vary your sentence and paragraph length. let your verbosity ebb and flow, let your music swell and fade. don't be afraid to luxuriate in longer sentences and thicker paragraphs—within reason, of course—but don't get lost in those weeds.
short? punctuates.
but all short is like jagged stones
The length of the sentences should correspond with the speed of the story, I think. Long sentences will reduce the speed, short sentences will increase it. And a long sentence will feel as a relief after a series of really short ones.
yeah, definitely! very much an ebb and flow of pacing thing also. variety is always a relief. a long sentence can feel relaxing, like you can sink back into the text after choppy brusque speed. a short sentence is a bright clear yank if you've sunk too deep in the long ones.
Sometimes I think of it in terms of careful blocking for the characters and camera moves for the cinematographer in a reader's imagination (for folks who see when they read), like a longer sentence as a slow pan or tilt, or a lingering shot on a particular composition.
ohhhh that's a really neat way of thinking about it! I've found myself thinking about cinematography a lot in my current project, but more concretely in terms of where the shot is focused and at what scale (writing mecha combat involves a lot of switching around there)
