Sentence Construction Help

Hi, I am new and glad to be here. This is my sentence as is: "During a period in which the team was under particular pressure, not resting—even to catch my breath—became a habit of mine"

To clarify, this is intended as a positive statement, conveying the subject's utter determination.

That part I have in quotes above is fine as is, at least by my estimation. What I'd like to do is to add something to the sentence, more detail, but ideally still not break its flow.

Either:

1. Something about how this positive habit/practice/whatever persisted even after things got better

Or 2 (a new idea). Something about how it had an influence on my teammates doing likewise.

Thus making a pretty positive statement seem even more so. But I would just like the sentence to sound "writerly," if you will. As stated, I like what I have so far, but don't know how to expand on it with the two suggestions above and have it retain its flow. Thank you so much.

What makes you say that? I am aware my sentence is "fine." It's perfectly coherent. I understand that. Possibly the original sentence looks better than my other two versions because my other two versions are not yet finished (hence why I'm here), in which case it would make sense they would look worse. On the one hand, I appreciate your opinion. On the other, I feel like I've ordered a pepperoni pizza but had the guy give me plain because he thought he knew what's best for me. If you're no better than me at constructing this sentence, you're perfectly free to not comment

And by "writerly," I just mean I want a better-than-fine sentence. Nothing wrong with aspiring to more detail/a better sentence.

Any other hopefully forthcoming suggestions would still be helpful. Thank you.

"During a period in which the team was under particular pressure"—strike that. Idc about that. That is wordy and can be reworded. But I want to keep "not taking a rest—even to catch my breath—became a habit …" If everyone can just ignore the first part, keep the second, and work from there, I would appreciate it. After which something could be added. For example: "—became a habit, a practice which …" Something. That's what I'm asking for. What is the something?

Maryn said:

I'm aware of a tendency toward wordiness in the original sentence, During a period in which the team was under particular pressure, not resting—even to catch my breath—became a habit of mine. It seems to me--and this is just one person's take--that before you start adding concepts, you need to pare this down to its core concept.

If it were my sentence, which it is not, I'd lose some words and phrases that don't carry their weight, ending up with, When the team was under pressure, I wouldn't rest, not even to catch my breath. That cuts your original word count by nearly a third without losing any of the idea you expressed. You could easily add a clause, or start a new sentence, about your practice becoming the team's habit, which persisted even when things improved.

Maryn, who only took twenty years to learn to write leaner

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I'm sorry, sir, I don't get what you mean by "style." It doesn't say what I want it to say until I add something either (A) about teammates doing likewise or (B) me continuing the practice even after its need had gone away. But I'd like to hear any suggestions you might have.

King Neptune said:

Does it fit your style? Does it say what you want to say? I ask about your style,because I would write something quite unlike this; my sentence might experess more of the fierce determination, but it might not fit with the writingaround it.

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I didn't ask for a critique of my writing

I asked for help adding to it.

Either:

1. Something about how this positive habit/practice/whatever persisted even after things got better

Or 2 (a new idea). Something about how it had an influence on my teammates doing likewise.

If you didn't want to and/or don't see a reason to do either of those, I mean, whatever … but that is what I asked for.

But I definitely don't know anything about your writing. I did, however, say "if."

blacbird said:

The term "writerly", as applied to prose narrative, is generally considered to mean "wordy, flowery, embellished, loaded with exotic decoration and fancy words substituted for plain ones". And that is nearly always meant as a derogatory criticism. That's what I meant, in reference to your stated desire to sound more "writerly". And if you don't like the plain fact that I found your original sentence okay, out of context, you're free not to ask for critiques of it.

And you don't know a damn thing about my writing or writing ability, so if you're no better than me about critiquing it, you're also free to say nothing.

caw

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