Quote:
Originally Posted by Rizla
On reflection, I agree. The run-on is choppy.
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Rizla:
IME, as a reader, mind you, there are exceedingly few authors who can pull off a run-on sentence and make it sound "right." Generally, it's a hot mess. The greats can do it, because they're deliberately playing with it. It's an internal thought (as previously mentioned), or someone's breathless statement, but generally, they oughtn't be used throughout in a book, story, etc.
I'm beta-reading something right now that has this VERY problem--one run-on sentence after another. I suspect it's a language issue (English is not the writer's first language), but still--it's hard to read. With those writers that do have English as their cradle language, 99% of the time, it's simply because they don't have a solid foundation of English grammar and punctuation, and it shows. The more "self-publishing" without governors (editors) that occurs, the more instant gratification-publishing, the more we'll see this type of thing show up in published books, I fear.
Writers of late aren't the products of writing classes (online or otherwise), critique groups, etc., so these types of errata aren't being eradicated through learning, like they would have been (by and large) in the "olden days." ;-) That does NOT mean that every self-pub or Indy-pub or artisanal-pub is BAD or doesn't know how to write. I'm simply saying that the former (usually) lengthy process of someone having to write, write and write for 10,000 hours prior to publishing, of attending courses, groups, writer's seminars, etc. has sort of gone the way of the dodo, so naturally, what those who make these mistakes
would have learned by doing all that stuff is also gone.
Offered FWIW.
Hitch