Grammar Guide
Punctuate for Clarity, Part V, Quotations in Formal Text

(Ed. note: I do not use serial commas in this article, pursuant to AP style.)

If you’re writing a term paper, letter to the editor, business letter or cover letter, etc., and you want to include a quotation, there are specific rules to follow. If the quotation is brief, you must watch your ending punctuation, and we’ll address that, but you can separate your phrases with a comma. For example, your term paper might read as follows:

Charlotte Bronte gave her heroine, Jane Eyre, a fiery spirit. When Mr. Rochester would detain the troubled governess, she said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

The attributive phrase that precedes the quotation is set off by a comma. The quotation from Jane Eyre ends with a period in the novel, thus it takes the period at the end of the sentence before the quotation mark in the text here. If we elected to chop up the quote, ending it at at the word being, the punctuation would move. For example:

When Mr. Rochester would detain the troubled governess, she said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being...”.

The punctuation must denote the end of the correct sentence, and that is the outer construction—the construction without the quotation marks.

Let’s say you wanted to really impress your English professor and were quoting something from both Bronte and the Lender novel Choices Meant for Gods. Your next quote turns out to be long. You have to pay attention to your introductory punctuation and make a judgment call on whether or not to indent the quote, essentially setting it off from the body of your paper.

First of all, a quote is usually considered lengthy if it is more than three or four lines of poetry or if it is more than one paragraph of text. In these instances, you end your attributive phrase with a colon, allow a single line of space between the attributive phrase and the quote, and then set the quote off by insetting it (setting it off) in the body of your paper with left justification. MLA, Chicago Manual of Style and various English professors will dictate how far in the inset should be. If the quote isn’t all that long, but you still feel it’s long enough to warrant more than a simple comma to set it off, use a colon, but don’t go to the extreme of setting it off in the body of your paper. Here’s your example:

To demonstrate a flashback scene, I quote from Lender’s “Choices Meant for Gods”: “Hrazon had swallowed his pride and requested Drake be imprisoned, not exalted. He challenged the court to stand up for morality. The implication that they might ignore morality had offended them. By the time the court adjourned, Godric was forgotten again, and Drake was handed the leadership of Kida and an order never to come within a league of Amanda Chariss Derdriu. The latter was merely a nod or a ‘thank you for trusting the hierarchy’ tossed at Hrazon. The wizard could have turned every one of them into charred piles of bone with the blink of an eye, and Godric would have applauded him.”

Notice that you will use quotation marks to surround the quotation in this instance. For an extremely long quotation that you inset, no quotation marks are needed. The use of indenting the body of the quote in your paper signals to the reader that the section is a quotation.

For Standard English grammar resources, I recommend Creative Writer's Handbook (fourth edition) by Philip K. Jason (a friend of mine) and Allan B. Lefcowitz (available from www.prenhall.com/english) and Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (available from www.penguin.com). For a great gothic fiction novel that every person on the planet should read, I recommend Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. For a great epic fantasy novel that borrows elements I didn't realize I was borrowing from the great Charlotte Bronte until I had the thing complete, I recommend Choices Meant for Gods by Sandy Lender (which is available in both hard cover and as an inexpensive eBook at http://www.archebooks.com/BookIDX/Indexes/Fantasy/CMG/CMGDesc.htm.)

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for sixteen years, is an editor in the book publishing industry and is the author of the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: grammar guide, grammar, punctuation, quotations, attribution, stylebook, Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte, Choices Meant for Gods, Creative Writer's Handbook, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
Punctuate for Clarity, Part IV, Quotations and Attributive Phrases in Dialogue

(Ed. note: I do not use serial commas in this article, pursuant to AP style.)

Before delving into today’s Grammar Guide, I want to define an attribute phrase as the part of the sentence that shows to whom or to what you’re attributing a quote. If I want to write a short story about a couple characters from my fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, I would likely attribute some obnoxious statement to Henry Bakerson. Here’s the example.

Nigel had been waiting for Amanda Chariss to return from the training arena for nearly an hour.
“Why do you look edgy?” Henry asked.
“I’m waiting for Mandy,” Nigel replied.
“Ah,” he said. “So, then, why is there still grass where you’ve been pacing?”

(A) I don’t write such stilted dialogue. This is for example purposes.
(B) The attributive phrases in the example above are “Henry asked”, “Nigel replied”, and “he said”.

Punctuation belongs at the end of a completed sentence. This means you must keep track of your quotation marks, commas and attributive phrases to make sure you don’t have stray capitalization and periods in the middle of declarative statements.

Example: “We hope Chariss saves the world,” he said.

This declarative statement includes the quote, within quotation marks, a comma to set it off from its attributive phrase, the attributive phrase with a lowercase beginning, and a period to end it all. When using dialogue, the declarative, interrogative (question) and exclamatory statements all take punctuation within the quotation marks if the quotation is ending the sentence. For instance, Henry asks Nigel, “So, then, why is there still grass where you’ve been pacing?”, and the interrogative statement ends the construction, thus it takes the question mark inside the quotation mark.

If your character’s statement is a question, and you’re following it with the attributive phrase, you don’t use the comma to set it off. You go ahead and use a question mark (or an exclamation point if you’re giving them an exclamatory statement) inside the quotation mark, and then follow it with the attributive phrase and a period to end the sentence. If you use a pronoun instead of the character’s name, lowercase the pronoun because you’re still in the middle of the sentence.

Example: “Chariss is the only one who can save us!” he yelled.

Keep in mind that if your character will be waxing poetic for an undue length of time, the opening sentence of each paragraph gets an opening quotation mark, but the closing quotation mark doesn’t come until the end, or until you interrupt with an attributive phrase. For instance, Abigail Farrier, also from Choices Meant for Gods, would go on and on forever something like this:

“When I awoke today, I thought instantly of Nigel Taiman and his lovely brown eyes,” Abigail said. “He is the handsomest man in the whole world, and I can’t imagine I’ll survive another day without him.
“Given the state of things here in Bellan, I really must make a plan to get back to Arcana City. This isn’t just to see Nigel again, but to make a change in my life.
“Father would be so disappointed to see me go, and would, no doubt, try to stop me. But I am a grown woman now and able to make decisions on my own. It’s high time I returned to the land where I grew up.”

Also keep in mind that some of your characters’ statements can be made as part of the larger sentence without the interruption of setting off the attributive phrase. You don’t always have to signpost the fact that such-n-such character is about to state something by setting a phrase off with a comma if the phrase and the character’s comment flow together as a continuous whole.

Example: Chariss gave them a quizzical look as she approached. “You two look like you’re up to no good.”
Nigel explained that “Henry’s never let a chance for harm pass him by.”

In this case, Nigel’s statement exists as part of the overall sentence so fluidly that there’s no need to set it apart. It is attributed to him without interrupting the flow with a comma.

This guide only covers the use of punctuation with quotes when working with dialogue. We’ll address punctuation when quoting material for other forms of writing, such as term papers, in tomorrow's Grammar Guide. For now, feel free to review this guide to be sure you put your punctuation within the quotation marks where it should be and don’t capitalize stray words in your attributive phrases within your sentence.

For Standard English grammar resources, I recommend Creative Writer's Handbook (fourth edition) by Philip K. Jason (a friend of mine) and Allan B. Lefcowitz (available from www.prenhall.com/english) and Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (available from www.penguin.com).

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for sixteen years, is an editor in the book publishing industry and is the author of the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: grammar guide, grammar, punctuation, quotations, attribution, stylebook, Choices Meant for Gods, punctuation rules, common punctuation, Creative Writer's Handbook, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
Punctuate for Clarity, Part III, Commas

(Ed. note: I do not use serial commas in this article, pursuant to AP style.)

In the last Grammar Guide, we discussed the use of the serial comma, which is the last comma before the conjunction in a series (or list) of items. For Standard English grammar, which most of us use, the serial comma is used. But there are other times when the comma can be a dodgy item. You stare at it, dangling there like a misplaced participle, and you wonder, should I delete that?

Here’s the thing to remember about commas. They are used to add clarity. They set off phrases from the rest of the sentence to reduce clutter and make things clearer for the reader. For example, the following piece of paragraph is taken from a deleted scene from Choices Meant for Gods. Nigel and Chariss are visiting in the stables the morning after his brush with death, and the gentleman has contrived a way to run his fingers through her hair.

Example: He stroked his fingers down her tresses, all the way through to the ends where the curves and waves ended in little rolls that mimicked the wavecaps rushing to Arcana’s shore. By the gods, he wanted to feel those ends tickling along his chest, like they had last night, when she’d leaned over him to heal the wound that should have killed him. He moved one hand back to the top of her head, fully aware that she’d just shivered at this unfamiliar touch. Oh, that’s got to be a good sign, he thought.

I want to call your attention to the first comma in the example. The comma separates the complete phrase “He stroked his fingers down her tresses” and the incomplete phrase “all the way, etc.”

Look also at the third sentence. The comma in that sentence separates the complete phrase “He moved one hand back to the top of her head” and “fully aware, etc.” In both of these sentences, the comma comes after a complete phrase. The phrases could be ended with periods. The commas replace the periods I could have used and signify that more is to come. The "more" the reader gets is an additional phrase that modifies what he has already read. In the first instance, “all the way through, etc.” tells how Nigel stroked his fingers down her tresses. In the second instance, “fully aware that she’d just shivered” describes “He.”

In the final sentence, the comma before “he thought” is used to set off attribution, which will be discussed in the Grammar Guides about punctuating quotation in dialogue in the coming days.

Another use of the comma is another form of separating phrases, but it has to do with changing subjects. For instance, when you have two complete sentences, but you want to combine them, you can do something like this:

Example: Chariss put her arm out to catch him. He experienced that momentary shock of lightning when he got to touch her.

It can be changed to read more fluidly as, example: Chariss put her arm out to catch him, and he experienced that momentary shock of lightning when he got to touch her.

The comma signifies that the subject is going to change in the second half of this sentence. I’ve seen people make mistakes with this construction, though. Be sure that you’re actually combining two sentences (two subjects and two verbs) or the use of the comma before the conjunction is incorrect.

Example: Chariss put her arm out to catch him and felt a momentary shock of lightning at the touch.

In this example, Chariss is the one catching, touching and feeling the momentary shock of lightning. The subject doesn’t change, even though there is more than one verb. In the first example, Chariss did the catching, but the subject changed to Nigel in the second half of the sentence. Nigel did the touching and feeling of the momentary shock of lightning. (And isn’t that sweet?)

For Standard English grammar resources, I recommend Creative Writer's Handbook (fourth edition) by Philip K. Jason (a friend of mine) and Allan B. Lefcowitz (available from www.prenhall.com/english) and Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (available from www.penguin.com).

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for sixteen years, is an editor in the book publishing industry and is the author of the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: grammar guide, punctuation, comma, stylebook, Choices Meant for Gods, punctuation rules, Creative Writer's Handbook, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
Punctuate for Clarity, Part II, The Use of the Serial Comma

(Ed. note: I do not use serial commas in this article, pursuant to AP style.)

The serial comma is the last comma before the conjunction in a series of items in a sentence.

Example: Chariss, Nigel, Rohne, and Henry leave the Arcanan estate in my epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods.

The final comma after “Rohne” is referred to as the serial comma. What’s unique about it is how much trouble it can cause for writers.

If you’re writing a novel, business letter, personal letter to a friend, book report, etc., you use the serial comma.

If you’re writing an article for the newspaper, a magazine, a letter to the editor or some other journalistic medium, you do not use the serial comma. That’s the preferred style of the Associated Press. Now, if the items in the list include a complex construction, the serial comma is retained for clarity.

Example: Loetha and Lahs, Hrazon and Mia, and one of the guards joined Nigel and Chariss on their trip to Arcana City that evening. Nigel felt foolish with so many chaperones along for the journey.

Do you see the serial comma? It's the one after Mia's name. Because the group traveling to the city is split into pairs, its members' names are combined in the list, creating compound subjects in the list. Loetha and Lahs is one compound subject. Hrazon and Mia is the next. The elements of the series contain their own conjunctions, making the sentence more cumbersome if you leave out the serial comma.

When writing a term paper or thesis for a grade, you may be asked to follow other stylebooks that dictate the serial comma’s use, and you should refer to and follow those guides. (Chicago Manual of Style, MLA, your professor’s latest mood swing, etc.)

For additional information on commas, the Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law is your Bible. As I pointed out in yesterday's Grammar Guide, its bent is toward journalism, thus there will be minor differences in punctuation rules when using AP versus "normal" English. For "normal" English, I recommend Creative Writer's Handbook (fourth edition) by Philip K. Jason (a friend of mine) and Allan B. Lefcowitz (available from www.prenhall.com/english) and Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (available from http://www.penguin.com/).

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for sixteen years, is an editor in the book publishing industry and is the author of the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: grammar guide, punctuation, serial comma, stylebook, Choices Meant for Gods, Associated Press, Creative Writer's Handbook, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
Punctuate for Clarity, Part I, General Overview

(Ed. note: I do not use serial commas in this article, pursuant to AP style.)

No matter what stylebook you're using, there's a disclaimer in there somewhere about punctuation. For all the rules about commas, semicolons and where question marks go in relation to closing quotation marks, simplifying your syntax is usually the best prescription for clarifying your statements.

What?

It's the KISS principle applied to punctuation. If you've constructed a 175-word declarative with a participial phrase or two and something set off in a parenthetical, and you're trying to remember whether or not to capitalize the word after the colon, it's time to start over. Consider editing that sentence into two or more thoughts that your reader can follow without getting tired or lost.

The point of writing good paragraphs is not to impress the reader with lofty prose and convoluted structure. The point is to get your message across in a clear and concise manner that moves the reader. You want sentences of varying lengths. Your words should already be a part of your audience's lexicon. And your punctuation should reflect a style that your readers are used to. Too many semicolons, serial commas and run-on sentences will tire the reader quickly, if not lose him/her completely. Let me give you an example of a sentence you won't find in my book, Choices Meant for Gods.

"Chariss ran the few paces to the obedient girl and stood between her and the bend in the road with her feet shoulder-width apart and her arms raised to cock the bow before her, where Hrazon saw her now as he pushed his way through the people blocking the doorway to hear the roar of something large down the lane; saw her standing there posed like a warrior; saw her thin arms bulged with muscle and tension as she stood with the bow poised taut against her strength while they all held their breath, wondering what was happening until a ryfel appeared—not rounding the bend or running up to her, but materializing as if in the training arena."

Did you get past the fourth or fifth line? Let me offer a disclaimer right now and say that I would never write something as crazy as that. (I hope.)

Here's the way the passage actually appears in my fantasy novel. Note the use of commas, different sentence lengths and alliteration to move the words.

"Chariss ran the few paces to the obedient girl and stood between her and the bend in the road. She stood with her feet shoulder-width apart and her arms raised to cock the bow before her. Hrazon had pushed his way through the people blocking the doorway now and heard the roar of something large down the lane. He looked at his girl standing there posed like a warrior. Her thin arms bulged with muscle and tension as she stood, waiting, watching, with the bow poised taut against her strength.

"They all held their breath, wondering what was happening.

"A ryfel appeared out of nowhere. It hadn't rounded the bend. It hadn't run up to her. It just materialized before her as if in the training area. Nigel shuddered when he recognized the beast and called back into the house, "Henry! My sword!""

While it's all well and good for a writer and editor to tell you to break things down and keep punctuation simple, I know you're looking for specifics when you look up punctuation rules in the Grammar Guides here. Thus this is the first in a short series of common punctuation mark discussions we'll have over the next few days to help you punctuate clearly and correctly.

Before we close today's installment, let me recommend a couple of resources. For general style issues concerning Standard English grammar and writing, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style is a nice book, but the editors aren't as in-depth as I'd like on many issues. SparkNotes' Ultimate Style The Rules of Writing is also good, but just as shallow as Strunk and White. For journalists, the Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law is your Bible. Buy the most current version and memorize it. (I'm not joking.) AP also has a Guide to Punctuation, but, keep in mind, the bent is toward journalism, thus magazine/newspaper reporting. There will be minor differences in punctuation rules when using AP versus Standard English grammar. For Standard English grammar, I recommend Creative Writer's Handbook (fourth edition) by Philip K. Jason (a friend of mine) and Allan B. Lefcowitz (available from www.prenhall.com/english) and Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss (available from www.penguin.com).

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for sixteen years, is an editor in the book publishing industry and is the author of the epic fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: grammar guide, grammar, punctuation, comma, semicolon, clarity, stylebook, Choices Meant for Gods, punctuation rules, Strunk and White, Elements of Style, Rules of Writing, Associated Press, Guide to Punctuation, Creative Writer's Handbook, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Sandy Lender, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
When Punctuation Doesn't Matter

Proper punctuation matters almost all the time. (This article will use serial commas.)

Here are the two times when my head doesn't spin over improper punctuation use: poetry and informal e-mail messages. Poets can get away with murder. Friends can send bizarre crap in e-mails. All is well with the world.

When you're preparing a business letter, manuscript, term paper, or magazine submission, Ladies and Gentlemen, take the time to look up the correct use of colons and commas. They make a difference in the way your work is judged. Trust me on this. At my current job, I receive messages from people who wish to submit articles to the magazine. These people find the magazine through the World Wide Web, click on the "submit information" or "send a request" button/link, and start typing their messages. That's great. But if you could see the insane typos, grammatical mistakes, and punctuation errors that end up in my inbox, you'd think these people were raised by ferrets. Come on. If you're going to ask an editor of a magazine to consider your 1,500-word article for publication, make sure your request to send the article is coherent and punctuated correctly.

If you can't get the introduction letter right, what's left to convince me that your article is going to be fit to publish? Should I assume you bothered to research the information in the article if you didn't bother to look up how to show possession for the name of the magazine you're sending the article to?

This is the same concept behind query letters that go to literary agents. (By the way, I don't recommend sending query letters to literary agents. This merely kills innocent trees.)

So take the time to look up rules of punctuation. There are several already listed (with fabuloso examples) in the Grammar Guides on this site. Search the archives for punctuation. And I'll see if I can't get a few new ones posted for you over the next few weeks.

(Fantasy Author Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for more than 15 years, and is the author of the high fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available now from www.archebooks.com.)

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender, grammar guide, punctuation, dragon

Grammar Guide
Punctuation—The Space at the End of a Sentence

Today’s Grammar Guide seems a bit “fluffy” to me, but I see more questions about this topic than you can shake a stick at. As an editor at a national magazine, I also see writers submitting articles that have double spaces at the end of sentences and it makes me want to call them up and say, “Where were you trained? Do you not bother to look stuff up before you just randomly submit crap to editors?” But I’m nicer than that, and I refrain from screaming at writers. I know how I want to be treated, as a writer, and so I’m usually pretty kind on the phone when I call and ask if the person could, oh, you know, reformat their article and resubmit it. Because, honestly, I don’t actually have time to go through and do a find/change for the extra spaces. Seriously. (So you can imagine how much time I have to call up writers and ask them to reformat their pieces. Guess how often these incorrect items get used.)

So let’s talk about spacing.

When submitting an article to a magazine or newspaper, you’re in the journalism realm and you never—let me stress that—never put more than one space at the end of a sentence. There is only one space after the period. There is only once space after a question mark. There is only one space after an exclamation point (although I can’t imagine why there would be an exclamation point in an article being submitted to a news or feature editor unless you’re trying to look like an amateur…).

Here’s something to consider: With the plethora of electronic newsletters out there now, quality control is on a sharp decline. If you submit an article to an online publication that publishes it with double spaces at the end of the sentence, what other Associated Press style issues do you think that “editor” is ignoring? Do you really think the person publishing that e-newsletter has journalism training? Do you really want to list that byline on your resume? I’d think twice before providing that link to any potential future employers.

When preparing a business letter or formal letter for your boss, new client, family members, etc., you will put two spaces at the end of a sentence, just like you were taught in fifth grade composition class. You’re all set. This does not pertain to letters to the editor at newspapers (see “When submitting an article to a magazine or newspaper” paragraph above).

When preparing a paper for a professor, the professor will tell you what style guide to use. AP, MLA, Chicago Manual of, etc. Depending on the professor’s preferred style, you’ll use either one space or two (probably two, because that’s what they teach in school).

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fifteen years and is the author of the new fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender, grammar guide, punctuation, spacing

Grammar Guide
Punctuation—The En Dash

Yesterday we covered the em dash and showed how I used it (almost liberally) in my novel Choices Meant for Gods. Today we’ll discuss the en dash, which I didn’t use in my fantasy novel. There really wasn’t any call for it. But writers do have need of this device in everyday practice, so it’s a valid grammar/punctuation point to address.

The proper use of the en dash is in sentences where you’re indicating a stretch in time, something that’s ongoing, or compound word combinations. (Notice that those last two can be covered by regular ol’ hyphens, and the first two concern dates.)

Here are some examples to help make it all clear:

While compiling ideas and scenes for Choices Meant for Gods, 1985–2000, I held onto the dream that the fantasy novel would someday be published.

If I want to forego the use of the en dash, I would write:
I compiled ideas and scenes from 1985 to 2000.
But it would be incorrect to combine the use of the “from/to” construction with the en dash.

And example of an ongoing item would be my career as a fantasy author. We’ll select the arbitrary date of the release of Choices Meant for Gods as my “beginning.”

The fantasy author Sandy Lender (March 27, 2007– ) will speak at Context 20 this Sept. 28-30 on a variety of writing topics.

For compound word constructions, either the en dash or a hyphen can provide clarity for the modifier. This example describes (poorly) the main male character from Choices.

Nigel Taiman is an Arcana City–born Geasa’n who will fight to the death to protect the family under his roof.

Now here’s your technical info about the en dash. First off, the en dash goes by its name because it’s roughly the length of the capital letter N in newspaper print/fonts of years gone by. (Again, I’ve been in this profession since paste-up days when we counted spaces to write headlines. Try it on a deadline.)

Next, to type an en dash, use your number keypad to the far right of your keyboard to make your life easier. First, make sure the Num Lock key has been depressed so the keypad is activated. Then hold down the “alt” key while keying in the code 0150. That will give you the en dash without you having to type any hyphens or other characters. (Notice that it is just one number “different” from the code for the em dash we discussed yesterday.)

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fifteen years and is the author of the new fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from www.archebooks.com.)

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender, punctuation, en dash, Context 20, fantasy novel, fantasy author

Grammar Guide
Punctuation—The Em Dash

Charlotte Bronte and I are both fond of the em dash. In fact, she is probably the reason I use the device because I don’t remember it being a part of my writing style prior to reading Jane Eyre in the late ’80s. What’s funny is I can’t recall any other fantasy authors (yes, I just implied Charlotte Bronte is a fantasy author in addition to her other titles) using it as profusely as Charlotte and I. J.R.R. Tolkien may be guilty of influencing me here. J.K. Rowling has not influenced me yet because I’ve been cautious not to read any of the Harry Potter releases. I intend to look into her writing style when the Choices Meant for Gods trilogy is complete and all the way through editing.

The proper use of the em dash is in sentences where you’re indicating a lapse in syntax. It can be a sign of laziness on the part of the writer because, let’s face it, it’s easier to string two or three phrases together by connecting them with em dashes than to organize thoughts carefully into two or three grammatically correct and tidy sentences. These dashes can be used for powerful effect, too, forcing the reader to pause in a more dramatic and clear fashion than a mere comma would do (and I don’t mean to diss the comma).

Em dashes also allow the writer to forego proper grammar, which makes me uncomfortable. The clause in between the dashes doesn’t always include a subject and verb, but—let me stress this—if the clause does include a subject and verb, you best make sure they agree in tense and number.

Here are a couple of examples from my fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods to give you a feel for the use of the em dash and to show you proper formatting. In the first example, Mahsilette—a 3,000-year-old goddess—is delivering an important vision to the heroine of the novel.

It began simply enough—a pretty meadow, a soft summer breeze, the scent of undisturbed wildflowers—but the harmony didn’t last.

A page or two later, the heroine’s mentor and guardian is upset because their god didn’t move quickly enough to protect her while she received the vision, and he thinks of all the reasons he’d like to take her out of the god’s care.

He didn’t agree with the way Master Rothahn trained his ward. He didn’t agree with the new spells—dangerous spells—she was being taught to weave. And he didn’t agree with using an unreliable sailor who was currently in Drake’s employ.

I’ve given you a couple of examples here, so let me give you some technical info now. First off, the em dash goes by that name because it’s roughly the length of the capital letter M in newspaper print/fonts of years gone by. (Yeah, I’ve been in this profession since paste-up days when we counted spaces to write headlines. Believe me, that sucked.)

Next, to type an em dash in Word, merely type your text, type two hyphens (no spaces), type the next word, type a space at the end, and the program will “create” the em dash out of the two hyphens. It’s like magic (or the geasa, for those of you who have read Choices Meant for Gods)! You can also use your number keypad to the far right of your keyboard to create the em dash. First, make sure the Num Lock key has been depressed so the keypad is enabled. Then hold down the “Alt” key while keying in the code 0151. That will give you the em dash without you having to type any hyphens or other characters.

Remember that most English professors and business writing calls for em dashes without spaces before or after them. Some journalism practices require a space before and a space after, which is what I am used to, so you'll see a mixture here at Today the Dragon Wins. But I caution against using em dashes in business writing (and thesis papers) because of their informal feel.

Tomorrow, we’ll cover the en dash.

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fifteen years and is the author of the new fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, available from http://www.archebooks.com/.)

“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”

Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender, Today the Dragon Wins, punctuation, em dash, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, fantasy novel, business writing, thesis papers, archebooks

Writers Guide
What the Overused Exclamation Point Says About Your Writing

Even in dialogue, new writers get caught in the trap of punctuating with exclamation points too frequently. In business/formal writing, they’re the kiss of death for your career, signaling a lack of professionalism to the reader. (Never use them in a cover letter.) In journalism, reporting, or newspaper writing, again, they have little use and are usually the mark of a new or inexperienced writer trying to lend credence to his story. They could also be the sign of an absent or poor editor or proofreader who either didn’t catch them or didn’t care to save the writer’s reputation.

Harsh enough?

In all seriousness, the exclamation point should be used in moderation. A section of text with one or two (we’re talking literature now, not business or newspaper writing) is acceptable and breaks up the monotony of all the simple, declarative sentences ending with their simple, boring periods. But if you have a three-paragraph scene with four or five exclamation points visible, you’re screaming “amateur” at your reader (and that reader could be a potential agent or publisher).

Here’s the exception to the rule. If you have a character who is supposed to be melodramatic or flamboyant (eight-year-old Kaylin Taiman in Choices Meant for Gods), by all means, use serial exclamation points in his or her dialogue. Even use them in his or her description and inner monologue. It helps get the point across. But, again, I’d err on the side of caution and still use that punctuation mark in moderation. Read it aloud once you’ve written the section of text where this character’s action or description occurs and see if your words carry the day for you.

To make your sentences exclamatory without overusing the exclamation point, turn to your words. Turn to your verbs. Unpack your adjectives (and adverbs) and write short, punchy sentences to hit your reader with the quick, loud force you want. Good writers let their words carry their emotion and influence the reader. They don’t rely on gimmicks such as serial exclamation points and all-caps or boldfaced words to do it for them.

Manipulate readers with your words.

(Sandy Lender has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fifteen years, is an associate editor with ArcheBooks Publishing, and is the author of the fantasy novel Choices Meant for Gods, now available at www.archebooks.com.)
“Some days, I just want the dragon to win.”

Tags: writing tips, exclamation point, punctuation, Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender, ArcheBooks, fantasy novel

Grammar Guide
Punctuation with quotations in formal text

If you’re writing a term paper, letter to the editor, business letter, cover letter, etc., and you want to include a quotation, there are rules to follow so you don’t embarrass yourself. (and so you don’t get docked any points on that thar term paper, eh?)

If the quotation is brief, your life is pretty easy. You’ve got to pay attention to ending punctuation, and we’ll address that, but you can probably separate your phrases with a comma. For example:

Charlotte Bronte gave her heroine Jane Eyre a fiery spirit. When Mr. Rochester would detain the troubled governess, she said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

The phrase that precedes the quotation is set off by a comma. The quotation from Jane Eyre ends with a period in the novel, thus it takes the period at the end of the sentence before the quotation mark in the text here. If we elected to chop up the quote, ending it at “being,” the punctuation would move. For example:

When Mr. Rochester would detain the troubled governess, she said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being”.

The punctuation must denote the end of the correct sentence, and that is the “outer” construction—the construction without the quotation marks.

Let’s say you wanted to really impress your English professor and were quoting something from both Bronte and the new Lender novel Choices Meant for Gods. Your next quote turns out to be long. Now your life is not quite so easy. You have to pay attention to your introductory punctuation and make a judgment call on whether or not to indent the quote, essentially setting it off from the body of your paper (or letter or whatever you’re writing).

First of all, a quote is usually considered lengthy if it is more than three or four lines of poetry or if it is more than one paragraph of text. In these instances, you end your attributive phrase with a colon, allow a single line of space between this phrase and the quote, and then set the quote off by insetting it (setting it off) in the body of your paper with left justification. MLA, Chicago Manual of Style, and various uppity English professors will dictate how far in the inset should be. If the quote isn’t all that long, but you still feel it’s long enough to warrant more than a simple comma to set it off, use a colon, but don’t go to the extreme of setting it off in the body of your paper. Here’s your example:

To demonstrate a flashback scene, I quote from Lender’s Choices Meant for Gods: “Hrazon had swallowed his pride and requested Drake be imprisoned, not exalted. He challenged the court to stand up for morality. The implication that they might ignore morality had offended them. By the time the court adjourned, Godric was forgotten again, and Drake was handed the leadership of Kida and an order never to come within a league of Amanda Chariss Derdriu. The latter was merely a nod or a ‘thank you for trusting the hierarchy’ tossed at Hrazon. The wizard could have turned every one of them into charred piles of bone with the blink of an eye, and Godric would have applauded him.”

Notice that you will use quotation marks to surround the quotation in this instance. For the extremely long quotation that you inset, no quotation marks are needed. The use of indenting the body of the quote in your paper signals to the reader that the section is a quotation.

Also notice that the use of quotation marks within the quote takes the alternate form. In other words, use single quote marks when quoting within a quote, even though the original may have used the proper, double quotation marks.

I hope these two guides on punctuation with quotations, both with dialogue and with more formal quotes, have been useful. If you have additional quotation and punctuation questions, by all means, zip them to me in the comments section and I’ll pull together additional Grammar Guides! That’s one of the reasons this site exists!

(Sandy Lender, author of Choices Meant for Gods, has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fourteen-plus years.)
“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

Grammar Guide
Punctuation with quotes and attributive phrases in dialogue

Before we delve into today’s Grammar Guide, let’s define an “attribute phrase”. This is the part of the sentence that shows who or what you’re attributing the rest of the sentence to. If I want to write a short story about a couple characters from my impending novel Choices Meant for Gods, I would likely attribute some obnoxious statement to Henry Bakerson. Here’s the example.

Nigel had been waiting for Amanda Chariss to return from the training arena for nearly an hour.
“Why do you look edgy?” Henry asked as he approached his friend.
“I’m waiting for Mandy,” Nigel replied.
“Ah,” he said. “So, then, why is there still grass where you’ve been pacing?”

(A) I don’t write such stilted dialogue. This is for example purposes.
(B) The attributive phrases in the example above are “Henry asked,” “Nigel replied,” and “he said”.

Punctuation belongs at the end of the completed sentence. This means you must keep track of your quotation marks, your commas, and your attributive phrases to make sure you don’t have stray capitalization and stray periods in the middle of your declarative statements. Here’s an example.

“We hope Chariss saves the world,” he said.

This declarative statement includes the quote, within quotation marks, a comma to set it off from its attributive phrase, the attributive phrase with a lowercase beginning, and a period to end it all. When using dialogue, the declarative, interrogative (question), and exclamatory statements all take punctuation within the quotation marks if the quotation is ending the sentence. For instance, Henry asks Nigel, “So, then, why is there still grass where you’ve been pacing?”, and the interrogative statement ends the construction, thus it takes the question mark inside the quotation mark.

If your character’s statement is a question, and you’re following it with the attributive phrase, then you don’t use the comma to set it off. You go ahead and use a question mark (or an exclamation point if you’re giving them an exclamatory statement to say) inside the quotation mark, and then follow it with the attributive phrase and a period to end the sentence. If you use a pronoun instead of the character’s name, lowercase the pronoun because you’re still in the middle of the sentence. Your example:

“Chariss is the only one who can save us!” he yelled.

Keep in mind that if your character will be waxing poetic for an undue length of time, the opening sentence of each paragraph gets an opening quotation mark, but the closing quotation mark doesn’t come until the end, or until you slap an attributive phrase in there. For instance, Abigail Farrier, also from Choices Meant for Gods and whose blog you can access at http://AbigailLovesNigel.com, would go on and on forever something like this:

“When I awoke today, I thought instantly of Nigel Taiman and his lovely brown eyes,” Abigail said. “He is the handsomest man in the whole world, and I can’t imagine I’ll survive another day without him.
“Given the state of things here in Bellan, I really must make a plan to get back to Arcana City. This isn’t just to see Nigel again, but to make a change in my life.
“Father would be so disappointed to see me go, and would, no doubt, try to stop me. But I am a grown woman now, and able to make decisions on my own. It’s high time I returned to the land where I grew up.”

Also keep in mind that some of your characters’ statements can be made as part of the larger sentence without the interruption of setting off the attributive phrase. You don’t always have to signpost the fact that such-n-such character is about to state something by setting a phrase off with a comma if the phrase and the character’s comment flow together as a continuous whole. For example:

Chariss gave them a quizzical look as she approached. “You two look like you’re up to no good.”
Nigel explained that “Henry’s never let a chance for harm pass him by.”

In this case, Nigel’s statement exists as part of the overall sentence so fluidly that there’s no need to set it apart; it is grammatically part of the sentence. It is attributed to him (even though, in the greater context, it would be obvious who’s speaking and your editor wouldn’t let you keep the attributive info at all) without interrupting the flow with a comma.

This guide only covers the use of punctuation with quotes when working with dialogue. We’ll have to address punctuation when quoting material for other forms of writing, such as term papers, in another Grammar Guide (how does Wednesday sound?). For now, feel free to review this guide to be sure you put the punctuation within the quotation marks where it should be, and make sure you don’t capitalize stray words in your attributive phrases within your sentence.

(Sandy Lender, author of Choices Meant for Gods, has been an editor in the magazine publishing industry for fourteen-plus years.)
“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”