Yes or no (explanations would be nice)

[gauchecritic]

I do it all the time, produce complicated sentences that often need to be re-read to get their full meaning.

If I finish in time this is from an earth day story and the question is:

Is this sentence too complex?

To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing and the thighs that pounded towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins which would turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket were owed not only to rigorous weights sessions in the gym but also to grand jetes and entrechat scrupulously practised in ballet class.

 

[Guest]

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[sophia jane]

I do it all the time, produce complicated sentences that often need to be re-read to get their full meaning.

If I finish in time this is from an earth day story and the question is:

Is this sentence too complex?

To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing and the thighs that pounded towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins which would turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket were owed not only to rigorous weights sessions in the gym but also to grand jetes and entrechat scrupulously practised in ballet class.

Yes, I think so. The part that loses me a little is from "thighs that" till "wicket" and particularly "which would turn through almost 30 degree of angle towards" because at that point I'm not really sure what you're describing.

 

[damppanties]

No, mainly because I knew exactly what you meant by "thighs that pounded towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins which would turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket". That makes me really want to read this one.

 

[TheEarl]

Yes, without a doubt. There are far too many clauses in that sentence to make it easily legible and they duck and dive all around each other. I'd say there's two, maybe even three sentences in that block of text.

The Earl

PS. I get the cricket references perfectly, but even so, it's still a little bit word-soup.

 

[Norajane]

I do it all the time, produce complicated sentences that often need to be re-read to get their full meaning.

If I finish in time this is from an earth day story and the question is:

Is this sentence too complex?

To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing and the thighs that pounded towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins which would turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket were owed not only to rigorous weights sessions in the gym but also to grand jetes and entrechat scrupulously practised in ballet class.

Yes, way too complex, and you switch from active to passive voice in the same sentence.

To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment, and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate, he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing.

The grand jetes and entrechat he practiced scrupulously in ballet class did as much as the rigorous weights sessions in the gym to develop thighs capable of pounding towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins and turning through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket.

 

[neonlyte]

Yes, way too complex, and you switch from active to passive voice in the same sentence.

To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment, and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate, he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing.

The grand jetes and entrechat scrupulously practiced in ballet class did as much as the rigorous weights sessions in the gym to develop those thighs that could pound towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins and turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket.

I'm inclined toward the lass's take on this.

(Is Wing Chun actually a style, 'cos we have one across the park and it serves s/s pork)

 

[matriarch]

I do it all the time, produce complicated sentences that often need to be re-read to get their full meaning.

If I finish in time this is from an earth day story and the question is:

Is this sentence too complex?

To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing and the thighs that pounded towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins which would turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket were owed not only to rigorous weights sessions in the gym but also to grand jetes and entrechat scrupulously practised in ballet class.

Not complex, just too long. Break it after 'ballroom dancing'. Either use a semi-colon (clumsy), or a full stop. Start a new sentence, but don't forget the commas after 'were owed' and 'gym'.

 

[matriarch]

Yes, I think so. The part that loses me a little is from "thighs that" till "wicket" and particularly "which would turn through almost 30 degree of angle towards" because at that point I'm not really sure what you're describing.

That's 'cos you don't watch or understand cricket. To anyone who watches, and is familiar with the game, its perfectly understandable. And for the record, cricket is a sport.

 

[Guest]

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[damppanties]

I understand!
http://img144.imagevenue.com/loc196/th_32601_TheKarateCricket.jpg

You did that just now?

 

[minsue]

Too complex, but a thing of beauty. (even if I don't know what in the hell you're trying to say )

 

[Liar]

How should I know? That depends so much on what you want with it and how the text around it looks.

I think it could work, if the general style of the rest of the story gives room for that kind of wordy descriptions.

 

[Guest]

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[Lauren Hynde]

I do it all the time, produce complicated sentences that often need to be re-read to get their full meaning.

If I finish in time this is from an earth day story and the question is:

Is this sentence too complex?

To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing and the thighs that pounded towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins which would turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket were owed not only to rigorous weights sessions in the gym but also to grand jetes and entrechat scrupulously practised in ballet class.

No, just badly punctuated. You have a severe shortage of commas.

 

[damppanties]

well yeah... not like I woulda ever thought of that without Gauche's provocation.

Mmm. Nice.

('Provocation'. Hehehe.)

 

[oggbashan]

Aplogies

...Is this sentence too complex?

To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing and the thighs that pounded towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins which would turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket were owed not only to rigorous weights sessions in the gym but also to grand jetes and entrechat scrupulously practised in ballet class.

Yes. It sounds as if you had read my Earth Day entry. I intended that to be difficult to read. I would split it up and rearrange:

"To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing. The thighs that pounded towards the crease had been developed not only by rigorous weights sessions in the gym but also by grand jetes and entrechat scrupulously practised in ballet class. That varied training gave him the skill to deliver medium pace off spins which would turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket."

Og

 

[Guest]

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[Guest]

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[gauchecritic]

Thankyou all ever so much, I just couldn't find where to chop it up. Thanks for the example Nora, much easier to digest than Mat's very simiilar and equally well observed instructions which took me some time to work out that it was essentially the same. (My fault not Mat's, I'm a bloke, I'm visual)

Two things, one which I'd like to explain because it's to do with flow and message and the other in case Dampy isn't taking the piss.

I'm going to cut it up just as Mat and Nora showed and explained but I'm not going to change the second part as per Nora, it has to be the way I wrote it because:

The second part echoes the first so has to be in the same order (boy stuff then girl stuff) because of the order of the disappointment and delight in the first sentence. And because the cricket part is complex and the ballet part simple then this too is reflective of boy v. girl.

Now, you don't need to know that and it's not something I consciously do when writing (I only see these things after they're written) but for flow and effect (I'm trying not to sound big headed here) this is the correct way to place those sentences. This is something I do without thinking about it, in much the same way that the order of words is a thing I don't think about also, nor either anyone else unless a sentence like this they are trying to construct.

And before Shang, Og et al come in and deny my verity I will agree and say 'yes you can write it any way you want, but I must insist that my way reads better and flows more obviously to the point I was making (subliminally in the text)'.

Oh get off.

Dampy. Sorry, but that may be the only bit of actual cricket in the story (unless you meant the thighs part) I think one of the reasons I included it was because of a novel I've recently read which had quite a lot of cricket through one section and if it's the cricket you liked then I would recommend The Stars' Tennis Balls by the cleverest bloke on the planet, namely Stephen Fry.

Extremely amusing and a v.good story teller (thriller fiction).

 

[gauchecritic]

No, just badly punctuated. You have a severe shortage of commas.

Not enough commas. I knew it.

Yes Neon, Wing Chun is the style that Bruce Lee learned as a youngling from which he developed Jeet Kun Do.

Karate Kricket. hehe.

 

[damppanties]

...if it's the cricket you liked then I would recommend The Stars' Tennis Balls by the cleverest bloke on the planet, namely Stephen Fry.

Extremely amusing and a v.good story teller (thriller fiction).

Yes, the cricket. There are too many thighs on here, not enough cricket.

 

[oggbashan]

Yes you can but...

Splitting it is better.

The original conveyed the meaning but how you would write it and how I would write it are different. So what? As long as the reader understands what you intended the presentation can vary.

Now finish and post it so the trolls have another target.

Og

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Mat's tried to explain cricket to me once. I'm still pretty clueless.

To me, the problem isn't really the complexity, although I would use several smaller senteces. It's that you are mixing a long para, with multiple clauses AND jargon that will only be understood by a select few readers.

When I am using jargon, I try to keep the senteces very short, direct and, hopefully, narrow enough to make the meaning of the Jargon apparent via context, even if the reader dosen't know what a Gauss pistol is or what Nitrogen Narcosis is. It seems to me, the sentence is going to pull even a good reader from your world and your work, to puzzle through the sentence. That's generally a bad thing as it means you've lost them, at least momentarily.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

I do it all the time, produce complicated sentences that often need to be re-read to get their full meaning.

If I finish in time this is from an earth day story and the question is:

Is this sentence too complex?

To the games master’s disgust, his father’s disappointment and his mother’s deep respect, besides black tags in the Wing Chun style of Karate he also held several blue and gold ribbons in ballroom dancing and the thighs that pounded towards the crease to deliver medium pace off spins which would turn through almost 30 degrees of angle towards wicket were owed not only to rigorous weights sessions in the gym but also to grand jetes and entrechat scrupulously practised in ballet class.

In twenty-five words or less:

Yes.

And unless the goal is to make the reader stop to re-read and consider the sentence--hell, yes.

And before Shang, Og et al come in and deny my verity I will agree and say 'yes you can write it any way you want, but I must insist that my way reads better and flows more obviously to the point I was making (subliminally in the text)'.

This is your story and your voice. I respect that, and your talent. However, as a reader, I don't agree that your way "reads better and flows more obviously."

IMHO, that original version doesn't flow so much as tumble downhill. This guy from the left side of the pond was able to read and comprehend Og's version on the first try.

Rumple Foreskin