English is not my native language and so I worry that some of the strange use I have put to the language below is emerging Author's voice, (which I don't want to suppress), or just plain bad English. Please could you help me with these examples below and tell me what you prefer or how you would re-word it?
1. Every day, for someone, somewhere in the world- ‘today’ metamorphoses into ‘the’ day: too much use of the word day in this sentence?
2. we don’t often speak when he is traveling and when we do, one, or the both of us, are so tired, that it is a short conversation: are so tired or is so tired? Awkward sentence that I should reword?
3. Despite abjectly missing each other when we were apart, our reunions were fraught with tension, as though our lack of contact for weeks meant we had to relearn contours that had once been familiar/meant we had forgotten what had once been familiar and delightful: which alternate ending to the sentence do you prefer?
4. I freeze him with a glare of eye and contemptuous curl of lip, and he leaps back at my hostile expression.: delete ‘of eye’ from sentence and awkward use of language? I want to keep ‘of eye’ even if slightly ungrammatical as it is in sync with curl of lip
5. with a strange gleam in his eye.: Strange gleam to his eye? Which one?
6. Perched between his mother and me in the backseat: Perched between his mother and I?
Oops! I forgot to say - It isn't really possible to identify style from individual sentences - except that some things might be assumed from the vocabulary used.
I don't think that too much concern should be felt about this "style" thing though.
Okay - I am biased - (as people might have noticed) I don't plan much (if at all) and I just write... I suppose that in the same way that one can plan a lot one might decide to write in a style... To me that would suggest pretty much copying the way that someone else has previously written though.
Why do that? Why not write in one's own style?
A new writer hasn't got a style (yet)...
How will they get a style of their own if they push their writing into a borrowed or copied style?
I think that there are two ways of looking at style of one's own.
1. The act of wrting and developing one's writing will develop a style - hopefully one the writer and their readers will like.
Experience facilitates staying within style and greater experience faciliates massing about with style - and even jumping away into a completely different style for a set purpose.
All this flexibility will be negated if one adopts a defined/borrowed style.
2. I think that a lot of the concept of "style" comes from revue and criticism... It is something attributed and (I suspect) retro-active.
Did Plato set out to write in a style? That is - in a style that he identified as "a style". He probably did write within the norms and constructs of his time... His writings also probably adjusted in response to feed back (overt and obscured) to material that he made public.
Having started quite a way back I can cheat and simply ask the same about all the "great" writers since...
Everyone inevitably writes within the context of their "time" - even the immensely innovative author - but (unless they are copying, consciously emulating, or mimicking a style) they will at least initially write in an undeveloped "style" - possibly to the extent that their writing has no identifiable "style" at all... But their work may (eventually) come to be described as "distinclty in their own style".
It is not possible to have "style" until one creates it - or - perhaps - until someone identifies it...
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I also think that there is a commercial consideration that applies...
If we write in the style of Gladys Grundge - or if a revue or crtique says that we write in his style - will that put off a whole bunch of people that can't stand his writing before they even look at what we have done?
:-0
I did buy some books on grammar... never got round to reading much of any of them.
I have, however, read tons of books by all sorts of authors from brilliant to appalling.
As my mind doen't hold onto theoretical rules I find that I have learnt far more from the second than the first. In particular the bad writing has been useful as a means of guiding me away from some of the things to not do. (I may have invented a few others of my own).
To me the practical test of grammar is whether whatever grammar is used conveys meaning. That is all that it is there for.
I think that the suggestions above are all good - especially the one to read things aloud. Most of the punctuation marks in grammar are there (in one aspect) to facilitate indication of where a breath should be taken when reading aloud.
This can be used two ways.
(1) (the more common one). If a sentence seems to be too long - try it out loud. This will almost always show up excees length pretty fast... The first gasp for air pretty much indicates where the first gap should be / how far the first (primary) concept should go...
(1a) If the sentence hasn't reached the first concept by the time you have to surface for air there is a serious need to restructure the whole beast - probably converting the massive sentence into a paragraph of several sentences - of which the first should be the one that at least mentions the primary concept.
(2) (the less common - or less commonly checked - one). If a number of sentences (or even paragraphs) are too short. I think that it is possible to spot where this needs to be checked for when there are clearly a lot of very short sentences (obvious perhaps). This isn't always a problem as such. The easier thing to check - once a possible need is observed - is whether the sentences are in fact too short... Again - read aloud - in two ways... (a) very fast. (b) with exagerated pauses for all the full stops. Decide what the result means for you - and think a lot about what it will mean for a 1st time reader - then try some experiments with changing the work - if you decide that you do actually need to.
---As always - to try different arrangements - SAVE the original - then copy & paste to a working document to play games with the text - if you come up with an improved version you can compare the two (or six) - but you always have your original to go back to both for reference/comparison and if messing about doesn't seem to achieve anything. If you can afford the exhorbitant ink hard copies do make things easier when comparing.
Do keep in mind that sometimes very long sentences do work well... and sometimes a "lot" of very short sentences can also work well. There is no "rule" against either as such. Again - the significant thing is to convey meaning.
:-)
My grammar and punctuation is not the best. I make most mistakes when I am tired, or when I rush posts on this site.
I often refer to my copies of the Penguin Books on Grammar, Punctuation, and Plain English.
I also suggest you read your work aloud to see if your sentences flow.
I hope that helps.
Good luck.