When her husband died she decided that she needed a change of air. so she sold the house in London and went to live in Tuscany.
Do we need to put a comma between the words 'died' and 'she' ?
REMINDER: NOT A TEACHER
(1) I think that it would be helpful if you wrote:
When her husband died
, she decided that she needed a change of
air.
So she sold the house in London and went to live in Tuscany.
(a) In speech, there would be a natural pause after "died," so I think that
most American secondary teachers would strongly recommend a comma
in order to help guide readers (the purpose of punctuation?).
(b) A very (very) few teachers feel that "so" (when meaning "therefore") is
an adverb, and that it should not be used as a conjunction to connect two
independent sentences. Starting a new sentence with "so" would greatly please
those few strict teachers.
(i) Of course, many people would, indeed, write:
... needed a change of air
, so she sold the house ....