Letters to the Editor
We want to hear your news and views on the writing world, your advice for fellow writers – and don’t forget to tell us what you would like to see featured in a future issue...
DAVID PEARSON Drayton, Somerset
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STAR LETTER
Sentence ruling
I fully agree with Chris Mendham’s interesting letter (Break One Rule, Letters, WM, August) on the ‘long sentence’. It certainly has its place.
Some years ago, I gave up after reading the first 100 pages or so of a novel based on the French Revolution. The ‘blurb’ on the back had scintillated, and the dialogue and settings were plausible. Unfortunately, in an attempt to give her novel a dramatic and breathless tenor, the author had chosen to use a sentence structure of very few words. About this length. Sometimes a little longer. Delivered in brief paragraphs. The effect for this reader was one of being anaesthetized and at the same time hysterically driven through the narrative to the point of exhaustion.
Although open to misuse, and not to everyone’s taste, the long sentence can allow time in which to pause and reflect, to review, to recapitulate, to describe, to analyse. It certainly deserves a thorough appraisal.