By way of a bit of bonus content, I decided I should quickly follow up this week’s latest post with another one in which I put my money where my mouth is, by sharing an example of me putting all that I think and feel about long sentences into practice.

The block of text below is a single sentence, all 326 words of it, which is taken from the latest draft of my as-yet-unpublished first novel, R.C.

(You’ll notice that the sentence has deliberate spiritual roots in the paragraph from J G Ballard’s Crash that I quoted in the previous blog post. Remember, the book was originally called Ballardville, after all.)

For anyone except the small number of test readers who’ve seen an early draft of R.C., there’ll be no context for what’s happening here, but that’s fine for now. Judge it on its own merits, and figure out for yourself if it feels like a good sentence or a bad one. Ask yourself what you think about my word choices — about any vocabulary repetitions that are in there, and about if they’re conscious or unconscious — about whether these punctuation marks might have been better replaced by other ones. See if there’s a point when confusion sinks in, and if so, when, and if not, why not.

Above all else, I hope it entertains and intrigues and amuses and challenges you. Above all else, I hope it brings you as much pleasure to read as it gave me to write. 

You could even have fun, as I have had fun, trying to read it out loud, and seeing what that feels like. If you do, remember to pace yourself when it comes to your breathing — and don’t worry if you need to gulp or wet your lips more than once. This is not a sentence designed to be completed on a single lungful of air.

So, if you’re ready…

Here goes… 

“Seemingly from nowhere, a man in a neon orange tuxedo and a woman in a cheetah-print catsuit lurched up to Kaori, showering her with effusive air kisses and extravagantly praising her dress, twirling her around like a ballerina in a music box, but after they spent a minute talking at her with wild hand gestures and bursts of manic laughter, throughout which she smiled serenely without processing a single word, Kaori gently bowed and slowly said, “Please excuse me, but I must not neglect my other guests,” and away she moved, only to be assailed by a woman in an expansive turquoise chador, who placed three kisses alternately on Kaori’s cheeks and told her how divine her dress was, before proceeding straight into a monologue about the blue leather Santa suit she had just created for one of Kaori’s upstairs neighbours, and Kaori smiled graciously but without understanding, apologised that she must head off to avoid neglecting any of her other guests, and off she floated, barely getting three steps away before being harangued by another person and another and another, American erotic novelists elevated into viscountesses by marriage to landed gentry tech bros, former government ministers seeking to rehabilitate their reputations in new roles as United Nations envoys or patrons of adult literacy campaigns, Paralympian dames embarking on post-competition careers as motivational speakers, pansexual pornographic actors touting for publishing deals for their ghostwritten memoirs, over-made-up wives of Gulf State bankers desperate for acceptance on their own merits and not merely for their husbands’ wealth, struck-off cosmetic dentists and male models past their prime and independent filmmakers who had never bettered the precocious peak of their very first Oscar-winning short, all swarming at Kaori from every side to tell her how much they liked her dress before instantly bombarding her with the pointless trivialities of their own preoccupations, chased down by coupes of champagne or by one of the arrogant mixologists’ most lurid and pretentious concoctions.”

And… breathe…..