The writer James Joyce was said to have remarked that he took years to write his most dense novel, and therefore he expected readers to take just as long to work through it. (At least that's what my English teacher told me he said.)
Do you feel the same way about your writing? Joyce was an extreme sentence writer - some could last whole chapters. But we're all sometimes guilty of just not being able to take a breathe. And long sentences are hard to read - especially for someone in a hurry.
When you're writing sales copy - a flyer, a fact sheet, a letter - it's worth taking another looking at what you've produced and seeing how many sentences could be cut in half at least. Here are some clues to look for:
- more than one "and" in a sentence
- a selection of conjunctions such as "and", "but", "yet" and "however"
- any sentence that spreads over more than three lines
And finally, the semi-colon ";".
Mrs Hooper said - if you have semi-colon in your sentence, look at it again and you'll actually find you've got two sentences tied together merely by punctuation. Use a full stop and a capital letter instead, and your words will be instantly easier to read and more meaningful.
Semi-colons do have a place in separating lists of phrases that already contain commas. Although if you've got that sort of list, a clearer option is to go for bullet points. If you look at my bulleted list above, how much harder would it have been to struggle through if I'd put the list all in one sentence?
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