The penny drops into the slot, [Personal preference, but I'd leave the comma in so upon first read you're not mistaken for saying "I dropped a penny into the slot AND the hurdy-gurdy too"] and the hurdy-gurdy music begins. Inside the glass case a head with ["covered in"? Or, "...a flaking, painted head creaks around to face Johnny..."?] chipped paint begins to creak round. Its eerie grin turns [not "turning"; you could only use "turning" if your sentence was, say, this: "Its eerie grin turning to face Johnny, the machine blah blah...", or else you've got a
misplaced modifier] to face Little Johnny[comma] who buries his head in his Gran's side. Finally, the contraption stops whirling and spews a piece of paper from its mouth. The strip flies out of the slot [repetition from the last sentence; we know the paper's just flown out] and lands on Gran's stout black boot. She pats Johnny's head and bends down to pick up the paper. He takes it off her and reads it out loud, 'Out of a long darkness the man will come tonight.'
Gran belts the machine casing with her long black umbrella. 'Loada bloody nonsense. What a waste of me quid.' His Gran never goes anywhere without her umbrella and a massive, red leather bag. She often says to Johnny, I'm no longer in the Caribbean you know. An' you never know when I may need to defend meself.
Here's my version, cleaned-up, although I haven't spent long doing so:
The penny drops into the slot, and the hurdy-gurdy music begins. Inside the glass case a flaking, painted head creaks around to face Johnny, its grin eerie. The boy buries his face in his gran's side. The contraption stops whirling and spews a piece of paper from its mouth, which lands on Gran's boots. She pats Johnny's head and picks up the paper. He grabs it and reads aloud: 'Out of a long darkness the man will come tonight.'
Gran belts the machine with her umbrella. 'Loada bloody nonsense! What a waste of me quid.' His Gran never goes anywhere without her black umbrella and massive, red leather bag. She often says to Johnny, 'I'm no longer in the Caribbean, you know. An' you never know when I may need to defend meself.'
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What may help you is to look up misplaced modifiers, dangling modifiers,
modifying clauses, and parenthetical expressions. Google will be your friend. Hex's link is one I'd recommend, too - I've used it in the past.
Learn these rules and when to spot them, and your writing confidence should improve.
For example, you'll have to learn what a parenthetical expression is and when you've used one (though you don't need to learn the technical names!). Basically, it's a piece of info that you've added to your sentence
that could be removed or moved without the sentence losing clarity. Always enclose them in commas:
I love that man, who wears the yellow trousers, and I think we'll get married.
I love that man, who wears yellow trousers, and I think we'll get married.
I love that man who's wearing the yellow trousers, and I think we'll get married.
My job, working on an oil rig, doesn't let me have much family time.
The horse wearing a black saddle is mine. [By the sounds of it there's loads of horses nearby, so the speaker is identifying theirs by its saddle colour.]
I look at the mare. The horse, wearing a black saddle, is mine. [Here, the black saddle info isn't really needed because there is only one horse--so the saddle colour is just extra info to build up a picture in the reader's mind.]
I love little Johhny, who just buried his face in Gran's side.
Also, watch for words that can be moved around in a sentence. They, too, need to be closed off in commas:
I'm fed up. This life, for example, bores me.
I'm fed up. This life bores me, for example.
Like mine, her kitten was playful, too.
Like mine, too, her kitten was playful.
Like mine, her kitten, too, was playful. [very clunky sentence, though!}
I think zombies make good lovers.
Zombies, I think, make good lovers.
Zombies make good lovers, I think.
However, I'm getting old.
I am, however, getting old.
I am getting old, however.
There's no rule that says you
have to follow every rule, though. Even in my examples you'll see areas where I could have changed what I'd written:
I love that man who's wearing the yellow trousers and, I think, we'll get married.
I love that man who's wearing the yellow trousers, and, I think, we'll get married.
I love that man who's wearing the yellow trousers; I think we'll get married.
I love that man who's wearing the yellow trousers; we'll get married, I think.
I love that man who's wearing the yellow trousers - I think we'll get married.
I love that man who's wearing the yellow trousers - we'll get married, I think.
It's just personal preference some of the time - look at flow, style, meaning, etc, to make up your mind.
A final example:
I love that man, who wears yellow trousers, and, I think, we'll get married.
I love that man, who wears yellow trousers, and I think we'll get married.
I love that man, who wears yellow trousers, and we'll get married, I think.
The first example halts the flow too much but is technically acceptable because the "I think" is a parenthetical expression...
I prefer line 2.
Hope this helps.
