Avoid Reader Dizziness!

Eric entered the room full of books out of breath and looked nervously around seeing nothing out of place except the shards of the broken vase scattered on the floor in the corner by the display case, and he smelled that strange smell again, fear and something more, something burning as he gingerly touched a piece of the vase with the toe of his boot wondering…

Well, this could go on and on, but as you can see, it already has. Here we have a fine example of a run-on sentence, complete with dangling modifiers, and it looks as if this meandering sentence is just getting cranked up. The problem with run-ons is they don’t allow the reader to come up for air. Instead, the sentence rushes on and on with endless bits of information, almost always resulting in reader confusion, and often leading to reader dizziness. Dizzy readers tend to stop reading, which is probably not the response you’re hoping for. So let’s work on breaking those run-ons into more manageable pieces.

First, how do you know if a sentence is a run-on? The easiest test is to read the sentence out loud. If you get to the end of it and you’re dying for air, there is most likely a problem with the sentence. Also, if you get to the end of the sentence and have no idea what it said, there is most likely a problem with the sentence. The end of the sentence should be related in some way to the beginning, and the reader should get there via one or more easy-to-follow steps. Long, complex sentences are fine if they are well written, but sentences that wander here, there and everywhere will also lead your readers to wander…probably to another book.

Having identified a run-on, how do you fix it? Let’s look more closely at our sample sentence. What are the basic events?

· Eric enters the room
· He sees the broken vase
· He smells something odd
· He touches a piece of the vase
· He begins to wonder…

Wow, that’s a lot of activity for one sentence. You can help the reader out by breaking the action up. Let’s try:

Breathless, Eric burst into the library and looked around nervously. Nothing seemed out of place, except the shards of a vase scattered on the floor near the corner display cabinet.

Better. Now the reader will not become breathless along with poor Eric. We’ve also turned the “room full of books” into a “library” and tightened up the description of the broken vase. Oh, and did you notice that in the original the room full of books seemed to be out of breath? We fixed that too. Moving on:

He noticed that strange odor again—fear and something more, something burning. Eric gingerly touched one of the shards with the toe of his boot and wondered…

Now as long as Eric’s wondering doesn’t get out of control we’re on our way to writing a coherent paragraph, full of sentences that get the reader from the beginning to the end without gasping for air or getting dizzy and confused.