As I was reading along, thoroughly enjoying a murder mystery, this sentence stopped me cold. It’s a terrific example of a run-on sentence, and I couldn’t make sense of it:

“I’ve said no comment can’t comment and plain I really don’t know more times than I can count and your Mrs. Martin created some kind of furor at the marina.”

To fix it, I’d use single quotation marks to separate what the speaker is saying now from what he said in the past. Then I’d put the brakes on the run-on sentence with a semicolon, and add a few words to switch gears, like this:

“I’ve said ‘no comment,’ ‘can’t comment,’ and plain, ‘I really don’t know,’ more times than I can count; and by the way, your Mrs. Martin created some kind of furor at the marina.”

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Tara