Faulkner played with language in innovative ways that had previously never been explored. He left the stodgy, flowery writing style that preceded the modernist era for something utterly unique, even in modernist circles. For one, he has a single, grammatically correct sentence of 1288 words. That sentence has a rhythm to the prose that feels like running a long distance, footfalls of pace and sound. He also used colloquial language to great effect, and as far as The Sound and The Fury, his use of multi-voiced narration, and alternate perspectives was considered groundbreaking (he initially wanted to use color-coded to pages to differentiate the narrative voices.).