BlackHippyChick Day: Run-On Sentences

You’ve seen it before, probably in my writing — The writer has forgotten that readers need to take a breath while reading, so they have written a sentence that takes up an entire paragraph, and as the reader, you’re starting to feel a little confused as though your head might explode if you see another “but”, but you’re in it for the long-haul, so you keep reading until your lungs have shrivelled like balloons, and if you don’t see a period soon, you’re probably going to suffocate to death.

Run-on sentences are also known as fused sentences because they put two or more complete sentences into one. There are unambitious run-on sentences (This is an unambitious one, and it only infuses two sentences.) and ambitious run-on sentences (This is an ambitious run on sentence, and it infuses about 7 million sentences into one, but only because the writer is very, very tired and desperately needs a strong cup of coffee.)

If you think you understand run-on sentences now, you’re wrong, I’m afraid.

I have a client who has banned conjunctions entirely. The writing they get is crap. All the sentences are short. Every single one. You might notice a lack of flow. That’s because my client is witless about sentences. I hate writing for them. However, I like what they pay.

The rhythm in the last paragraph is stunted and clumsy because conjunctions, and even run-on sentences, allow writers to develop conscious flow.

This is a paragraph by Earnest Hemingway:

I guess looking at it, now, my old man was cut out for a fat guy, one of those regular little roly fat guys you see around, but he sure never got that way, except a little toward the last, and then it wasn’t his fault, he was over the jumps only and he could afford to carry plenty of weight then.

Hemingway loved run-on sentences. He used them several times a page, yet we call him one of the greatest writers who ever lived. He fused sentences to achieve a lilting rhythm that almost rocks you into a hypnotic state. This way, when he used short sentences, you paid attention.

Not all run-on sentences are bad.
Not all run-on sentences are good.

The writer’s mastery determines their effectiveness. In general, you should be suspicious of them, but only because it forces you to choose your rhythm consciously.

Exercise

Write a prose poem that uses run-on sentences consciously to achieve a specific effect.