In hindsight, my writing appears to have a problem.

[kepler]

I have this story that I have been working on for years. I pull it out now and then and continue on where I left off until I lose interest and it goes back on the shelf until next time.

I recently started to read it from the beginning, more to just get things straight in my head and do some constructive editing along the way when I realized that I used a particular sentence structure quite heavily throughout the story, here are a few examples;

"I was surprised to find the girls dressed and cleaning up from breakfast, figuring they would be playing for hours, apparently Emily was serious about helping me."

"Emily got home around noon, driving down to where I was working, giving me a look that said she wasn’t happy I was doing this alone before hugging me and telling me what a good time she had."

In particular, I start a sentence then pause with a comma before finishing with more of a descriptive addition that fleshes out the first part. "I took the radio, hanging it onto my belt with the clip" could be "I took the radio and clipped it onto my belt" for instance.

My question is, is this sentence structure ok to use or am I looking at a rather extensive rewrite where this is found rather frequently in my story?

 

[BelleCanzuto]

There are folks here who are much better grammarians than I am. So, with that caveat, I'll say this seems like a stylistic thing that's up to you. If you like it, then keep it. If you start to find it ponderous, then edit those sentences to be shorter and sharper. But there's no need for all your sentences to be short. Variety in structure and flow is just as important as variety in pacing.

I know getting a response that's "It's up to you" may not seem all that helpful. But fundamentally there's no one absolute correct way to write. So, do what you like, go back and change what you don't like, and maybe pass it by an editor a second opinion when the whole thing's done.

 

[jehoram]

I'd re-write it, breaking up those longer sentences into two shorter ones.

"I was surprised to find the girls dressed and cleaning up from breakfast, figuring they would be playing for hours, apparently Emily was serious about helping me."

"I was surprised to find the girls dressed and cleaning up from breakfast, figuring they would be playing for hours. Apparently Emily was serious about helping me.

"Emily got home around noon, driving down to where I was working, giving me a look that said she wasn’t happy I was doing this alone before hugging me and telling me what a good time she had."

This one's a little harder, because you're implying that she was both driving down to your workplace and giving me that look. She can't be doing both at the same time, right? And the sentence only makes sense if you're working at home.

"Emily got home around noon, after driving down to where I was working. She gave me a look that said she wasn’t happy I was doing this alone, and hugged me and told me what a good time she had."

This is the best I can do, because if she's giving you that look, she must be in the same place you are, but evidently she's now home and you're still at work. So that doesn't resolve the confusion about location.

In both cases, the edited sentences try put the prose into sharper focus. We're lucky, as writers, that we can do that. If a cinematographer shot a scene out of focus, it would have to be completely re-shot.

 

[SimonDoom]

Your first sentence is an improper comma splice between "hours" and "apparently." These two words should be separated by a period or a semicolon. In general, it's improper to combine sentences with a comma.

The second sentence isn't as grammatically incorrect, but it's a bit of a run on. It's too long. It's also confusing. It should be divided into two sentences, and you need to add information that makes sense of it.

Your third example is fine. There's no need to change it. You don't need to make all your sentences look like something Hemingway wrote.

In general, I would say you tend to gravitate toward overly long sentences with too many commas. Your writing would be punchier and easier if you broke things up into smaller sentences.

I think many writers who resist thinking of things in a grammatical way make the mistake of thinking that commas are meant to convey pauses. They ignore what's really going on in the sentence and instead focus on what "sounds right" to them. But since they don't pay attention to what's really going on in the sentence they get this wrong. Commas are not about pauses; they serve an important grammatical function, and your writing will be clearer if you understand this.

As you write, try to be extra mindful of your nouns and verbs. What is doing what to what? Focus especially on verbs, on action words. Understand exactly what all the independent clauses (groups of words that function on their own as sentences) are, and once you've done that then try to mix them up and combine them or not combine them with variety in ways that are pleasing. But, in general, start with short sentences and then combine them and lengthen them to the extent that it makes the writing more pleasing.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

There are folks here who are much better grammarians than I am. So, with that caveat, I'll say this seems like a stylistic thing that's up to you. If you like it, then keep it. If you start to find it ponderous, then edit those sentences to be shorter and sharper. But there's no need for all your sentences to be short. Variety in structure and flow is just as important as variety in pacing.

I know getting a response that's "It's up to you" may not seem all that helpful. But fundamentally there's no one absolute correct way to write. So, do what you like, go back and change what you don't like, and maybe pass it by an editor a second opinion.

What she said.

 

[kepler]

Thank you all for the feedback. I had never really noticed how much I use that particular style and the more I read, the more it stood out until I started to fear a complete rewrite might be in order. I think that I have my hands full for the moment trying to fix a majority of these sentences while still leaving the ones that do work alone.

 

[Bramblethorn]

"I was surprised to find the girls dressed and cleaning up from breakfast, figuring they would be playing for hours, apparently Emily was serious about helping me."

This sentence is problematic because you have a dangling participle. The structure of the sentence is ambiguous as to whether the "figuring" is done by the girls or the narrator. Context indicates that it's meant to be the narrator, but it's better to avoid these little hiccups that force the reader to stop and figure it out.

I'd recast this one, e.g.:

Having figured the girls would be playing for hours, I was surprised to find them dressed and cleaning up from breakfast. Apparently Emily was serious about helping me."

Or the period in the middle could be replaced with a semicolon.

 

[SimonDoom]

Having figured the girls would be playing for hours, I was surprised to find them dressed and cleaning up from breakfast. Apparently Emily was serious about helping me."

I know I'm getting very picky here, but I'm not crazy about starting a sentence like this with "Having", so I would take your two sentences and rewrite them this way:

"I figured the girls would be playing for hours, so I was surprised to find them dressed and cleaning up from breakfast. Apparently, Emily was serious about helping me."

 

[Handley_Page]

I have this story that I have been working on for years. I pull it out now and then and continue on where I left off until I lose interest and it goes back on the shelf until next time.

I recently started to read it from the beginning, more to just get things straight in my head and do some constructive editing along the way when I realized that I used a particular sentence structure quite heavily throughout the story, here are a few examples;

"I was surprised to find the girls dressed and cleaning up from breakfast, figuring they would be playing for hours, apparently Emily was serious about helping me."

"Emily got home around noon, driving down to where I was working, giving me a look that said she wasn’t happy I was doing this alone before hugging me and telling me what a good time she had."

In particular, I start a sentence then pause with a comma before finishing with more of a descriptive addition that fleshes out the first part. "I took the radio, hanging it onto my belt with the clip" could be "I took the radio and clipped it onto my belt" for instance.

My question is, is this sentence structure ok to use or am I looking at a rather extensive rewrite where this is found rather frequently in my story?

Looks perfectly normal to me

 

[ChloeTzang]

Keep writing until the story’s done, then come back and edit it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I know I'm getting very picky here, but I'm not crazy about starting a sentence like this with "Having", so I would take your two sentences and rewrite them this way:

"I figured the girls would be playing for hours, so I was surprised to find them dressed and cleaning up from breakfast. Apparently, Emily was serious about helping me."

Yeah, that's probably an improvement on mine. But I would tweak it a little further to "I had figured" - this is the kind of thing past perfect is made for.

 

[Voboy]

Keep writing until the story’s done, then come back and edit it.

This.

Quit this "piece by piece" stuff. Finish the story.

Then make sure it reads well.

Personally, I'm not a fan of any of your sample sentences; the first, for example, features a comma where a semicolon belongs. Which would bug the hell out of me if I was your reader.

 

[kepler]

This.

Quit this "piece by piece" stuff. Finish the story.

Then make sure it reads well.

Personally, I'm not a fan of any of your sample sentences; the first, for example, features a comma where a semicolon belongs. Which would bug the hell out of me if I was your reader.

I'll be honest, it bugs me too which is why I started this thread. Because I wrote it I can decipher what I was trying to convey, but for someone else, I think it could become tedious trying to figure it out.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yeah, that's probably an improvement on mine. But I would tweak it a little further to "I had figured" - this is the kind of thing past perfect is made for.

Oh, you're making this difficult. I like to use past perfect correctly, but I don't like the sound of it as well in this case. I'm trying to figure out if I can justify not using it here.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'll be honest, it bugs me too which is why I started this thread. Because I wrote it I can decipher what I was trying to convey, but for someone else, I think it could become tedious trying to figure it out.

I agree 100% with moving forward with your unfinished story rather than going back and cleaning it up. Finish it, and then clean it up. You can use whatever information/guidance you get from this thread to tighten up the sentence structure moving forward.

 

[Kojak01]

I have this story that I have been working on for years. I pull it out now and then and continue on where I left off until I lose interest and it goes back on the shelf until next time.

I recently started to read it from the beginning, more to just get things straight in my head and do some constructive editing along the way when I realized that I used a particular sentence structure quite heavily throughout the story, here are a few examples;

"I was surprised to find the girls dressed and cleaning up from breakfast, figuring they would be playing for hours, apparently Emily was serious about helping me."

"Emily got home around noon, driving down to where I was working, giving me a look that said she wasn’t happy I was doing this alone before hugging me and telling me what a good time she had."

In particular, I start a sentence then pause with a comma before finishing with more of a descriptive addition that fleshes out the first part. "I took the radio, hanging it onto my belt with the clip" could be "I took the radio and clipped it onto my belt" for instance.

My question is, is this sentence structure ok to use or am I looking at a rather extensive rewrite where this is found rather frequently in my story?

I'm not an English native speaker (German speaking part of Switzerland) which might give me a different preference in sentence structure to English/American readers.
When I write fiction, I also prefer longer sentences but I'm fully aware of the risk of overdoing it (thanks to my editors for deciphering and simplifying my constructions).
The reason for often using similar constructs as you is that it gives me a more flowing and mature impression.

"I was surprised to find the girls dressed and cleaning up from breakfast. I figured they would be playing for hours. Apparently Emily was serious about helping me."

To me, this seems chopped. I also get the impression of reading something a 12-year-old has written.

In the example with the radio, I see two different things happening. In the first version, I take the radio and clip it to my belt while already doing something else like walking somewhere or talking to someone. In the second version, I stand still, take the radio, clip it to my belt and then start doing something else.
I don't think there's a real reason for this impression but that's the way it is for me.

 

[SimonDoom]

"I was surprised to find the girls dressed and cleaning up from breakfast. I figured they would be playing for hours. Apparently Emily was serious about helping me."

To me, this seems chopped. I also get the impression of reading something a 12-year-old has written.

The way to thread this needle is to combine the first two sentences but leave the last one a separate sentence, as both Bramblethorn and I proposed in slightly different ways. It's fine to have some long sentences, but 1) You cannot combine them into a run-on sentence, which is ungrammatical, and 2) you should mix up your sentence length. Not all of them should be long. A good general guideline is that most of your sentences should be:

1) simple (noun + verb) Bob hit the cat.

2) complex (1 dependent clause plus 1 independent clause) Bob hit the cat while Mary ironed the laundry.

OR

3) compound (2 independent clauses) Bob hit the cat, and Mary ironed the laundry.

But avoid too many sentences that combine three or more clauses/phrases, and avoid run-on sentences, period. A few are OK, but keep them few. And always make sure they make sense.

Another guideline is to make a conscious effort to alternate sentence length. Make a point of making some of them short and simple, and some of them complex or compound.

 

[Kojak01]

But avoid too many sentences that combine three or more clauses/phrases, and avoid run-on sentences, period. A few are OK, but keep them few. And always make sure they make sense.

Mea culpa but I'm working on it. You should see my editors reaction to some of my constructs.

BTW: I agree with the structure you suggest. I consciously made three sentences out of it to show the point. It seems, it wasn't very effective.