The given example was a very mild one though. I read a sentence recently that had 40+ words, with nothing to seperate them but a comma. By the time I got to the end of it, I was oxygen deprived and needed to go take two paracetemol.
That's all right. Your co-author's character has been raised to depend on her looks, so it fits. I just wanted to know why the character kept mentioning that her dress was yellow!
Seems to me that in this case, "strong" and "weak" are being used metaphorically, not linguistically. As in verbs that are catch-alls and not vivid. "He went" is weak. "He ran," "he loped," "he barreled," etc., are strong.
@OurJud - Actually, obsidian has highlighted the one reason for ever using a comma splice, in FICTION. (Never anywhere else.) You might be occasionally wanting this oxygen-deprived effect. I've seen it used in dialogue, where the speaker is overly excited and wound up like an 8-day clock. I can't think of any other device that works better to give a run-on, breathless impression than the comma splice. But that IS the effect it has. If it's not the effect you're after, don't use it. "She spilled my bag all over the place, everybody in the whole store was watching, it was so embarrassing, now guess what, my credit cards are missing!" You could write it in a more ordinary fashion of course: "She spilled my bag all over the place. Everybody in the whole store was watching. It was so embarrassing. Now guess what? My credit cards are missing!" The two effects are totally different, though, aren't they? The first instance shows an overly excited speaker who probably wants somebody to do something about it NOW. You can see this person tugging frantically at the arm of the mall's security guard, or somebody like that. The second instance shows a speaker who is pretty pissed off, but relatively calm. She is telling her husband about the incident, now that she's home and realises her bag has been rifled-through. Best way to test this out is to have somebody else read your work out loud. When they get red in the face and start wheezing, you know you've got a problem. They will treat the comma as a very slight pause, which won't be enough to carry them through the next part of your 'sentence.' If you read it yourself, this trick doesn't work because you know where the pauses are and will give them enough space. But give it to somebody else who hasn't seen the piece before ...gasp...
I agree, I just think it's stupid to have a blanket ban on certain verbs, for whatever reason. And stupid to use words like "weak" and "strong" that already have a meaning. And stupid to somehow conflate a misunderstanding of "weak" verbs and a misunderstanding of passive voice into nonsense like "Is/Are/Was/Were/To be: These forms of the verb “to be” automatically create passive sentences..." from the list of "4 Types of Weak Verbs to Ignore" at http://www.writeenglish.org/english-writing/4-types-weak-verbs-avoid/. In summary - I think it's stupid.
Yes, I found that distracting, too, even downright annoying. After a few pages, I didn't really notice any longer, but still.
I've never thought of it like that. To me, a comma splice is just another device for mimicing the way people talk and so it sounds conversational to my ear. After @Tenderiser pointed out the many, many places where I used them, I did try to cut back, though. I know it's grammatically incorrect, but so are a lot of other devices we commonly use in writing—incomplete sentences being a big one. On the other hand, maybe it's because I grew up in a small town (practically a hillbilly, me) that I just don't see why it's such a big deal. Of course, I've also been known to say "ain't."
Hunger Games* is in present tense? I've only seen one of the movies (or is that two? Can't remember) Anyway, that sort of thing can drive me crazy, I try to avoid reading it, although it can be okay in short stories. One of Charles Stross's books is in second person, and I'm just avoiding that like the plague. *I didn't really enjoy the movies, but I have nothing against them. They're YA, and I'm not. However, I try not to dump on YA or kids' books because they may look like crap to us older folks, but if the kids like them, they're learning to like reading, which is good in the long run. ETA: There's another one of those ridonkulously long sentences I'm prone to, and I already chopped it into three. I need help.
And that was it in a nutshell. I was reading out loud; there was no context for my wheezing, and I struggled to get to get to the end of the sentence. It was, imo, being used as a means of exposition that wasn't working, and stood out like a sore thumb. Anything meant to be imparted ended up going over my head, due to my discomfort reading it. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the author's intention.
Now now, we do have to be patient with non-native speakers. In my first few years in Japan, I ordered a draft cheeseburger, told a nurse that I had dysentery when attempting to explain diarrhea, and had the following exchange (in Japanese) at the garden section of a DIY shop: Iain: Um, my apartment is a bonsai tree. There is a bug. Bug bug bug bug bug. Bug is one thousand. Um.... are you bug death here? Clerk: Um...ah, I see. Please look at this book. Which bug does your tree have? That one? Okay, this is the correct spray.
Agreed. I literally just saw a critique in the workshop where the member wrote: "Many passive verbs," without explanation or example, as if it's utterly self-explanatory. First off, I have no clue what "passive verbs" are and second, nothing's ever bad if used well, and if it's not used well then an explanation and example should be given! (in their defense that wasn't their only comment, but still)
95% of the time someone mentions "passive voice" on this forum, I'm pretty sure it's not passive voice at all (I'm not always sure whether something is passive or active voice, but I'm right most of the time). But "passive verbs" are a new one on me! I bet it's equally wrong...
I think it was just her trying to paint a vivid image but went a little over board haha! I didn't notice myself till you mentioned it lol.
Since the people on Level One automatically pegged her for a Level Seven, by the time I finished reading I thought S. could have/should have used the color and material of the dress as the reason they knew. But she never did. Kind of like a Chekov's popgun that never got fired.
Nah that would be too... I dunno, glaring. We both just thought people pegged her as Level 7 because lower levels wouldn't own such luxurious clothing - like how you can tell when someone's upper class vs lower class, you know? Yellow would have been a bit of a glaring choice had it been symbolic, considering gold/yellow was precisely the colour Italian courtesans had to wear, turning them into both a thing of envy (because gold thread was expensive and only the rich could afford it) as well as a thing of shame (because now everyone knows what you do for a living). Don't ask me exactly which century and which city - I honestly don't remember, but it was in my Women in the Italian Renaissance module
When I was in school, we had classes or courses. We didn't have "modules." I grew up thinking that modules were NASA spacecraft, like the Apollo Command Module and Lunar Module. I never heard of a Women in the Italian Renaissance Module - maybe that was a Russian spacecraft.
Funny, that's exactly why I thought bringing in that kind of sumptuary rule would have been perfect for Sery, in her, um, position. Very deliberately glaring, as in, "My dress shows I'm a Level Seven slave and these Level Ones all know I don't belong here." But on that note (sort of), a stylistic choice that gripes at me (did I use that verb correctly? Oh, well, colloquialism) is when a author fails to be vivid, or even glaring, if the scene demands it. You two avoided that, but I'm reading a lot of novels lately where crucial scenes are glossed over with summary. Drives me nuts!
I'm not sure I want to know the answer to this, as I do a lot of it, but are these comma splices? Chet was flat out in the passenger seat, fully reclined, mouth agape.
I don't know what you mean by complete sentences. They certainly wouldn't make much sense as stand-alone lines. What I'm trying to say in the sentence, is that this person was asleep in the passenger seat. His chair had been fully reclined, and his mouth was hanging open.
