If you're on the fence about this, go find some writing you love and copy paste it into here. I pasted the first chapter of some of my favorite authors' best books into it and each of them got assessed at Grade 3 writing level, even Rothfuss. And it lit up a bunch of clear sentences as hard to read.
What makes a long winding sentence hard to read is the switchbacks and nested bits. You want to keep moving without doubling back.
If you split up clauses, having things modify other things across long distances with other ideas in between, it can get complicated.
vs
It can get complicated if you split up clauses, having things modify other things across long distances with other ideas in between.
Both are flagged by the app, but the latter takes up less working memory and can be "parsed in constant space" as the sentence grows.
Academic writing is littered with this issue.
What makes a long winding sentence hard to read is the switchbacks and nested bits. You want to keep moving without doubling back.
If you split up clauses, having things modify other things across long distances with other ideas in between, it can get complicated.
vs
It can get complicated if you split up clauses, having things modify other things across long distances with other ideas in between.
Both are flagged by the app, but the latter takes up less working memory and can be "parsed in constant space" as the sentence grows.
Academic writing is littered with this issue.