: Re: Very long sentences: personal style or just bad writing? I'm writing a story targeted towards children in which the protagonist is a young girl. I find that in writing her dialog and the narrative,

@Debbie451

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I'd have to see these excerpts in context of her thoughts in other situations, but I think if you're doing it deliberately to mimic her feelings and thoughts, it's fine. It feels like nervous-energy stream-of-consciousness, and if that's what you're aiming for, you have it down nicely.

If you're trying for a slightly silly book, I'd even ramp it up a bit more and throw in some hyperbole:

The work was good to focus on to keep her mind off her troubles — especially once she was done gathering the wood and no longer had to wander around so much — and in no time at all she had a small fire going, which turned into a bigger fire, and then an even bigger fire, and then a ripping great fire, and then a fire which was really rather too large for her taste, thank you very much, and she had to rush about and find a really long stick so she could poke at the logs and spread them out so they'd settle down and behave themselves like proper firewood logs ought to, which is to say burn respectably and give off some heat and light and not try to set the woods ablaze.

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