SB, my fellow grammar queen! That's not at all my issue. Hell, I use dashes -- all the time! -- and run sentences on over and over myself. But that's here, on a message board. My style is TOTALLY conversational. I write that way, too, even at the expense of some grammar and syntax rules sometimes. In conversation, it's not necessary all the time to be "proper"; in fact, it's discouraged.

But in writing prose -- and while a conversational tone is essential -- you need to have the words flow smoothly without straining the reader. That's my point.

It's like watching a movie: If you can tell there was an edit, it was a bad edit. Same thing in writing: if you can tell there's something awkward, there's probably something wrong.

That doesn't make it a bad movie or book; but, it's something that's just not right. And what's the opposite of that? Something better.

When it comes down to it, it's not a problem with the words themselves, but more about punctuation. 300 words with only commas -- while not necessarily incorrect, technically -- will not be conversational tone. Nor will it be easy to read or follow.

Any distraction noticed while you're reading is a bad thing. I'd rather have some poor grammar (albeit distracting enough!) than an awkward flow that makes you pay attention to the WRITING and NOT to what is being said.