Run ons

Thank you, guys.

Sorry, I missed Chrispy's post too. Read both now and do (vaguely) understand what you're both saying. My trouble is that I have a hard time relating things I'm told to what I actually do. If that makes sense. I mean, I can see in your examples what's wrong and what's right, but wouldn't see that in, or how it relates to, my own stuff.

(Thanks, springs).
 
Mouse said:
So again, I've still no idea whether I am actually doing run ons or not. I hate it when one person says one thing and someone else says something else! Gets me so confused...
Click to expand...
It's up to those disagreeing - i.e. not you - to explain why they're saying the things they do. I've tried to explain (albeit not in a way you can follow, it seems), but until those apparently disagreeing explain their reasoning, we're all stuck.
 
I think I'm going to take the dog out and try to clear the grammar fuzz from my head! It may make sense when I return. Heh.
 
Shall I try?

A run-on, according to that arbiter of punctuation, wikipedia, (there is nothing about this in my "Essential Guide to Grammar" book you'll be pleased to know) is where two separate sentences are joined inappropriately. (Presumably they're thought to be run on as the first sentence should have ended with a full stop before the other started, but instead it ran on into the other.)

If you have proper punctuation (eg a semi-colon) or a proper conjunction/linking word (eg and or but) then you can join as many sentences as you want, without being a run-on, though obviously after a while it begins to look ungainly.

So the dread comma splice "He walks forward, she turns" is by this definition a run-on. But sentences like "He walks forward as she turns" or "He walks forwards; she turns" or "He walks forward so she turns" aren't. (Whether they're any good is another question, of course.)

To my mind there are no run-ons in those two sentences you quote, which is perhaps why you're getting confused. However, the comma after "task" is a problem we've raised on Chrons before. Strictly, you should hive off "as she returned to her task" into its own sub-clause:
He crouched down and, as she returned to her task, he snapped a few shots.
Click to expand...
but that can read as unnecessarily stilted, so I certainly wouldn't insist on it. (I spend inordinate amounts of time putting commas in constructions like that then taking them out again.)

Basically, Mouse, if you want my advice, just keep writing as you are.


EDIT: Pish. spent so much time on this everyone and his/her spouse has answered again.
 
Thanks, TJ. That does make sense.

To be honest, I may be misunderstanding which bit of those sentences Glisterspeck was pointing out as a run-on. It could've been: She paused when she spotted him, head lowered to the bird, her tail waving fiercely. (Which I would've thought was a bit splicey but would've left, but if it's a run-on, maybe it's something different).

Anyways, so my original beginning paragraph is (as well as all having the same sentence structure and being a bit pap) full of run-ons, yes? Here:

[FONT=&quot]The knees of Daniel's trousers were soaked through from the dewy grass and his legs were stiff. His breath steamed in front of him and he crouched to look through his camera lens. Red deer chomped at the ground on the hillside in the distance and he adjusted the height on his tripod a little to get them in the frame. A mist swirled lazily in the valley below them and the palest of blues stained the dawn sky.[/FONT]

So, I've changed it to:

The knees of Daniel's trousers were soaked through from the dewy grass and his legs were stiff. As he crouched to look through the camera lens, his breath steamed in front of him. On the hillside in the distance, red deer chomped at the ground and he adjusted the height on his tripod a little to get them in the frame. A mist swirled lazily in the valley below them, and the palest of blues stained the dawn sky.

(Now, ignoring the fact that it's still a bit dodgy... is it grammatically correct and run-on free?)

Thanks!
 
Wow, this topic's certainly got everyone commenting. Ursa put it the easiest way, tbh. You know what a sentence is, right? If you join two without any connecting words like and/because/if/or, etc., you've got a run on. And if you stick a comma between two sentences, you have a comma splice.

A sentence: I love eating.
Another sentence: My cat loves eating.
A run-on: I love eating my cat loves eating.
A comma splice: I love eating, my cat loves eating.

And a verb is a word that shows action:

The cat SAT on the mat.
The dog WHISTLED.
The clouds DRIFTED.
I SNEEZED.
My hand ACHES.

:)

And no, I'm sorry to say, Glitterspeck is wrong. Your original sentence -

He crouched down and as she returned to her task, he snapped a few shots. Satisfied, he stowed the camera away again and moved off through the trees, whistling for the dog to follow.

- has no run-ons. Also, this one -

The knees of Daniel's trousers were soaked through from the dewy grass and his legs were stiff. His breath steamed in front of him and he crouched to look through his camera lens. Red deer chomped at the ground on the hillside in the distance and he adjusted the height on his tripod a little to get them in the frame. A mist swirled lazily in the valley below them and the palest of blues stained the dawn sky.

- has no run-ons either.

To give it run-ons, you'd have to have written something like:

The knees of Daniel's trousers were soaked through from the dewy grass his legs were stiff. His breath steamed in front of him he crouched to look through his camera lens. Red deer chomped at the ground on the hillside in the distance he adjusted the height on his tripod a little to get them in the frame. A mist swirled lazily in the valley below them the palest of blues stained the dawn sky.


You could even have written a huuuuge run-on:

The knees of Daniel's trousers were soaked through from the dewy grass his legs were stiff his breath steamed in front of him he crouched to look through his camera lens. Red deer chomped at the ground on the hillside in the distance he adjusted the height on his tripod a little to get them in the frame a mist swirled lazily in the valley below them the palest of blues stained the dawn sky.


Alternatively, if you want to make the sentence comma-spliced, you'd have this:

The knees of Daniel's trousers were soaked through from the dewy grass, his legs were stiff. His breath steamed in front of him, he crouched to look through his camera lens. Red deer chomped at the ground on the hillside in the distance, he adjusted the height on his tripod a little to get them in the frame. A mist swirled lazily in the valley below them, the palest of blues stained the dawn sky.

Ages ago I'd written about run-ons on my website tips page (also, verbs, nouns, adverbs, adjectives, etc.)
 
Hmm. Okay. Thanks. So I don't think I do run-ons then. Maybe. It makes sense now, it's just knowing what's right.
 
Hi Mouse,

This was pretty instructive and I hope you got as much out of it as I did. You had reason to be frustrated and asking not only got some answers but it demonstrated the need to double check your editors sometimes.

Otherwise when you think you're being clever and have a character inside a box looking out and it's pitch black everywhere, inside and out, and the character says,'It's dark in here with more dark outside'; you don't get stung when the editor changes it to, 'It's dark in here and darker outside'. (It really wasn't darker outside it was the same dark just more of it.)
 
75-100 word sentences are fine and dandy, long's they make sense that is. \not something you should worry about methinks.
 
You gave an example. I agree with others who say there are no run-on sentences here.

[FONT=&quot]The knees of Daniel's trousers were soaked through from the dewy grass and his legs were stiff. His breath steamed in front of him and he crouched to look through his camera lens. Red deer chomped at the ground on the hillside in the distance and he adjusted the height on his tripod a little to get them in the frame. A mist swirled lazily in the valley below them and the palest of blues stained the dawn sky.
[/FONT]
But there is room to improve. Notice that each of the sentences has an "and" in it. Nothing grammatically wrong there, but notice too that each sentence is about the same length and the "and" breaks the sentence in about the same place.

Dan's trousers were soaked AND his legs were stiff. Red deer grazed AND he adjusted his camera. A mist swirled AND the sky was blue. Do you see the problem? It's repetitive in structure. Each sentence also has a different focus, so the reader gets these fragments--pants, legs, deer, camera, mist, sky. Perhaps your beta reader was reacting to this more than to strict grammar.

BTW&IMO, the only person whose opinion on grammar matters is your editor. While still at the beta read stage, one's attention should be more on story telling.

Excellent thread!
 
Yep, ta. Ursa pointed out all the sentences had the same structure in that beginning para and I've changed it, so hopefully it's better now.
 
I don't think any of those sentences in your original paragraph are technically run-ons (although, to be fair, "run-on" didn't mean what all these people are saying when I was in school), but I don't like that paragraph because it is four sentences that are the same. This happened and that happened. He did this and he did that. Four in a row that are paced the same bother me, even though they are technically just fine individually.

Your rewrite changes only one of them to a different construction. I would probably try to turn another of them into two shorter sentences, just to break it up.

The knees of Daniel's trousers were soaked through from the dewy grass and his legs were stiff. As he crouched to look through the camera lens, his breath steamed in front of him. On the hillside in the distance, red deer chomped at the ground. He adjusted the height on his tripod a little to get them in the frame. A mist swirled lazily in the valley below them, and the palest of blues stained the dawn sky.
 
I think I will change it to that. Thanks, TDZ. I spent ages yesterday downloading free-reader programs and getting computerised people with different accents to read the para out and honestly, it sounded fine, but in my head I wanted to put something else after the 'breath steamed in front of him' bit, but couldn't think what. I think snipping that third sentence works.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top