Being Independent Isn’t Always Good

Independence.  Children look forward to it. Parents look forward to it. Readers look forward to it—sometimes. Wait, what does a reader have to do with independence?

I’m talking about independent clauses. Independent clauses have a subject and a verb, and can stand alone as a sentence.  For example:

                Lucy is my dog. She is a pit bull. People are afraid of her. I don’t know why. She is gentle.

If you had to read an entire novel made up of independent clauses, you may not finish it. Just because a sentence is grammatically correct, doesn’t mean it should stand alone. Short choppy sentences have their place, but having too many of them is distracting.

How do you get away from too many independent clauses? Add punctuation and join the clauses together, or rewrite the paragraph.

A semicolon is a great way to express two independent clauses that are related. It creates a bit of tension or anticipation by letting the reader know there is something more to say:

                People are afraid of her; I don’t know why OR

                I don’t know why; she is gentle.

Here, I’m telling you that from my perspective, my dog isn’t scary. Joining two sentences makes the statement clear.

You can also use a comma with a conjunction:

                Lucy is my dog, and she is a pit bull.

                People are afraid of her, but I don’t know why.

A comma shows the reader that I’m not done letting them know what I think, and it shows that the two sentences have equal emphasis. Neither sentence is more important than the other.

I can also rewrite the sentence:

                Lucy is my gentle pit bull. I don’t know why people are afraid of her. OR

                People are afraid of my pit bull, Lucy. I don’t know why because she is gentle. OR

                I don’t know why people are afraid of my pit bull, Lucy. She is gentle.

By revising my words, I’ve put all of my thoughts into two sentences instead of five. I can also rearrange the independent clauses and change the emphasis from my dog to people to me.

Pay attention to independent clauses and make sure they highlight the point you want to make. If not, join them with another sentence or rewrite them so you have flow and clarity for your audience.