infirmary, the orphan water of its cisterns, the unredeemed pilot who must have mistaken the cliffs for the docks, because at that instant the great roar of the whistle burst forth, once, and he with downpour of steam that fell on him, again, and the boat belonging to someone else was on the point of capsizing, and again, but it was too late, because there were the shells of the shoreline, the stones of the street, the doors of the disbelievers, the whole village illuminated by the lights of the fearsome liner itself, and he barely had time to get out of the way to make room for the cataclysm, shouting in the midst of the confusion, there it is, you cowards, a second before the huge steel cask shattered the ground and one could hear the neat destruction of ninety thousand five hundred champagne glasses breaking, one after the other, from stem to stern, and then the light came out and it was no longer a March dawn but the noon of a radiant Wednesday, and he was able to give himself the pleasure of watching the disbelievers as with open mouths they contemplated the largest ocean liner in this world and the other aground in front of the church, whiter than anything, twenty times taller than the steeple and some ninety‐seven times longer than the village, with its name engraved in iron letters, Halalcsillag, and the ancient and languid waters of the sea of death dripping down its sides.”

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship.”

 

[Bramblethorn]

The real answer is 2156 words.

...don't make me quote "Ulysses".

 

[christinecuddlewell]

Let's play poker at the Rotter's Club where I raise your Joyce by a Coe.

'Oh!' Is the shortest sentence I cant think of. I would suggest that the original poster should aim to keep their sentences somewhere in between, remembering that the longer the sentence the better the punctuation needs to be.

As to "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." Can you please punctuate that so the rest of us can see how it can form a sentence?

...don't make me quote "Ulysses".

 

[Green_Knight]

I realise the question is a little bit like asking how long is a piece of string, so let me try and be a little more specific.

Using the story page as a gauge each line is, on average, 14 words long. Should a sentence be say two lines long or is it acceptable to be five lines long? Is it better to be short rather than long?

So fellow writers and editors can you help a virgin writer?

Longer than short but shorter than long. That's about as much advice as anyone can give. Read it, reread it, and read it again. You'll soon know if it's too long. And, given that you already seem to have some doubts, it probably is.

That was uncalled for.

But beautifully worded.

 

[Bramblethorn]

As to "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." Can you please punctuate that so the rest of us can see how it can form a sentence?

Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo buffalo.

Cut down from "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

 

[oggbashan]

The real answer is 2156 words.

No. The real answer is infinity. In English with appropriate use of conjunctions and punctuation a sentence can be infinitely long.

 

[ElsieElsewhere]

No. The real answer is infinity. In English with appropriate use of conjunctions and punctuation a sentence can be infinitely long.

I wasn't serious.

 

[JZ117]

Consider the rhythm you are trying to set. If you are going for action (sex or other), short sentences may better reflect it, while longer sentences can help a scene meander. The answer may, in fact, be infinity, but for pacing, there are limits you should consider.

 

[Raisa_Greywood]

I believe Winston Churchill was referring to speeches but he said something like, "It should be like a woman's skirt; long enough to cover everything, yet short enough to be interesting."

I don't remember the exact wording but it seems like a good idea to apply this wisdom to sentences, too.

 

[Hypoxia]

Harry Oliver (nominated for the first Oscars) wrote, I never did learn how to spell, – but I did learn the typesetter's rule, – "Set up type as long as you can hold your breath without turning blue in the face, then put in a comma. When you gape, put in a semicolon, and when you want to sneeze, that's the time to make a paragraph." That works for me.