Reader flow is possibly the most important thing that a writer has to keep in mind next to good story telling. The idea is that you want your reader to be immersed. Immersion, of course, means that you cannot make your reader work too hard in reading your work.
Often writers find themselves writing overly verbose and complicated sentences (I am certainly guilty of this). This is usually because of a love for the language, but these overly complicated sentences forces a reader to reread a sentence. This is not what you want! When a reader has to reread a sentence you as a writer have failed at your job. No matter how beautiful that sentence may be, your reader’s experience is more important. Only break this rule if you have a very specific reason.
Short and succinct sentences can carry a faster pace that longer sentences do not. They are better for action scenes, building suspense, and for creating horror. If you want “to cheat” by not removing your comma key (because you are no fun and you hate belligerent whimsy), try downloading The Hemingway Editor. This app will help you find overly complicated sentences and suggest which ones you need to break up or rewrite.
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