: Is the following allowed under the ungrammatical exceptions in fiction? I wrote the following: Under the shelter of the inn, a barbecue was taking place, red coal glowing in the dark

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Everyone got stuck on the length of the sentences, which is completely irrelevant here, in my opinion. It's neither an overly long nor a confusing sentence. The question was about grammar.

I see nothing wrong with the grammar here, but if you're worried with the "and", have you though of splitting it this way:

Under the shelter of the inn, a barbecue was taking place, red coal
glowing in the dark and tiny sparks fluttering around from time to
time.

into:

Under the shelter of the inn, a barbecue was taking place, red coal
glowing in the dark. Tiny sparks fluttered around from time to
time.

You still keep the flow of the sentence, you don't make it look choppy as jwpat7 noticed, you got rid of the "and" that was bothering you, and you have a combination of a long and a short sentence, which adds to the overall dynamic of the text (which of course depends on the rest of the text, but it's something to pay attention to).

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with the first sentence. In fact, I think it's stylistically preferable to the second, though that's just how I see it. The first seems to evoke an image, while the second seems just to state facts dispassionately - to me, anyway. I think it's because in the first sentence, the glowing red coals and the sparks are connected with the barbeque, rather than being introduced later on.

EDIT: I don't think I have made much sense. I'm not saying, of course, that you run everything into one sentence, or that you should write sentences like yours all the time. What I immediately felt upon reading your sentences was what I've said above. I might feel differently, if every sentence you wrote was like that. It would feel like the same style was being overused. Simple sentences are effective, too, and I can think of situations in which you might prefer the second style to the first (though not perhaps given these sentences in particular): for instance, simple and short sentences can be used when you're dealing with a tense situation, and you want every moment that passes to feel significant to the reader. This isn't the only situation, and you may not always want to do this in this sort of situation.

The point is, this isn't ungrammatical, and you should keep it.

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It is not ungrammatical to use two absolute phrases connected by a conjunction (like "and"). Long sentences can be more difficult to read and tend to slow the pace of the narrative, but in this case a slower pace is appropriate, like a warm, lazy evening.

Taking jwpat7's suggestion about the tense of the main verb and the use of the plural "coals", I offer the following alternative:

Under the shelter of the inn, a barbecue welcomed the warm evening, red coals glowing in the dark and occasional tiny sparks fluttering into the air.

(Although this alternative is unlikely to fit the particular context of your writing, you are free to use any part of it without attribution.)

"welcomed the warm evening" might be too flowery (and "warm evening" might be redundant with previous or later text), but "welcomed" enhances the feel of safety brought by "shelter of the inn" and adds a small (likely appropriate) feel of community and "warm evening" seems to increase the relaxed feeling. Moving "from time to time" from the end of the sentence (and changing it to "occasional") allows "fluttering into the air" to be at the end; having the somewhat whimsical "fluttering" and breath sound of "air" at the end of the sentence (with its pause) seems to add a calm, relaxed feeling ("ah"), which also seems to fit the setting of a safe, relaxed environment. "into the air" is a relatively small change in meaning/tone from "around"; "around" emphasizes some degree of persistence while "into the air" seems to express more of a temporary rising.

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I prefer the first of the two examples; the second seems choppy. It would read slightly better with “Red coals” in place of “The red coal”. (That is, coal should be plural in both examples, and there should be no article before it.) I might or might not add with or its to the first:

Under the shelter of the inn, a barbecue took place, with red coals glowing in the dark and tiny sparks fluttering about.
Under the shelter of the inn, a barbecue takes place; red coals glow in the dark, sparks flutter from time to time.

I suggest avoiding the past continuous tense (like “was taking place”) in narrative, and using either simple past (“took place”) or present (“takes place”). Past continuous seems stilted, verbose, misleading.

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Context is important, and this question is hard to answer. But I'll try.

Sentence length is something that creates a rhythm in the text. For example, let's think of a situation where you have successively longer sentences, coming one after the other, and the reader has to parse them. Next, a short sentence appears.

My point is that whether you go with a longer, flowing sentence or two shorter ones is entirely dependent on the context. While I actually prefer combining these two sentences, I think your specific example of a unified sentence is a little clumsy. But perhaps it fits brilliantly with the text surrounding it; we don't know.

So if you want easy-to-parse description, something the reader will breeze through, go with the two short sentences. If you want a more flowing, immersive, artistic paragraph, go with the single sentence.

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Well, nobody will put you to jail for that. Your editor will probably correct it anyways, before the book gets published.

But is there any particular reason why you want to connect two sentences? For your readers it will be more difficult to read, as instead of two short sentences which they are able to catch in one look of the eye, they get a longer one, which hardly make a whole.

Remember that most of the people don't read books word after word, whispering each of them silently. That's only what we, writers, tend to do. This way such a trick won't give you anything, maybe except for problems. ;)

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