I’m fond of compound sentences, and I struggle to write without them.
Why do I feel no single sentence can stand alone, without being connected to yet another?
I sometimes read what others have written. Complex sentences often seem the exception, rather than the norm with my writing.
Years ago I started writing a non-fiction book. My editor remarked she was getting through the chapters, trying to simplify some of my prose. Sigh. A non-fiction book designed to make a complex subject easy to understand, and my writing itself was a barrier.
I don’t know. When I write, it all comes out in a rush. Perhaps I look ahead too much, so the jumble of thoughts all turn into these complicated sentences that even I can find hard to read later on.
When I have time (which is too rare), I review the things I’ve written on a seek and destroy mission to remove and, but and or. They’ll get you pretty far, as the Schoolhouse Rock song used to go — but I use them too much.
Clauses, dashes, even my favorite punctuation mark, the semicolon. My writing crutches. I try to let them go. Semicolon, able to connect two sentences together without the need for a conjunction; I miss using you the most.
Simply my writing. Breakdown the complex thoughts. Sentences can stand alone.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I like dashes; they’re so useful!
And why not? Everyone’s allowed to have a personal writing style. It’s not like you’re trying to be Proust and write page-long sentences. (And besides, Proust is wonderful.)
“Standalone” is an adjective (or occasionally, a noun), not a verb. So “an iPhone can be used as a standalone device” is correct, whereas “a single sentence can standalone” is not. When you’re writing about the finer points of grammar and usage, it undercuts your credibility to have such a glaring error, not once, but twice, in your post.
Maintain the standards! Don’t be dumbed down with the rest of us. E-readers are going to save semi-colon users (I hope) because we’ll be able to argue that we’re writing books…
You can always sneak in a dash when the semi-colon isn’t looking.
PS Here’s another great article on this subject (just because I like your link spam intro).
Yeah, I thought it looked odd re-reading it today. I didn’t exactly see this piece about covering the finer points of grammar, but yes, I’ll fix it.