The case for long sentences (and how to make them readable)

It will come as a surprise to many that there are writing instructors who argue that the fastest way to improve one’s writing is to write longer sentences.

The drumbeat of people that have long argued to keep sentences short has become legion, yet they overlook the fact that longer sentences are richer and more filled with meaning and rhythm. Also, when you start writing longer sentences you have to pay stricter attention to their structure, and that concentration on structure makes you a better writer of both long and short sentences.

Writing only short sentences does not, in and of itself, improve your writing. It doesn’t promote creativity. It doesn’t necessarily foster clarity. It just adds lots of stops and starts to your copy.

As I wrote a few weeks ago in the blog post Myths about short and long sentences, there are writers who have made a very successful career of writing short sentences, such as novelists Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses) and James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia). There are also writers, such as Tom Wolfe (Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full) and William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury), who became famous for their long sentences. What’s important to note is that McCarthy and Ellroy, though famed for short sentences, have written plenty of long sentences, and Wolfe and Faulkner, though famed for long sentences, have written many short sentences.

It depends on the situation. It depends what you’re trying to emphasize. A rapid-fire series of short sentences can produce staccato, like rounds of ammo from an automatic firearm. A series of long sentences are like freight trains barreling through your copy, increasing its speed, building suspense, delivering an accumulating payload of rich content to readers.

We tend to avoid long sentences because most of us don’t know how to write long sentences that read as easily as short ones. There is a technique for expanding sentences in ways that make them more expressive and understandable.

It starts with a “kernel sentence,” the initial building block to which we will add information. This is the simplest way to construct long sentences that read with clarity (though not the only way).

For example, we can start with the kernel sentence, “They won” and gradually build a longer and longer sentence by adding phrases that paint a fuller picture.

They won, having finally hired the right basketball coach.

They won, having finally hired the right basketball coach and making changes to the starting lineup.

They won, having finally hired the right basketball coach, making changes to the starting lineup, and getting their sixth man to accept his role coming off the bench.

They won, having finally hired the right basketball coach, making changes to the starting lineup, getting their sixth man to accept his role coming off the bench, and learning how to play team defense.

If we build a kernel sentence from the common sentence pattern of subject/verb/object – “The CEO spoke to shareholders” – it gives us four obvious opportunities to provide more propositional information. That information can either be focused on:

• The entire clause: The CEO spoke to shareholders
• Its subject: the CEO
• Its verb: spoke
• Or its object: shareholders

So, in that order, we might come up with any of the following sentences.

The CEO spoke to shareholders because he knew doing so would inspire more confidence in the company’s management.

The CEO, realizing his job was in serious jeopardy, spoke to shareholders.

The CEO spoke to shareholders in big, booming, bombastic tones.

The CEO spoke to shareholders, who were restive and shouting epithets at the object of their consternation.

The kernel sentence provides us with a great starting point for elaboration and clarification, and it’s an invitation to supply more propositional content about the statement, subject, verb or object.

When we start writing longer sentences we will notice that they allow us to create rhythms within the sentence itself, as well as suspense, as is accomplished here…

“He drove the car carefully, his shaggy hair whipped by the wind, his eyes hidden behind wraparound mirror shades, his mouth set in a grim smile, a .38 Police Special on the seat beside him, the corpse stuffed in the trunk.”

Longer and more complex, yes. Richer and more satisfying, yes. Difficult to read, no. We are simply adding more information and clarification, answering readers’ questions as immediately as they begin to form in their minds, and we build suspense and finally deliver the shocking revelation.

One of the leading exponents of long sentences is Brooks Landon, an English professor at the University of Iowa and one of the instructors for that school’s highly-regarded writing program. Landon says flat out: “A relatively lengthy and complicated sentence should not necessarily discourage us from making it even longer and even more complicated, as long as the additions we make are helpful, logical and easy to follow.”

So what starts as a “kernel sentence” becomes a “cumulative sentence” as we keep adding information to the sentence phrase by phrase.

One of Landon’s favorite writers (and mine) is decorated American novelist Don DeLillo (White Noise, Libra, Underworld). Here is one of DeLillo’s cumulative sentences, selected by Landon, that masterfully describes a laugh.

“He crossed his arms on his midsection, bent against the wall laughing. It was a staccato laugh, building on itself, broadening in the end to a breathless gasp, the laughter that marks a pause in the progress of the world, the laughter we hear once in twenty years.”

Landon asks that we note the stop-and-go rhythm and how the sentence’s architecture sets up rhythms within rhythms.

Let’s review one more cumulative sentence cited by Landon.

“The chef prepared the fish, carefully, stuffing it with wild rice, sautéing it briefly, its sweet aroma blending smoothly with the other enticing odors in the kitchen, the fish becoming more than a food item, ascending to the status of art.”

Notice how as we read along the sentence becomes more colorful, more hypnotic, more information packed. We’re also somewhat sad the sentence has come to an end, that the ride did not continue, that our senses weren’t further assaulted by the delicious descriptions and rhythm.

I’ll give Landon the final word on this subject because I cannot say it any better myself: “Work with cumulative sentences and soon their rhythms become seductive, urging us to keep adding modifying phrases, the very sound reminding us of the limitless detail and explanation we can add to each sentence we write.”

 

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