Heh. Used to have impassioned differences of opinion with one of my linguistics professors IN CLASS. But she was a linguistics geek too, so everybody enjoyed it. Except, perhaps, the other students. XD

Yep. Syntax was my favourite class back at Uni. (Though phonetics & phonology was pretty interesting as well and semantics and language dysfunctions due to brain damage and... ah, well.)

Are there linguistics professors that aren't linguistics geeks? What an odd concept.

Best book on Punctuation I've found so far (and I've read five cover to cover): A Dash of Style, by Noah Lukeman. It's a about style and voice and how they are created/supported by punctuation, not about classroom opinions of "right" or "wrong" punctuation. It's aimed specifically at fiction writers, so it's about the creative use of punctuation, about its literary effects, not just about clarity, which is the major concern of the non-fiction writer (and of all the other books on punctuation I've seen so far). A Dash of Style has lots of brilliant examples and a check list at the end of each chapter to help you analyze and develop your own punctuation (and writing) style.

As for your question of how far to take grammar: as far as you can, if you plan on querying agents or editors. Anything to make your manuscript stand out from all the other slush...

Having said that, punctuation is near the bottom of a long list of writing skills a beginning writer should work on, far below how to develop interesting characters, an exciting plot, and solid scene structure; how to write inspiring description and engaging dialogue; how to handle exposition; how to compose paragraphs ...

So I wouldn't worry about punctuation too much until after finishing the first draft of your novel or your first dozen or so short stories.

Now maybe this will ensure that I will be damned forever in the eyes of my Classicist brethren, but I still don't think a little dog latin is an unforgivable faux pas.

Surely not unforgivable, just embarrassing. Using Latin in your novel is a bit like bragging, and if you do that, you might want to get it right. 

I am prepared to believe he did that deliberately.

Ah, but in my eyes, that would diminish the achievement. Anybody can make a mistake (and it's a very small one, as mistakes go), but it does show a great sense of humor to admit to it and use it for your story and make a wonderful joke about it. So I prefer to think it was a mistake. 

Uilos, I've just noticed: in your second post you say "Shadow's Death" (= one shadow, so it's Mors Umbrae), but in your first post, you say Death of Shadows. So, if it's more than one, the correct translation is:

Mors Umbrarum = Death of (the) Shadows, or
Nex Umbrarum = (violent) Death of (the) Shadows, or
Umbrarum Nex = Shadows' (violent) Death

(word order is a stylistic choice)

Pluto, God of the Roman Underworld, was called: Umbrarum Rex (King of Shadows/dead spirits), so Umbrarum Nex would be a bit of a world play.

Well, if I were paid in penny per so many words, I certainly wouldn't waste time on chapter titles! It only takes a moment to add another sentence to a chapter, but to find the perfect title? Well, let's just say that takes a lot longer. 

As for chapter titles being a relic from the old days when most fiction was published serially in magazines, why, I can imagine they might come back into style one of these days, as we live in times of decreasing attention spans and increasing number of things competing for our attention.

No CTRL (see microsoft link) needed to type l'accent grave (è), l'accent aigu (é), or l'accent circonflexe (â) at least in my version of Word. Just type the accent followed by the letter.

Another great book:

Noah Lukeman -- A Dash of Style

Now, it says it's about "The Art and Mastery of Punctuation"  but Lukeman takes a creative approach that's unlike any book on punctuation. He has the novelist in mind, not non-fiction writers. The book is really about writing clear, smooth sentences.

Sorry, I didn't say it explicitly, but I was trying to answer your original question "How to make my writing less bouncy." All my suggestions, except 6 and 12 perhaps, were written with that in mind.

(So I would argue that it's not an esoteric question at all, but one of craft.)

Taking care of these things will help with the rhythm. You do have an eye for interesting details, paragraph structure, and you dish out information in chewable bits, not dumping them on the reader, so it bodes well. 

There are many things I like about your writing (e.g. your use of vivid detail, such as: more rust than paint, or comments like: I was named after a horse -- laconic and intriguing) but you didn't ask for a critique, only for comments on what might be wrong with your rhythm, so that's what I commented on. 

You might want to check out a guide on line editing or improving your style or writing for clarity at the library. There's some useful advice here (starting with #12) -- http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html#13

I think you were tired of reading it by the second paragraph

Since commenting on the first part took me an hour, it doesn't have anything to do with being tired of reading.

It was also Stephen King (I think) who said: First drafts are crap. They're supposed to be.

So that shouldn't discourage you. A first draft should get the story down, no matter how bouncy or faulty the prose. Don't compare it to published works. Every writer, no matter how experienced, needs to revise their manuscript.

Thing is, the more effortless (smooth, less bouncy) a text appears to the reader, the more effort the writer put into it.

Regarding sentence length, you do vary it sufficiently, imo. Some sentences will be shorter once you've edited out some of the adjectives or expressions like "kind of" or "aside from the fact that." Other sentences (like the first) will appear shorter if you put the verb in earlier.

Good luck!


P.S.

You may have been looking for what could be considered wrong rather than what is wrong.

I assure you I wasn't. I'm not a teacher but a writer, translator, and linguist. Still, everything I said was a suggestion. There's no such thing as an objective opinion.