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  EXERCISES

  • Choose a sentence from your work that might be confusing to the reader, or perhaps too open for interpretation. (If you can't find such a sentence, then give your work to outside readers, and ask them to point one out.) Can you add any commas to provide clarity? Can you apply this principle to other sentences throughout your work?

  • Choose a section of your work where the pace feels too quick, or too choppy, or where there are a series of short sentences that are not very substantial. (If you are unaware of any such section, give your work to outside readers and ask them to find one.) Can you connect any of these sentences with a comma? Can you apply this principle to other sentences throughout your work?

  • Choose a section of your work where the pace is too slow, or feels cumbersome, or where there are a series of long sentences. (If you are unaware of any such section, give your work to outside readers and ask them to find one.) Can you remove any commas? Can you apply this principle to other sentences throughout your work?

  • Choose a scene that is pivotal for your characters, perhaps where they exchange crucial dialogue. Pick a revelatory moment, one that needs to be slowed and emphasized as much as possible, where every word counts. Can you add a comma to help emphasize a point that you don't want readers to miss? Can you apply this principle to other scenes throughout your work?

  • Choose a page from your work and remove all qualifications or asides, along with their commas. For some writers, who rarely use

  these, this will have little impact. For others, it will make a tremendous difference. How does it read now? Can you apply this principle to any other sentences throughout your work?

  • Begin a new piece of creative writing. Write for an entire page without using a single comma. How does it affect the writing? The story? The character? Can you incorporate any of this into your greater work?

  • Begin a new scene between two characters, giving each long stretches of dialogue. Don't allow any commas. How does it affect how they speak? Can you incorporate any of this into your greater work?

  • Step 1: Look at one page of your work and count the number of commas per sentence. What is the average? Does the number of commas per sentence vary? Now count the total number of commas per page. What's the comma count? Read the page aloud. Remember how it sounds.

  Step 2: Double the number of commas on the page. Now read it aloud. How does it read? What's the difference?

  Step 3: Remove every comma on the page. Now read it aloud. How does it read? What have you learned from this exercise that can be incorporated into your greater work?

  BETWEEN THE comma and the period you'll find the semicolon. Pausing more strongly than the comma, yet dividing more weakly than the period, it is a mediator. The semicolon does not have as many functions as the comma, yet it has more than the period. As Eric Partridge says in You Have a Point There, "By its very form (;) [the semicolon] betrays its dual nature: it is both period and comma." As such, it is best thought of as a bridge between two worlds.

  The primary function of the semicolon is to connect two complete (and thematically similar) sentences, thereby making them one. But when and how to do that is open to interpretation. The semicolon has been overused (Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse) and questionably used (Herman Melville's Moby-Dick) throughout the centuries, and has been the subject of endless debate. Compounding the debate is the fact that, grammatically, the semi-

  colon is never necessary; two short sentences can always coexist without being connected. Artistically, though, the semicolon opens a world of possibilities, and can lend a huge impact. In this sense, it is the punctuation mark best suited for creative writers.

  The semicolon is a powerful tool in the writer's arsenal. It is probably the most elegant of all forms of punctuation (it has been dubbed "a compliment from the writer to the reader"), and can offer an excellent solution to balancing sentence length and rhythm. Yet it is often overlooked by writers today. So in this chapter we'll focus on how—and why—to use it. We'll learn what we gain from its presence, and what we lose when we don't invite it to the symphony of punctuation.

  HOW TO USE IT

  The first thing to realize is that one could always make a case for not using a semicolon. As an unnecessary form of punctuation, as the luxury item in the store, we must ask ourselves: why use it at all?

  We use the semicolon for the same reason we trade cement floors for marble: cement floors are equally functional but not as elegant, not as aesthetically pleasing as marble. The semicolon elevates punctuation from the utilitarian (from punctuation that works) to the luxurious (to punctuation that transcends). Business memos do not need semicolons; creative writers do.

  The semicolon's functions are all essentially creative, and are connected with a writer's sensibility. Some ways to use it:

  • To connect two closely related sentences. Sometimes two (or more) sentences are so closely related that you won't want the separation of a period, yet they are also so independent that they need stronger separation than a comma can offer. Consider:

  He ran with his shirt over his head. He had forgotten his umbrella once again.

  Grammatically, the above is correct. Yet these two thoughts are so closely linked that they don't feel quite right standing on their own. A comma won't do, since they are each complete sentences:

  He ran with his shirt over his head, he had forgotten his umbrella once again.

  Thus, we need the semicolon:

  He ran with his shirt over his head; he had forgotten his umbrella once again.

  The semicolon lends an appropriate feeling of connection, while allowing each clause its independence. It functions in a position where both the period and comma cannot. Notice how, by connecting these two sentences with a semicolon, each sentence helps explain the other. "He ran with his shirt over his head" is technically complete and correct, yet is somewhat cryptic on its own. The subsequent sentence brings it to life. Another example:

  The wind knocked over two trees on my block alone. The cleanup would be atrocious.

  Once again a comma won't do, as these clauses are too independent:

  The wind knocked over two trees on my block alone, the cleanup would be atrocious.

  Thus, the semicolon:

  The wind knocked over two trees on my block alone; the cleanup would be atrocious.

  You'll notice that the first example is grammatically acceptable. Yet adding a semicolon extends the thought, and allows a richer overall sentence.

  • Stylistically, in a paragraph plagued by short sentences, a semicolon can smooth out the choppiness. Commas serve a similar function, yet sometimes a semicolon is more appropriate, especially if you want clauses to be connected yet independent. Semicolons can allow shorter, complete thoughts without the choppiness of a period. Consider:

  She wasn't going to support him anymore. It was time for him to get a job. He'd never leave the house otherwise. He'd loaf forever if he could. He was born that way. It was thanks to his father. It had taken her twenty years to get rid of him. She wouldn't go through that again. The son had two years. After that, the locks were changed.

  All these short sentences give this paragraph a staccato, childlike feel. If we add a semicolon or two, though, the problem is solved:

  She wasn't going to support him anymore. It was time for him to get a job. He'd never leave the house otherwise; he'd loaf forever if he could. He was born that way. It was thanks to his father. It had taken her twenty years to get rid of him. She wouldn't go through that again. The son had two years; after that, the locks were changed.

  This version feels more readable, less stylistically pronounced.

  The semicolons have lengthened some sentences and smoothed out the rhythm. They also provide sorely needed variety and contrast: instead of a cluster of only short sentences, they create a mix of long and short sentences, which enables each to stand out.

  • Semicolons can enable a longer and more complex thought t
o exist under one umbrella, thus offering readers the satisfaction of digesting a fuller thought at once. Readers used to have longer attention spans, and it was the norm to write in long, complex sentences. For today's readers, such a style would be tiresome, almost academic. Yet I do believe modern readers have the capacity, even the desire, to digest longer and more complex sentences, as long as they are conceptually and rhythmically sound, and offer the rest stops of semicolons. Mark Twain is known for his use of the semicolon; an example from his short story "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County":

  I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to me.

  Using semicolons, Twain is able to convey considerably more material under the umbrella of a single sentence.

  • The semicolon can enhance word economy, since its appearance often allows surrounding words to be cut. For example:

  She couldn't dance in her favorite hall because it was under construction.

  She couldn't dance in her favorite hall; it was under construction.

  As John Trimble says in Writing with Style, "The semicolon is efficient: it allows you to eliminate most of those conjunctions or prepositions that are obligatory with the comma—words like whereas, because, for, or, but, while, and."

  Edgar Allan Poe used the semicolon often and with great skill. Consider this excerpt from his story "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall":

  His feet, of course, could not be seen at all. His hands were enormously large. His hair was gray, and collected into a queue behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and inflammatory; his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and cheeks, although wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and double; but of ears of any kind there was not a semblance to be discovered upon any portion of his head.

  The semicolons here are used well not only sentence to sentence but also in context of the paragraph. Poe begins with complete, simple sentences, using only commas and periods, as he describes the man's feet, hands, and hair. But as he switches to describing the man's face, he switches to semicolons. This is not by chance. The pace increases as he does, as if he's revving up in his description of this man, racing toward a conclusion. It enables us to take in this man's entire face at once, as one grand unit (as opposed to the feet, hands, and hair, which are given their own sentences).

  Here's another example, perhaps one of the most famous in literature. This comes from the opening paragraph of Melville's Moby-Dick. Melville relied heavily on the semicolon to create Moby-Dick, and there has been some debate over whether he used it properly or not. Some of his usages are certainly questionable. But this one is not:

  Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

  This single sentence encapsulates the entire rationale behind the book, behind "Ishmael's" taking the adventure he does. Although it's technically not advisable, Melville could have used commas here, but if he had, the pauses would not have been as long, and the reader wouldn't have had the opportunity to digest each thought. Or he could have, alternately, used periods; but doing so would have made the reader pause too long, and not digest all of this as a single idea. Semicolons allowed the reader to pause and also created tension, capturing "Ishmael's" own tension, his own feeling of building restlessness and need to get on board a ship.

  "Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the toad ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath."

  — Lewis Thomas

  DANGER OF OVERUSE AND MISUSE

  The semicolon tends to be underused because many writers don't know how to use it well. They have some notion of its function, but not an exact idea, and when they take their first tentative steps toward using it, they tend to do so incorrectly. Compounding the problem is that placement of the semicolon, like the comma, is somewhat up for debate, and in many circumstances one could just as easily argue for its omission.

  There are, however, some instances when the semicolon is clearly misused. The most common:

  • The semicolon should never be used to link two sentences unless they are closely related. For example, this could work:

  The police station was close to his house; he would have to be careful.

  But this could not:

  The police station was close to his house; he needed to do his laundry soon.

  When using a semicolon, you must always ask yourself if the two sentences are closely linked. If not, omit the semicolon. Even if two sentences are related, in most cases it's preferable not to link them with a semicolon. Sometimes thoughts need to stand on their own, and are better digested separately. This is especially true if the reader needs time to ponder each thought.

  • Sometimes sentences linked by semicolons are too closely related —in other words, sometimes a semicolon is used when merely a comma will do. For example, this sentence:

  The gardeners worked all day; their machines blared all the time.

  should more likely be:

  The gardeners worked all day, their machines blaring all the time.

  There is no question a pause is needed between these two clauses—the issue is how strong that pause needs to be. In this case, the clauses are too closely linked and it's the comma's job (which also mandates minor word changes). This especially holds true when dealing with a series of short sentences.

  • In most cases, avoid linking two longer (or independent) sentences with a semicolon. The semicolon allows a fuller, more complex thought, but when that thought is already full (or independent), you can overburden it by tacking on yet another thought. Periods serve their function well, which is to allow separation between thoughts. You don't want a semicolon to break down that barrier unless there is an important reason for doing so. For example, here are two complete sentences:

  My neighbor's fence was purple and hideous and fell apart every winter, encroaching on my property. She had built it with her own hands, she constantly reminded me.

  These two sentences each convey a lot on their own, and should not be connected, as they are here:

  My neighbor's fence was purple and hideous and fell apart every winter, encroaching on my property; she had built it with her own hands, she constantly reminded me.

  This overwhelms the reader. Although technically this works, in reality it makes the single thought too cumbersome for most readers, makes it harder to fully digest each idea. Sometimes separation is warranted.

  • Once you get into the semicolon habit, it can become too easy to link everything: you can become a semicolon junkie. There is a real danger of becoming too trigger happy with semicolons, of inserting them when not truly needed. Given the fact that nearly any two (related) complete sentences can be linked, the potential for using semicolons is limitless. Once a writer starts to use the semicolon regularly, it can become hard to stop, and he may never look at a pair of sentences the same way again. Consider:

  The telephone wire was down again; the phone company had told me it would be up by this morning; once again, bad information; I wouldn't let them get away with it this time.

  Linking like this allows you to get away with half thoughts — instead of fully developing a single thought—and can overwhelm the style of a text. You must remember t
hat periods and commas serve their function well.

  The other problem with overusing semicolons is that it can create a work that feels overly formal. The semicolon is a rather sophisticated punctuation mark and if overdone it will feel as if you're showing off, or being elitist. "Good stylists try to avoid [the semicolon] as too formal: decked out, as it were, in a starched shirt and a black suit," says Rene J. Cappon says in The Associated Press Guide to Punctuation. That doesn't mean it can't be used—it just should be reserved for the right occasion.

  • Sentences have beginnings, middles, and ends. When semicolons are overused, the natural arc and rhythm of a sentence can be lost. For example, this sentence stands well on its own:

  The sun lit up the wall, and I shielded my eyes from the glare.

  But if you connect it with semicolons:

  The sun lit up the wall; I shielded my eyes from the glare.

  While acceptable, it isn't quite as smooth. It feels more like one divided thought than two distinct thoughts. Neither clause feels as if it naturally rises and falls.

  • Periods are effective at creating a bang, especially at the end of short sentences. Semicolons, though, rarely can, since they don't offer a full stop. And sometimes this "bang" effect is needed. For example, here we don't feel the impact of the final sentence:

  The bus let me off at the wrong stop for the third time that week; it won't happen again.