I was once asked why so many writing tutors tell their students to write in short sentences. That’s a tough one. This is what I came up with: “No one knows enough about the truth to keep it up for more than a handful of words.”
I was reminded about that question (and my answer) this week as I was reading through several blog posts on other sites bemoaning the ‘amateur’ misuse of long sentences. I think that’s a little harsh. I have nothing against long sentences. I think creative writing teachers tell their students not to write long sentences for the same reason doctors tell you not to eat salt. The body needs salt. If you don’t have salt, you die. However, the western diet has already got way too much salt in it, so doctors are just lazy and tell you to not eat salt. They figure, however successful their message is, you’re probably still going to eat more salt than you need. Similarly, we all need long sentences (if nothing else, they’re damn useful for controlling the rhythm and pace of a piece). It’s just a simple truth that most writing has more words and longer sentences than it needs.*
A noted critic once described Hemingway’s laconic style as, “… Short and simple sentence constructions, with heavy use of parallelism, which convey the effect of control, terseness, and blunt honesty,” but Hemingway himself knew that was just the way they turned out when he tried to write the truth. In response, he said, “All you have to do is write one true sentence… and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.”
*Note: By the way, I could say the same thing about what writing teachers have told me about overuse of adjectives, adverbs and even commas, but that’s for another blog post on another day.
Contributed by D N Martin
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