Writing 1103: Punctuation

Punctuation

Punctuation is, just in general, a boring topic. It’s the necessary nuts and bolts of writing; nothing flashy or pretty about it. But, like the essential underpinning of most endeavors, it’s one of those things that can make or break your work. Mainly because punctuation has the power to change the meaning of your work. Proper punctuation helps readers understand what you’re saying clearly; it makes the book more readable and more visually pleasing.

Rather than a dry, textbook walkthrough, I’m hoping to word things my own way here, in this post, so that it’s a little more enjoyable to read about, and to hopefully highlight things in a more practical way. Specifically, I’m going to talk about commas, semicolons, and colons.

Commas

The period at the end of a sentence is a simple thing. It’s finite, and only used for one thing. Commas, though, have lots of uses.

Think of them this way: if a period is a full stop, then a comma is a pause. A place to take a quick breath, and make the meaning of the sentence clearer. This graphic covers it pretty well:

The instance in which I see commas missed most often is in complex sentences (you can find my sentence structure post here). You want to separate your independent and dependent clauses with commas to show that two things are happening concurrently, and to indicate that the dependent clause is a separate thought that further explains the independent clause.

Here’s an example. Read this sentence out loud:

The rain fell in dense sheets slamming the side of the house.

Now, if you read it straight through without any pauses, there’s a good chance you knew what I was saying, but it sounds awkward, doesn’t it? That’s because the sentence needs a pause. The phrase “slamming the side of the house” emphasizes just how hard the rain is falling. It’s an added-on thought, one that enhances the sentence. The correct punctuation would be:

The rain fell in dense sheets, slamming the side of the house.

Read it aloud again, and you pause when you reach the comma. This changes the sound of the sentence, and its rhythm. When I talk about writers needing to read actively, this is what I mean. Take note of the pauses, and you’ll start to understand where they go and why; they aren’t arbitrary. Commas are a way to link several phrases in one sentence so that, when read together, the fragments can make one complete thought.

Here’s a paragraph I wrote this morning for Red Rooster:

The trail led him another block, and then veered down into an alley, the kind that was the perfect place to hide. Crammed with dumpsters and smaller trash cans, stacks of pallets and shipping boxes. The unwashed, dirt and urine stink of them was strongest here, burning in his nostrils, drawing a deep, rumbling growl out of his chest.

I’ve highlighted the commas in bold, so they stand out. The first comma, after “block,” provides a pause between two separate thoughts. In this instance, the comma should always come before the “and” that links two phrases together into one compound sentence. The second comma in this sentence, after “alley,” separates an independent and dependent clause. Without the comma – reading it as “veered down an alley the kind that was the…” – the sentence makes no sense because the reader would realize that they’ve shifted from one clause into another without any warning, and would then have to go back and reread the sentence several times to make sense of it. This isn’t good because you don’t want to make the story work for the audience – not that kind of work, anyway. Putting the comma after “alley” lets the audience know that a connected idea is to follow, in this case a fragment that makes no sense unless connected to the clause in front of it.

In the second sentence, the comma is used to separate items in a list. The sentence on the whole is a fragment, which is allowable in fiction.

In the third sentence, the first comma is used to separate two descriptors. When describing the way the wolves smell, the words “unwashed” and “dirt” are separate scents in Sasha’s mind, so they needs be separated by a comma in the sentence. Otherwise, it would read as “unwashed dirt.” With the comma, the reader knows those are two different scents. The next two commas are separating dependent clauses – the smell was burning his nostrils and drawing a growl out of his chest. What kind of growl? A “deep, rumbling” growl, the comma serving to separate the qualities of “deep” and “rumbling” here.

Semicolons

Semicolons have a bit of a bad rap for being “snooty.” It’s not entirely unearned, but that’s only because semicolons are a little more complicated to use than a comma or period, and can be overused. I personally love them, even if that makes me snooty.

I like to think of them this way: as fancy, more permanent commas. Semicolons are used to separate two completely separate thoughts, or to separate lengthy items in a list. When you read a sentence with a semicolon aloud, you would take a large pause, almost a full stop, and read the second part of the sentence as if it was its own sentence entirely.

From Red Rooster, here’s an example of a semicolon used to separate listed items:

Trina had borrowed clothes from Colette: slouchy jeans with patches of silk, and lace, and velvet; a blousy peasant top with flowers embroidered around the collar.

And here’s an example of two complete thoughts:

It wasn’t dirty; the concrete walls and copper pipes all seemed to be in excellent shape, no leaks or wet patches or mold.

In this instance, I chose to use a semicolon rather than a period to show that the first sentence, though read as a separate thought, is strongly connected to the first line “it wasn’t dirty.” I use semicolons to separate closely linked complete thoughts.

Colons:

In a basic sense, colons are used to signify the start of a list. Also, and this is the tricky part, to link a dependent clause that describes another. I don’t personally like to use them often, and there’s generally some room for debate as to whether a colon or semicolon should have been used. When I use them, I like to make sure there’s a very strong link between the clauses, that what follows the colon explicitly explains the initial clause. Here’s two examples back to back:

To be a werewolf was to be an actual wolf: patient, cunning, territorial, and pack-oriented. It was nothing like the movies said: being overtaken by a creature that drove you to blindly attack and kill, rabid and unreasonable.

In the first sentence, the traits listed after the colon are part of a list. In the second, the phrase that begins with “being overtaken” explains what was meant by “It was nothing like the movies said.”

A Quick Note on Quotation Marks

Whether writing dialogue, or quoting a phrase, if you put something in quotation marks, the punctuation needs to go on the inside of the closed quotes. Here’s a quick example.

Incorrect: “I went to the store today”, she said.

Correct: “I went to the store today,” she said.

//

Incorrect: The ad described the hotel as “glorious”.

Correct: The ad described the hotel as “glorious.”

//

And here’s a tricky one: if the speaker is identified before the quotes begin:

Incorrect: Trina said “, what time is it?”

Correct: Trina said, “What time is it?”

In this instance, you want to put the comma after “said,” and before the open quotes. You also want to make sure that the first word of the dialogue is capitalized, even if it isn’t the first word of the sentence.

Homework

Ready for some homework? Here’s a paragraph without proper commas, semicolons, or colons in it. Write it in your journal with the correct punctuation.

They took the long way back stopping for coffee on their way dragging their toes through the dusting of snow on the sidewalk. She didn’t want the evening to end and if the way his steps grew slower and slower was any indication he didn’t want it to either. When they reached her front door she turned to him she took a deep breath and held it. “I had a nice time” she said smile threatening to overtake her face.