Answer: Are Run-on Sentences Allowed in Dialog?
badtzphoto was wondering whether run-on sentences are allowed in dialogue. To answer this, we'll first take a closer look at the nature of run-on sentences and then explore what happens when one is used in dialog.
I once knew a technical fellow who wrote quite well, but he had a rather annoying idiosyncrasy: he was convinced that there was a certain word length at which a sentence became a run-on sentence. When I asked him to check over things that I had written, he was always picking out lengthy sentences with more than one clause and saying that they were run-ons. He was usually wrong.
First off, a run-on sentence need not be a long, convoluted sentence. The only true defining characteristic of a run-on sentence is that it contains multiple clauses joined without appropriate connectors:
"Well, if you don't want to play Leo and Stumpy, what do you want to play?" said Jem, and I could see he was trying to be reasonable with Dill on his first day back.
"Something different, something really swell. I read this new book the hero was a college professor, he was an explorer, he used a whip he had a gun too," said Dill, his eyes alight with his enthusiasm for his new hero.
Now, Dill might well have just spilled out his words this way, and if we were making a court transcript of his statement, that would be how we'd report it - even though it's hard on the reader who's trying to figure out why Dill loves this particular character. But as an author, you have far more control of your characters' utterances. Even if you don't want to make your loquacious young Mississippi lad speak with an orator's skills, you can break up his statements so that his explanation is easier for the reader to understand:
"Well, if you don't want to play Leo and Stumpy, what do you want to play?" said Jem, and I could see he was trying to be reasonable with Dill on his first day back in Maycomb.
"Something different, something really swell. I read this new book: the hero was a college professor and he was an explorer. He used a whip; he had a gun too," said Dill, his eyes alight with his enthusiasm for his new hero.
I've only added a single word to Dill's enthusiastic data dump: the coordinating conjunction and. I've also added several pieces of punctuation, including a period (full stop) to break the run-on sentence into two separate sentences. None of that really alters Dill's headlong speech: he's still speaking like a boy brimming with fervor about his new favorite story.
So are run-on sentences allowed in dialog? As you can see, it's not actually a matter of what's allowed: rather, it's a matter of letting your reader become immersed in your piece. Adding connecting words or punctuation (or both) makes it easier for your reader to understand what's going on. As contradictory as it may seem, choosing the connectors carefully allows your dialog to seem natural and artless without confusing your audience.
Sources
- Fragments and Run-ons (The Writing Center at UNC Chapel Hill)