Are run on sentences linked to appositive order?

JohnLine

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It seems like every once in a while I'll get feedback in a crit that I use way too many run-on sentences. I do miss comma splices, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'll see poetic sentence structure used in popular fiction and try to emulate it, and this is usually what gets me into trouble.

So let's give some examples:

American Gods page 177:
A hawk launched itself from a dead tree and flew toward him, wings strobing in the sunlight like a series of stop-motion photographs.

Hemmingway, Undefeated:
Most of the men sat against the wall smoking, empty coffee-cups and liqueur-glasses before them on the tables.

My line:
The muscles in his eyes tight, swollen, he wasn’t tired, not the least bit sleepy, but he knew that would change as the day strung out.

So I recently got feedback that this was run-on. And while I don't think it's on par with any of the greats I've quoted, that is the effect I was going for.

One difference I've noticed is that my appositive "The muscles in his eyes tight, swollen," comes before the subject "He." Does this make it a run on?

Let's look at the examples I gave above, but reverse place the appositive at the beginning:

Wings strobing in the sunlight like a series of stop-motion photographs, a hawk launched itself from a dead tree and flew toward him.

Empty coffee-cups and liqueur-glasses before them on the tables, most of the men sat against the wall smoking.

Are these now run-on sentences?
 
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Bufty

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No, but the reversed construction means the subject isn't known until the reader is halfway through the sentence.

Your sentence beginning 'The muscles...' changes subject halfway through and is just plain awkward.

You are not comparing like with like.
 
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-Riv-

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I'll do my best here and trust some kind person will come along and correct anything that's off. :greenie

It seems like every once in a while I'll get feedback in a crit that I use way too many run-on sentences. I do miss comma splices, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'll see poetic sentence structure used in popular fiction and try to emulate it, and this is usually what gets me into trouble.

So let's give some examples:

American Gods page 177:
A hawk launched itself from a dead tree and flew toward him, wings strobing in the sunlight like a series of stop-motion photographs.


Hemmingway, Undefeated:
Most of the men sat against the wall smoking, empty coffee-cups and liqueur-glasses before them on the tables.
The prose is lovely, and the structures are straightforward complex sentences. Independent clause/dependent clause. AFAIK, "wings strobing in the sunlight" and "empty coffee-cups and liqueur glasses before them on the tables" are absolute phrases modifying the opening independent clauses in each sentence.

Here's a good link to information about absolute phrases.



My line:
The muscles in his eyes tight, swollen, he wasn’t tired, not the least bit sleepy, but he knew that would change as the day strung out.

So I recently got feedback that this was run-on. And while I don't think it's on par with any of the greats I've quoted, that is the effect I was going for.

One difference I've noticed is that my appositive "The muscles in his eyes tight, swollen," comes before the subject "He." Does this make it a run on?
No. A run-on sentence is one in which independent clauses are joined incorrectly, usually with no punctuation between them or with a comma (comma splice). Your sentence isn't a run-on since the two independent clauses are correctly joined by a conjunction, but it seems quite awkward to me. I can parse it--I think--but between the opening phrase and the redundancy in the middle, it's a lot of work to do so. (Just my opinion.)


Let's look at the examples I gave above, but reverse place the appositive at the beginning:

Wings strobing in the sunlight like a series of stop-motion photographs, a hawk launched itself from a dead tree and flew toward him.


Empty coffee-cups and liqueur-glasses before them on the tables, most of the men sat against the wall smoking.
Are these now run-on sentences?
Nope. :) They aren't run-ons. They are a tad bumpier (IMO) than the originals because the modifying phrase is coming before the clause being modified, causing me to backtrack and reread. (Also, the dependent clauses contain absolute rather than appositive phrases.)

All the best,
Riv


 

JohnLine

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Thank you for explaining that! I get the point, and I see I have work to do, but it's been frustrating trying to fix my "run-on sentences" when something else is wrong.


No. A run-on sentence is one in which independent clauses are joined incorrectly, usually with no punctuation between them or with a comma (comma splice). Your sentence isn't a run-on since the two independent clauses are correctly joined by a conjunction, but it seems quite awkward to me. I can parse it--I think--but between the opening phrase and the redundancy in the middle, it's a lot of work to do so. (Just my opinion.)
 

Lakey

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Thank you for explaining that! I get the point, and I see I have work to do, but it's been frustrating trying to fix my "run-on sentences" when something else is wrong.

It’s pretty common in critique for a reader to identify something that isn’t working in your writing, but not necessarily land correctly on why it isn’t working. I think what’s happening in your case is that you are using complex sentence structures that are sometimes hard to parse. When a sentence is hard to parse, the reader’s brain works to analyze it, and might analyze it wrongly, leading to feedback that on the surface isn’t technically correct but is nevertheless telling you that something isn’t working in the sentence.

For what it’s worth, I read that “The muscles of his eyes tight, tired” sentence several times — both here and in your SYW post — and I also thought it was a run-on at first, because my brain insisted on inserting a verb “were” into that first phrase. Why? Because the sentence was awkward and confusing, and that was the easiest way to make sense of it.

The takeaway, I suggest, is that if multiple people are misanalyzing a sentence, your best response is not “but it’s technically correct!” but rather “damn, that sentence is tripping people up; it’s making my readers’ experience more difficult and less engaging. I’d better consider saying it a different way.”

:e2coffee:
 
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Bufty

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One of the fastest ways to screw up a long sentence is bad or late placement of the subject.

And to my mind that suggests focus may be on writing a long sentence rather than on conveying a clear image.

The conveying of a clear image usually results in effective, and possibly poetic, writing.
 

JohnLine

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The takeaway, I suggest, is that if multiple people are misanalyzing a sentence, your best response is not “but it’s technically correct!” but rather “damn, that sentence is tripping people up; it’s making my readers’ experience more difficult and less engaging. I’d better consider saying it a different way.”

:e2coffee:

I'm not trying to argue that it's right. I'm trying to figure out what is wrong, so I can fix it. I tend to get this feedback whenever I try to write "fancy" (Usually because I get tired of starting sentences with subject nouns "He did this. He did that.")

It's sort of like having a car that won't start and being told it needs gas. Then I keep refilling the tank, only to find out the battery has been dead all along.

So, I think I need to go through the text of the books I'm trying to emulate and figure out what I'm doing wrong. I've already noticed that using appositives at the beginning of sentences is rarely done, and you all have made a good case for why that is. And I've noticed I'm using way more commas than my models. Which tells me I'm trying to stuff too much into each sentence.

(I paused here to examine some books)

The books I looked at (American Gods, The Blade Itself, and Hemingway Short Stories) Do start just about every sentence with a subject noun (He, They, etc...)

"American Gods" avoids repetition by alternating dialog with non-dialog sentences.
"The Blade Itself" does a similar thing where it interjects the thoughts of the POV character as narration (not as italicized inner thoughts).
And Hemingway often uses descriptive phrases. "He did this. It went quickly." And his stories are almost 95% dialog.
 

be frank

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I'm not trying to argue that it's right. I'm trying to figure out what is wrong, so I can fix it. I tend to get this feedback whenever I try to write "fancy" (Usually because I get tired of starting sentences with subject nouns "He did this. He did that.")

It's sort of like having a car that won't start and being told it needs gas. Then I keep refilling the tank, only to find out the battery has been dead all along.

So, I think I need to go through the text of the books I'm trying to emulate and figure out what I'm doing wrong. I've already noticed that using appositives at the beginning of sentences is rarely done, and you all have made a good case for why that is. And I've noticed I'm using way more commas than my models. Which tells me I'm trying to stuff too much into each sentence.

(I paused here to examine some books)

The books I looked at (American Gods, The Blade Itself, and Hemingway Short Stories) Do start just about every sentence with a subject noun (He, They, etc...)

"American Gods" avoids repetition by alternating dialog with non-dialog sentences.
"The Blade Itself" does a similar thing where it interjects the thoughts of the POV character as narration (not as italicized inner thoughts).
And Hemingway often uses descriptive phrases. "He did this. It went quickly." And his stories are almost 95% dialog.

Hey, check it out. Just about every sentence you wrote in that post ^^ starts a different way. They're of varying lengths. And none of it is "fancy." It's straightforward and easy to parse.
 

Bufty

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+1 to be frank. Actually, the same applies to your Opening Post above. :Hug2:
 

angeliz2k

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FWIW, I don't think you need to be frustrated. You're not doing anything wrong. In fact, you're doing all the right things. What's happening is that you're picking up on nuances that you hadn't noticed before. You're getting into the nuts and bolts and really finding what makes other writers' prose work, and therefore how to make yours work. This is crucial to making your writing shine. It's all part of the learning process, which, by the way, never ends.

And, sentences that begin with the subject and verb can then take off in very different directions. But you have to make sure you're leading the reader down the path without losing them somewhere along the way, and that means making sure subjects and pronouns are always clear (earlier in a sentence is better than later) and that constructions are parallel (when you have lists).
 

Roxxsmom

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The two sentences you provided are not run ons. Run on sentences occur when two or more independent clauses are not joined correctly. For example: My dog hates the dog next door he always fence fights with her. The two independent clauses need a semicolon or a coordinating conjunction (with a comma).

Your sentence isn't a run on either, but you have an issue with "the muscles of his eyes, tight, swollen." It doesn't really make sense, because the rest of the sentence isn't about the muscles of the character's eyes, but about the character himself and his perception of tiredness.

Appositives are supposed to rename the noun, and they do usually need to come after the noun they reference. For example: My dog, a border collie, is very active. It makes little sense to write: A border collie, my dog, is very active.

Participle clauses are similar, but they can precede the noun they describe (without renaming), but order can change the sentence too. The two examples you gave are sentences with participle clauses modifying the nouns "hawk" and "men."

My dog, active and intelligent, is a typical border collie or Active and intelligent, my dog is a typical border collie both work. Likewise, Gaiman's hawk sentence works in both orders.

Sometimes changing the order of a participle clause changes its meaning, though, and you end up with a dangling participle, a type of misplaced modifier that confuses the meaning of the sentence.

Wearing a skirt, the girl walked her dog means the girl wore the skirt, while the girl walked her dog wearing a skirt actually implies the dog was wearing the skirt.

Your example is also more a participle clause than an appositive (since it doesn't rename any noun in the sentence), but it still doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because the rest of the sentence isn't about the character's eyes but about the character himself and his perceptions. I had to read it a couple of times to figure out what I think you were trying to say--that the characters eyes are already sore, but he's not really tired yet. However, he knows he will be soon enough if he keeps doing whatever it is he's doing to make his eyes feel this way.

Maybe something like, With the muscles of his eyes already tight and swollen, he knew he'd be tired as the day wore on

Or: The muscles of his eyes were already tight, swollen; he wasn't tired or sleepy yet, but he knew that would change as the day wore on.

But there are many other ways to write this.
 
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I'm a little o_O at this thread; it's essentially a thread spun out of a SYW thread. I'm going to allow it, but JohnLine you're dismissing reasonable crit.

So here's the thing: That first sentence? It's non viable. It is not, technically, sentence because it lacks a distinct subject with a distinct verb. It's a string of clauses. It's not that it's poetic; it's that it doesn't make sense.

The muscles in his eyes tight, swollen, he wasn’t tired, not the least bit sleepy, but he knew that would change as the day strung out.

1. The muscles in his eyes tight, swollen

No verb. Also, not an appositive.

You're stringing clauses together in a laundry list, but you're not connecting them; in part because the subject of the sentence (The musces) has no verb. Tight is an adjective, followed by another adjective, followed by a comma splicing an independent clause (he wasn’t tired) followed by a sentence fragment with no connection to the previous clause then a vague relative clause (he knew that would change)—does that refer to sleepy and tired or tight and swollen? Then the final clause: as the day strung out which . . . mostly the use of "strung" is awkward. It's particularly awkward followed by the preposition out; there's an idiom, strung out. Pretty sure that's not what you mean. I suspect you want to indicate the passage of time, but strung out isn't doing it.

If you want to emulate the poetic style of the examples you quote, the best way to learn to do that is to use exactly the same class of words, but different words. If Hemingway uses a verb in past tense, you use a different verb but in the same tense. If he uses an adjective, you use an adjective, but a different one. This is an exercise that makes you closely examine how each word functions in the sentence, and how the sentence as a whole works. This isn't a way to write; it's a way to learn to parse.

Most of the men sat against the wall smoking, empty coffee-cups and liqueur-glasses before them on the tables.

Half the dogs lay on the floor panting, chewed bones and overturned dishes around them on the boards.

That's not a very creative example, but you get the gist.
 

be frank

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1. The muscles in his eyes tight, swollen

No verb. Also, not an appositive

Also not physically possible. :) I'm still completely befuddled about wth "swollen eye muscles" are. I must have missed those lectures. It IS kinda possible to have a "tight" eye muscle, but yanno ... it suggests your MC has a turned eye now. Which could be a nice little character detail, but I somehow doubt that's what you're aiming for.
 
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Woollybear

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Most of the men sat against the wall smoking, empty coffee-cups and liqueur-glasses before them on the tables.

Half the dogs lay on the floor panting, chewed bones and overturned dishes around them on the boards.

That's not a very creative example, but you get the gist.

Oh. Oh oh oh. A prompt!

One of the ladies jumped onto the table, danced and soon grew sweaty; garters and cigar butts piling up on the chairs about her.

I took more license, so do I pass or fail? Or do I go to timeout. :)
 

JJ Litke

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Most of the men sat against the wall smoking, empty coffee-cups and liqueur-glasses before them on the tables.

A bunch of AWers slouched in their chairs reading, half-eaten sandwiches and crumpled papers around them on their desks.
 

JohnLine

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I'm a little o_O at this thread; it's essentially a thread spun out of a SYW thread. I'm going to allow it, but JohnLine you're dismissing reasonable crit.

Thank you! This thread has helped me immensely. I'm finally tackling an issue that's plagued me as long as I've been writing.
I consider that crit one of the best I've gotten all year, as it brought this issue to the forefront (and taught me about dangling participles).

I found it difficult to ask for more clarification in SYW without sounding like I'm arguing, so I appreciate your indulgence.
 

-Riv-

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. . . I found it difficult to ask for more clarification in SYW without sounding like I'm arguing, so I appreciate your indulgence.
FWIW, asking for clarification on an aspect of a crit is typically welcomed (and even encouraged) in SYW. :e2grouphu Everyone tends to benefit from explanations and exploration.

It's defensiveness or telling the critiquer why their critique is oh-so-wrong :rant: that's considered argumentative.


All the best,
Riv