Apostrophes Aren't For Signaling That An S Is Incoming - Tumblr Posts

Writing Tips Pt. 6 - Punctuation

Punctuation is another common trip hazard for beginning writers. The most common fault with punctuation that I see is the misuse of commas, whether it's including them where they aren't needed, forgetting them where they should have been used, or using them in place of more appropriate punctuation.

For starters, commas aren't sprinkles. You aren't dusting them onto your prose for flavor. They should be used to break up phrases within a sentence where one would naturally pause, but don't use them every place you pause if you speak like Captain Kirk. They also go between elements in a list (and while I'm a huge proponent of the Oxford comma, fight me, I won't force you to use it as long as you're consistent).

While they aren't sprinkles, they aren't poison either. Please don't give me a solid brick of text with absolutely zero punctuation whatsoever. Punctuation won't bite. It won't come to your house and beat up your dog if you use it. Promise.

And for the love of Pete, please don't use commas where other punctuation would be more appropriate. I've seen far too many sentences strung together with commas when they should have been broken up by periods, or at the very least semicolons. Are the two sentences related in thought? Semicolon. Are they just different enough? Period. You should not be using a comma to connect full standalone sentences.

For example:

His jaw clenched, she could hear the teeth grinding from across the room.

Bad comma use. Those are two distinct sentences. Much better to do the following:

His jaw clenched. She could hear the teeth grinding from across the room.

The two sentences are also related enough that you could connect them with a semicolon, like so:

His jaw clenched; she could hear the teeth grinding from across the room.

If you absolutely insist on the comma, you need to edit the sentences to work with the comma, like so:

His jaw clenched, and she could hear the teeth grinding from across the room.

While we're at it, be aware of where punctuation should be relative to quotation marks. In American English, which is what I use, commas and periods go inside the quotation marks, while exclamation points, question marks, and ellipses depend on whether they're part of what's being quoted or not.

And learn correct apostrophe use. It's used for contractions and possessives, but not, and I repeat not to make something plural. Apostrophes are not to signal "watch out, here comes the S!"

Don't be this guy:

And remember to go sparingly on the use of ellipses and hyphens to represent someone stammering. It's far too easy to fall into the trap of overusing them. I used to do it all the time myself. I'm not saying not to do it, of course. Just...be aware of how often you use them for that purpose.