The Never Ending Sentence

Writers share with other writers. An element that appears more often than necessary is the never ending sentence. The content can be a masterpiece but a really long sentence, making up an entire paragraph is not grammatically correct!

Everyone has or remembers a teacher, aunt, or neighbor who talked excessively. They never took a breath between sentences, thoughts or subjects. Your readers may receive the same impression from three or four sentences glued together with and's, but's, and then again's! First draft editing is the time to clean house. Break the never ending sentence into distinct thoughts. Remove the extra verbiage unless you are direct quoting another individual or character.

An example of a never ending sentence, disguised as a paragraph would be:

"Last summer we were walking on the beach discussing who we were going to hire to refinish the redwood lounge chairs but Mildred still had not decided what hue she wanted the furniture stained because her minister, Pastor Fogbottom had warned her that red tones would make her feel hot in the heat of the summers but she did not really think too much about what Pastor said because everyone in town knew he was sleeping with the church's administrative assistant."

Just the quick alleviation of conjunctions and unnecessary words would actually make this paragraph acceptable.

"Last summer we were walking on the beach discussing who we were going to hire to refinish the redwood lounge chairs.  Mildred still had not decided what hue she wanted the furniture stained. Her minister, Pastor Fogbottom had warned her that red tones would make her feel hot in the heat of the summer. She did not really think too much  what Pastor said.  Everyone in town knew he was sleeping with the church's administrative assistant."

Beware of over usage of the words, that, because, then, and but. A percentage of writers will draft the story from memory. In the transfer, one of these "favorite" words may get repeated over and over. The important issue is to get the thoughts written down and then edit the work. Clean and precise editing will create a marketable and living written masterpiece.

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