Long sentences may be confusing. Too many ideas, details, and modifiers can make it difficult for readers to follow your story. However, long sentences are necessary if you want your writing to have a desirable rhythm. You cannot fill your work with only short punchy sentences. If you’re going to be a well-balanced writer, you must learn how to master long sentences. 

Yes, there is a common criticism that nobody wants to read long sentences, but cutting things down is not always better. Great writing consists of sentences of all lengths. Today, I’ll share six pieces of advice and examples of how long sentences can be applied to your writing.  

1. Place the subject and verb of the main clause early in the sentence.

He looked at me and held out his hand, sending black ribbons of darkness climbing through the sphere, twisting and turning. I grew the light wider and brighter, feeling the pleasure of the power move through me, letting it play through my fingertips as he sent inky tendrils of darkness shooting through the light, making them dance. – Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (p 217)

Want to write better? Check out this video here: How to Write Clearly with Right Branching Sentences.

2. When describing something long and slow, use a long sentence. 

It rained all night. I had a horrible, sleepless time of it. It was noisy. On the rain catcher the rain made a drumming sound, and around me, coming from the darkness beyond, it made a hissing sound, as if I were at the centre of a great nest of angry snakes. 

Shifts in the wind changed the directions of the rain so that parts of me that were beginning to feel warm were soaked anew. I shifted the rain catcher, only to be unpleasantly surprised a few minutes later when the wind changed once more. 

I tried to keep a small part of me dry and warm, around my chest, where I had placed the survival manual, but the wetness spread with perverse determination. I spent the whole night shivering with cold. – Life of Pi by Yann Martel (p173)

3. Write the long sentence in chronological order. 

It’s in the newspaper today how somebody broke into offices between the tenth and fifteenth floors of the Hein Tower, and climbed out the office windows, and painted the south side of the building with a grinning five-story mask, and set fires so the window at the center of each huge eye blazed huge and alive and inescapable over the city at dawn. – Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (p 118)

How did Fight Club go from book to movie? Check out this article here: The Adaptation of Fight Club

4. Accompany long sentences with medium and short ones.

My proximity to the Careers’ camp sharpens my senses, and the closer I get to them, the more guarded I am, pausing frequently to listen for unnatural sounds, an arrow already fitted into the string of my bow. I don’t see any other tributes, but I do notice some of the things Rue has mentioned. Patches of the sweet berries. A bush with leaves that healed my stings. Clusters of tracker jacker nest in the vicinity of the tree I was trapped in. And here and there, the black-and-white flash of a mockingjay wing in the branches high over my head. – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (p 214)

5. A long sentence can be used for listing products, names, and images. 

Chani stood over him now, looking down on the soft beard of youth that framed his face, tracing with her eyes the high browline, the strong nose, the shuttered eyes — the features so peaceful in this rigid repose. – Dune by Frank Herbert (p 716)

6. Editing matters more with long sentences. Make every word count. 

One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn’t be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn’t understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (p85)

Which long-sentence tip will you practice writing first? Let me know in the comments below. 

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