by Tom Mach

I think you can have fun trying not to get published by composing a group of run-on sentences that seem to go on forever and then typing them together, but you can only do this until you find that your mind has become numb and you no longer can continue writing so that you have to stop at some point and catch your breath. The trick is to pack as much as you can in one sentence and then try reading it aloud without stopping to catch your breath. If you absolutely must stop to prevent yourself from turning blue and from feeling like your neck is caught in a hangman’s noose, then you know you still don’t have the kind of run-on sentence that ensures non-publication.

There are a few exceptions to this rule, however. My dribble caught the eye of Scott Rice, who sponsors the Bulwer-Lytton Contest. Dr. Scott had been collecting the funniest opening sentences from the worst novels ever written. I guess he liked what I had sent him since he decided to publish it in one of his “it was a Dark and Stormy Night” editions. It was quite disappointing to see my name in print in one of his editions, but I suppose if I tried hard enough, even Dr. Scott would turn it down.

For practice on how not to get published by writing run-on sentences try the following. Pretend you are going to write a novel that begins with “It was a dark and stormy night” and see how far you can get with it in order to turn the stomach of an editor. Here’s an example:

It was a dark and stormy night, yet it was light enough for Colonel Tidwell Etchinghouse to observe that a harlot named Rosanne Doodlewinkle had allowed a man whom Colonel Etchinghouse recognized as General Sindleton Formachoise III to enter Ms. Doodlewinkle’s house of ill repute and had indeed even laughed at one of his nauseating pundits. Etchinghouse reached for his Leica Duvoid binoculars, switched the magnification from 8x to 12x, and focused his attention on the upstairs window, and after waiting patiently, saw the general and the voluptuous demimondaine arrive at the room, wherein Rosanne Doodlewinkle then proceeded to relieve herself of her garments while General Formachoise III took his sword from his scabbard and began waving it about, causing Rosanne Doodlewinkle to make such a fuss and commotion that Colonel Etchinghouse opened his mouth in horror, and his false teeth as well as his pride fell to the ground.

The above paragraph contains 150 words but it is only two sentences long. However, it is packed with as much information as you’d get in a twenty-page chapter of a published novel. Then why, you ask, wouldn’t an editor want a condensed story like the one above? The answer is simple. Publishers today have the idea that a reader wants to savor these scenes, chewing them in their mind like a caramel instead of swallowing them whole like a pill. So what you, as a person who doesn’t want to get published, should do is to write so that you don’t allow readers to savor anything.

You might well extend this to allowing the secret to get out early on in the story so that the reader isn’t curious anymore about what happens next. Consider the following example:

Detective Eugene Joskawich waved the policemen aside and headed for the body on the living room carpet. A man in his forties lie dead, blood oozing from his side, his eyes frozen into a horrific stare. Next to him was something written on a ledger tablet. Joskawich picked it up and caught his breath as he read it. The note said that a reporter named Mary Higgenbottom wanted to kill him for his infidelity to her. Joskawich surveyed the room and spotted a blonde reporter. “Are you Mary Higgenbottom?” he asked. “Yes,” she answered, her face breaking into tears, “and I’m glad I killed him.” End of story. No mystery. No suspense. No publication.

Of course, this all takes practice. What I suggest you do is look at published books and find out what you can do to make their sentences much longer than they are. If possible, also try to rewrite the story so you can take the mystery out of the plot much sooner.

The road to non-publication doesn’t have to be a dreary one. You just have to work at it.

Copyright © 2003 by Tom Mach

Tom can be reached at:
TomMach62@yahoo.com