On 1/23/2015 4:30 PM, Xeno wrote:
> On 24/01/2015 7:54 AM, Kalmia wrote:
>> On Thursday, January 22, 2015 at 3:21:33 PM UTC-5, Bryan-TGWWW wrote:
>>
>> Certainly, any man's man, any guy who
>>> likes movies with car chases and explosions, and who, if they'd been
>>> dragged
>>> by the wife/GF to see The Fault In Our Stars, and would rather have a
>>> root
>>> canal than sit through that again would hate it.
>>
>>
>>
>> I would hate to try to diagram that sentence. Kind of fractured,
>> huh? IF that's the style of your book...........AAAGGH.
>>
> I must admit, I would find myself tripping over the fractured grammar
> and thus be unable to get immersed in the storyline. I do tutoring for
> PhD students and I always get them to break up convoluted sentences like
> that. I feel that writers must set standards.
>

You wouldn't believe some of the convoluted sentences I've had to
rewrite as an editor of manuscripts. There is, in literature at least,
a very fine line that the editor mustn't cross when rewriting an
author's work. It's very hard to maintain the author's voice when you
are rewriting a sentence to your own "ear".

--
From somewhere very deep in the heart of Texas