If your characters’ intention to act is trumping their action, a small recast could be in order. This article shows you how ‘to’ can affect immediacy and plausibility in certain circumstances.

The intention to act
Take a look at these sentences:
​

1. Jan reached up to switch on the light. The attic was empty. Almost.
2. Andrew picked up the phone to call Carla. She answered on the third ring.
3. I get out of the car to walk towards the caravan. The curtains are open so I peek through the plastic window. No one’s home.

What’s noticeable in these examples is that the character does X in order to achieve Y. Let’s be clear – there’s nothing wrong with any of the sentences in terms of either grammar or syntax. A proofreader wouldn’t touch them. A line editor, however, would take a closer look.
​
In all three cases the narrator is describing the intention to act, rather than the act itself. And that can be problematic for a couple of reasons.
​

• The action is where our attention is supposed to be. That’s how we move through the story at the same pace as the viewpoint character. When intention creeps in instead, the narrative distance – how close the reader feels to the story and the viewpoint character’s place within it at a given moment – widens. The narrative is less immediate.
• We need the action if the prose is to retain its plausibility. It’s essentially a question of logic and whether the infinitive form of the verb allows us to move from A to B.

Removing ‘to’
Now look at what happens when we remove the ‘to’, introduce a conjunction and tweak the conjugation.
​

1. Jan reached up and switched on the light. The attic was empty. Almost.
2. Andrew picked up the phone and called Carla. She answered on the third ring.
3. I get out of the car and walk over to the caravan. The curtains are open so I peek through the plastic window. No one’s home.

In (1), now we’re moving through the story with Jan. She acts and we go with her. We feel closer to her, as if we are her. In the unedited example, she discovers the empty attic and yet the light never got switched on – all we had was her intention to do it. The ‘and’ fixes that problem.

In (2), Andrew picked up a phone and made a call. We’re doing those things with him. And Carla can now answer on the third ring because Andrew made a call, rather than just picking up the phone with the intention of getting in touch with her.

In (3), readers are focused on my journey to the caravan, not the reason why I get out of the car (to walk over to the caravan). And now that I do walking rather than just car-exiting, I can get to that caravan and peek through the window.

Shown prose versus told prose – which to choose
This problematic use of infinitives can be framed in terms of showing and telling. There’s room for both in any story, but, as always, context is everything.

Here are three points to bear in mind when deciding whether to ditch your ‘to’ and recast.

• An infinitive tells us why. A conjunction + verb shows us how.
• An infinitive holds us still – it’s motivation-based. A conjunction + verb shows us movement – it’s action-based.
• An infinitive tells us about what’s impending. A conjunction + verb shows us what’s happening in the now.

Conjunctions aren’t the only option. There are other ways of fixing told motivation-based prose where action is what the author really wants to convey. Let’s revisit one of our earlier examples. Each recast has a slightly different mood, but the ‘to’ has been ditched.
​

• I get out of the car and walk over to the caravan. The curtains are open so I peek through the plastic window. No one’s home.
• I get out of the car, walk over to the caravan, peek through the plastic window. The curtains are open. No one’s home.
• I get out of the car. Walk over to the caravan. The curtains are open so I peek through the plastic window. No one’s home.

Red flags – words and phrases to watch out for
What we mustn’t do is hunt out every example of an infinitive verb form and hit the DELETE button. That would be catastrophic. Instead, during the revision process, check what the following words and phrases are doing to your prose.
​

• in an attempt to [verb]
• in order to [verb]
• so as to [verb]
• to [verb]

Are they showing motivation or impending action? Is that what you want? And will the logic hold up?

‘To’ and viewpoint drops
Infinitives can also interfere with point of view. In this case, it’s not immediacy at stake but what it’s possible for the viewpoint character to know.

Take a look at these examples:

1. I jump over the wall and land on the soft verge. Dan’s German shepherd greets me. The dog bares its teeth, preparing to bite.
2. Matty. The guy was a pain, had done nothing but hold her back all day. Denise shoved him hard in the back. He grabbed the side of the boat to steady himself.

​In (1), I’m the viewpoint character. All is well until I meet the dog. It bares its teeth. We’re still good. But then the infinitive slips in, and with it I’m now privy to the dog’s intention – to bite. It’s a step too far. Perhaps the dog’s been trained to snarl. Maybe it’s more a warning than an impending attack.

The scene could demand I get bitten or escape intact. Either way, what matters is that we’re not in the dog’s head so we can’t know its intention. A recast that shows what happens, rather than telling what might, is in order.

• The painful version: The dog bares its teeth, leaps forward and clamps its jaw around my arm, puncturing the skin.
• The injury-free version: I jump over the wall and land on the soft verge. Dan’s German shepherd greets me. The dog bares its teeth and I freeze. It backs off, so I give it a wide berth and trot down the road.

In (2), Denise is the viewpoint character. We have access to her thoughts via the free indirect discourse: The guy was a pain ... That Matty grabbed the side of the boat is fine. In fact, it’s a solid example of shown prose because although we don’t have access to his intentions or motivations (because we’re not in his head) we can make a good guess at what they are from his observable action – grabbing the side of the boat.

The infinitive tells us why he grabbed the side of the boat. And that’s a problem because we can’t know; we’re not in his head. All we can do is see through Denise’s eyes. Yes, it’s likely that he’s steadying himself, but why not let the reader do the work? His actions are enough to show them.

A recast might go like this:

• Matty. The guy was a pain, had done nothing but hold her back all day. Denise shoved him hard in the back and he grabbed the side of the boat.

Or this more staccato version:
​

• Matty. The guy was a pain, had done nothing but hold her back all day. Denise shoved him hard in the back. He grabbed the side of the boat.

​When intention is the intention!
There are times when the infinitive form of a verb is a good choice because intention, purpose or desire is exactly what the author wants to convey, not the action itself.

Here’s an excerpt from Nuala Ellwood’s Day of the Accident (Penguin, 2019, p. 94). The viewpoint character intends to talk but the action never happens. We’re supposed to focus on the intention, so the infinitives – to speak, to defend myself – work.

​Here are some additional (made-up) examples of where motivation is the order of the day. The character does X for the purpose of achieving Y, and the infinitive is effective.
​

• I take deep breaths to calm myself.
• He’d worked his backside off with this parole officer to stay out of trouble.
• Arthur went to pull Excalibur from the stone but Merlin’s scream stopped him in his tracks.
• I’ve made a decision. I’ll fill up her petrol tank with diesel to trash the engine. That’ll teach her.

​Summing up
If you want your characters to act, show those actions in your prose rather than telling readers about intention. Replace the infinitives with a conjunction and modify how the verb’s conjugated. Or, for a more staccato feel, try commas, or closing the sentence with a full point and starting a new one.

If it’s motivation you want, a ‘to’ plus a verb has the right to stand.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss em dashes, or em rules, and how to use them in fiction and non-fiction writing.

​Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 9

• RATE AND REVIEW
• DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Listen To Find Out More About:

• Parenthetical use
• Indicating a new speaker
• Indicating omission
• Profanity
• Showing faltering speech
• Conveying end-of-line interruptions

Editing Bites

• The Magic of Fiction, Beth Hill
• ‘Start here: How to self-publish your book’, Jane Friedman

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise explain what a comma splice is, why you should usually avoid it, and how it can add clarity.

​Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 8

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Don't fancy listening? Here are the nuts and bolts of our podcast chat, based on a transcript from the show.

What is a comma splice?
When two independent clauses – which could stand on their own as sentences and make perfect sense – are separated by a comma. For example:

• I love tomatoes.
• Red and yellow ones are my favourites.

Those two sentence above could be separated by a semi-colon, a dash, or a full stop and no one would be breathing grammar rules down your neck:

Standard punctuation 

• I love tomatoes; red and yellow ones are my favourites.
• I love tomatoes – red and yellow ones are my favourites.
• I love tomatoes—red and yellow ones are my favourites.
• I love tomatoes. Red and yellow ones are my favourites.

However, if you use a comma to separate them, that heavy breathing will come from some quarters:

Non-standard: comma splice

• I love tomatoes, red and yellow ones are my favourites.

Why comma splices trip up readers
Some people don’t know what a comma splice is and don’t care. But plenty do, and even if they don’t know what’s it called, they trip up. For those in the know, comma spliced sentences (sometimes) scream off the page for precisely that reason.

That's because when readers see a comma they're inclined to think, This is the start of a list.

A standard method for showing a reader that they’re coming to the end of a list is to incorporate a coordinating conjunction such as ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘though’ and ‘or’. It acts as  shorthand for One more item’s coming. Then there’ll be a full stop.

And so when only two items are separated by a comma, the reader’s expecting at least one more item in that list. When that third item doesn’t appear and the sentence finishes, the reader is jolted because they've placed the emphasis in the wrong place. Try reading these examples out loud:

• Let me tell you about fruit: I like apples, I hate pears but I think oranges are okay. Are we clear now?
• Let me tell you about fruit: I like apples, I hate pears. Are we clear now?

Your intonation likely changed as you read the words 'but I think oranges are okay' because you knew you were finishing a sentence. In the second example, you were left hanging after 'hate pears' and likely hadn't placed the stress correctly.

These kinds of stumbles are a distraction that, even if only for a split second, pulls the reader out of the writing. Now they’re thinking about where they placed the emphasis, not about our fabulous learning tool, enthralling plot line or groundbreaking academic research.

When comma splices can work: fiction
Comma splices are probably more prevalent in published fiction, and more acceptable. Sometimes, and with good reason. The comma doesn't always trip up readers.

The key is to allow splices to stand when they serve a purpose.

Narrative and rhythm
Take this example from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity’ and so on.

This prose is an experiment in rhythm. The splices work. But something else is going on too – the anaphora.

Anaphora is a literary device that uses repetition for rhythmic effect. In the Dickens example, the repetition of 'it was' pulls us along on a beautiful booky wave. Editing in semi-colons or full points would destroy the rhythm and would qualify as an example of editorial hypercorrection.

For a more detailed examination of anaphora, read: What is anaphora and how can you use it in fiction writing?​

Dialogue and mood
While a comma splice will stick out like a sore thumb in a piece of academic research or an education textbook, that’s not always the case in dialogue. 

If the speech is truncated, or there's anaphora in play, a comma might well work. Imagine this scenario in a novel: two characters are having an argument. One says, ‘It’s not me, it’s you’.

Strictly speaking, that's a comma splice. There are two independent clauses with a comma. Would it bother you? Probably not. The speech looks and sounds natural to the mind's ear. Changing the comma to a full stop would slow down the rhythm of the character’s speech and affect the emotionality in the dialogue.

But most important, readers won't trip up; they'll place the emphasis correctly. And so while emotion and mood have been respected, this hasn't been at the expense of clarity. 

Summing up

• Understand what a comma splice is. Only then can you make an informed decision about whether to let it stand or fix it.
• Read the sentence aloud, tor ask someone else to. If you or they stumble over what you’ve written, so might your reader.
• Just because Woolf, McCarthy and Dickens use comma splices doesn't mean every writer should. There may be other literary devices in play or narrative motivations affecting their choices.
• There is a grammatical standard for how commas are handled between two independent clauses, but even so, we can’t prescribe for always right or always wrong. Sometimes it’s about style, rhythm and flow.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise discuss en dashes, or en rules, and how to use them in fiction and non-fiction writing.

​Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 7

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​Other ways to listen
STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE
Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform.

Listen to find out more about ...

• Parenthetical use
• Indicating number spans
• Placement in dialogue interrupted by narrative description
• Linking in adjectival compounds
• Showing faltering speech
• Indicating a relationship/alternative
• Profanity

Editing bites

• Masterclass
• The Conscious Style Guide

​Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

​​In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Louise and Denise demystify (and stand up for) one of the most misunderstood pieces of punctuation – the semi-colon.

Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 5

• RATE AND REVIEW
• ​DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Other ways to listen
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Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform.

Listen to find out more about ...

• What the semi-colon looks like
• Separating two independent clauses
• Subjects and predicates
• Weighting and parallelism
• Comma splices
• Separating items in a list
• Emojis
• Objections to the semi-colon

Resources

• National Centre for Writing’s podcast
• Semicolon: How a misunderstood punctuation mark can improve your writing, enrich your reading and even change your life, by Cecilia Watson
• How to use semi-colons in fiction writing

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise chat with Tim Storm about the concept of unearned writing, and how to craft prose that's authentic and plausible.

​Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 4

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Other ways to listen
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Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform.

Listen to find out more about ...

• The writer’s responsibility to the reader and the story
• Story events and character reactions in relation to plausibility and authenticity
• Salvation events
• Unnatural character realizations
• Contrived plot turns
• Thematic insertions or digressions
• Turning unearned writing into earned prose
• Idea flow in non-fiction

Resources related to the show

• Title Case Converter
• The Allusionist podcast
• Storm Writing School
• Free course from Tim: The Gold Standard Scene: Analyses of Near-Perfect Scenes in Prose Fiction
• Storm Writing School on Twitter
• Storm Writing School on Facebook
• Storm Writing School on Pinterest
• Writing resources from Louise

​Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

Denise and Louise talk about how to use question marks in fiction and non-fiction according to convention.

​Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 1

• ​RATE AND REVIEW
• DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

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Other ways to listen
STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE
Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform.

Listen to find out more about

• Direct questions
• Indirect questions
• How-to statements
• Idiomatic phrases and question marks
• Double punctuation
• Uncertain dates and date ranges
• Indicating uncertainty

Mentioned in the show

• But Can I Start A Sentence With “But”? by Carol Saller
• Making a Point: The Pernickety Story of English Punctuation by David Crystal

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

Here's how to use quote marks (or speech marks) according to publishing convention in your fiction writing. The guidance covers both US English and UK English conventions.

In this post, I cover the following:

• What quote marks are used for
• Omitting a closing quote mark in dialogue
• Whether to use single or double quote marks
• Whether to use straight or curly quote marks
• Where the closing quote mark goes in relation to other punctuation​
• When not to use quote marks​

What quote marks are used for
Quote marks are used in 3 ways in fiction:

• Character dialogue
• To distance the narrator from what's being reported 
• ​To denote song titles and other works

Character dialogue
Quote marks show that we’re reporting what someone else is saying or said. 

​Each new speaker's dialogue should appear on a new line and include opening and closing quote marks.

To distance the narrator from what's being reported 
The tone of the distancing rendered by the quote marks will depend on narrative intent. Perhaps the voice is sarcastic. Or the author might want the reader to suspend belief by indicating that a character considers a word or phrase unreliable.

Imagine the character is saying so-called or supposed or allegedly before the word in quotes.

A word of caution: Don't be tempted to differentiate distancing terms in the narrative from dialogue by using an alternate style. If there are double speech marks around the dialogue, there should be double marks around the distancing words.

To denote song titles and other works
Quote marks are also used to identify certain published works such as song titles and book chapter titles.

So, for example, if a writer is referring to an album or book title, this is rendered in italic. However, when it comes to a song on an album, or a chapter in a book, it's conventional to use quote marks.

Omitting a closing quote mark in dialogue
There's one occasion where it's acceptable to omit the closing speech mark in dialogue: same speaker, new paragraph.

So, if you want your dialogue to take a new paragraph while retaining the current speaker, use a quotation mark at start of the new line but omit the closing one at the end of the previous paragraph.

​Single versus double quote marks
There’s no rule, just convention.

There are lots of Englishes: US, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, etc. Each has its own preferences and idiosyncrasies.

Focus on which English your audience will expect, and punctuate your writing accordingly. Whichever style you choose, the main thing is be consistent. 
​

• In the UK, it’s more common to use single quote marks. And if there’s a quote within the quote, that’s a double. You might hear quotes within quotes called nested quotes.
• In US English it’s conventional to use double quote marks with nested singles. 

If you choose double quote marks, use the correct symbol, not two singles.

Straight versus curly quote marks
Curly quote marks are more conventionally known as smart quotes.

​It’s conventional in mainstream publishing to use smart or curly quotation marks, not unidirectional ones.

Changing straight quotes to smart quotes is one of the initial clean-up jobs an editor will carry out when they start work on a file. To prevent the problem occurring from the minute you begin typing:
 

• Go to FILE and select OPTIONS
• Select PROOFING, then click on the AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS button
• Choose the AUTOFORMAT AS YOU TYPE tab
• Make sure there’s a tick in the "STRAIGHT QUOTES" WITH “SMART QUOTES” box
• Click on OK

 
If you’ve pasted material into your book from elsewhere, or you didn’t check autocorrect options before you began typing, there might be some rogue unidirectional marks in your file. To change them quickly, do a global find/replace:
 

• Select CTRL+H on your keyboard to open FIND AND REPLACE
• Type a quotation mark into the FIND WHAT box
• Type the same quotation mark into the REPLACE WITH box
• Click on the REPLACE ALL button

The closing quote mark in relation to other punctuation​
In fiction, punctuation related to dialogue is placed similarly whether you're writing in US or UK style: within the quote marks.

Here are some examples:

​However, there's a difference when it comes to distancing or cited works. Note the different placement of the commas and full stops in the US and UK examples. In US English, the commas come before the closing quotation marks; in UK English, they come after.

When not to use quote marks
There are 2 issues to consider here:

• Thoughts 
• Emphasis

Thoughts
CMOS at section 13.43 says you can use quote marks to indicate thought, imagined dialogue and other internal discourse if you want to. However, I recommend you don't. For one thing, I can’t remember the last time I saw this approach used in commercial fiction coming out of a mainstream publisher’s stable.

But the best reason for not putting thoughts in quote marks is because it might confuse your reader. The beauty of quote marks – or speech marks – is that they indicate speech. Let them do their job!

Emphasis 
It can be tempting to use quote marks in your writing to draw attention to a word or phrase, but it’s rarely necessary and could even have the opposite effect to what you intended. It works instead as a distancing tool, as discussed above.

If you’re tempted to use quote marks for emphasis, imagine saying the sentence out loud, and making air quotes with your fingers as you speak. Would your character/narrator say it like that? If the answer's no, leave out the quote marks. Italic will work better. Or recast your dialogue so that the reader can work out where to place the stress themselves.

Summing up
If in doubt about how to use quote marks for your book, consult a style manual. I recommend the Chicago Manual of Style, the Penguin Guide to Punctuation and New Hart’s Rules, all of which offer industry-standard guidance.

Fancy listening instead?
If you'd prefer to listen to the advice offered here, Denise Cowle (a non-fiction editor) and I chat about how to use quote marks in all types of writing on The Editing Podcast. You can listen right here or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform

Story-level critiques focus on the big picture – plot, pace, characterization, voice. Line critiques evaluate a book at a micro level, focusing on sentence construction, word choice, and readability. Here’s an overview of what to expect.

Story first ...
Think of your book as a construction project.

First you lay the foundations and build the walls – writing and redrafting to ensure the structure of your storytelling is sound. It’s where you and your editor (if you have one) focus on the big-picture stuff such as:

• Plot
• Pace
• Characterization
• Voice
• Tense choices
• Viewpoint decisions

At this macro stage, you might end up adding, deleting or shifting sections of your prose.

Some authors do their own structural editing because they’re good at it and have studied story craft via writing courses, groups or books. Others seek professional help, either because they’re at an earlier stage of their authorial journey or because they feel they’re too close to the book to see the problems.

One thing’s for sure – there’s no right or wrong way. Every writer has to make their own choices.

If a full, done-for-you developmental (or structural) edit isn’t the path you take, you might still decide to work with a specialist editor who analyses your book and provides a detailed report on its strengths and weaknesses at story level, and offers suggestions about how to improve your writing.
​
That’s where story-level critiques come into play. You might also hear them called manuscript evaluations and manuscript assessments.

​Line level second ...
Once the foundations and walls are in place, it’s plastering time – smoothing at sentence level to ensure that a reader’s journey through the pages is satisfying. In a sense, it’s still structural work but at a micro level. This is where you (and your editor if you have one) focus on nuances such as:

• Viewpoint
• Spelling, grammar, syntax and punctuation
• Dialogue
• Narrative readability
• Character description
• Thoughts
• Action beats
• Shown and told prose
• Tenses
• Formatting

Again, some authors do their own line editing because they’re good at it and have studied line craft via writing courses, groups or books. Others seek help.
If a full, done-for-you line- and copyedit isn’t an option, a line critique could be just the ticket.

A line critique, like its story-level sister, is an assessment or evaluation of your story but at sentence level. Your report will include examples from your novel that show what’s holding you back.

​You’ll also be offered suggestions on how you can fix any problems identified. Then you can implement what you learn throughout the rest of your book.

Critiques are about learning, not criticizing
Some authors are nervous about critiques. Pro editors get it – it can be tough to put your book in the hands of another and ask them to tell you what’s working and what’s not, especially when you’ve put in so much hard work.

The thing to remember is that a critique (whether at sentence or story level) is not about criticism. It’s about identifying strengths and weaknesses, and offering solutions so that you can move forward to the next stage of your publishing journey with confidence.

And critiques are a long-term investment. They enable you to improve your self-editing skills. That’ll save you time and money further down the line because anyone else you commission will have less to do.

The line critique: the process and the report
What follows is an overview of the way I handle line critiques. Every editor has their own process, but the basic principles will be similar.

1. The service: Mini line critique
Authors email a Word file comprising, say, 5K words of their novel. It’s in a writer’s best interest to include a section that includes both narrative and dialogue. That way we can assess whether both are working effectively.

Furthermore, if there are multiple viewpoint characters in the novel, and different viewpoint styles and tenses have been used, a sample that represents these choices will enable us to provide a report that evaluates the success of those decisions.

2. First readthrough
The first stage of the process is a complete readthrough of the 5K words. It’s not about micro-level reporting, not yet. Rather, we’re getting a sense of the author’s writing style, the characters’ voices, and the flow of the narrative.

 3. Second pass: Identification tagging
We go back to the beginning and start the analytical process, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s line craft.
 
We work through the sample, tagging sections of the text with Word’s commenting tool. The author won’t see these tags – they’re just a tool that allow us to locate the sections we’ll pull from the text and into the report for demonstration.
​
The text in the image below has been blurred in order to respect confidentiality, but you can see the tagging process in the margins of just one page of one of my reports.

 4. Writing the report
Now that we’ve tagged the sample, we can create a report. My line critiques are usually between 20 and 30 pages long, depending on the length of the text samples I’m pulling in and offering recasts for. 

Each report is divided into sections that address the strengths and weaknesses of the following:

NARRATIVE

• Clarity of narrative viewpoint
• Tense choice
• Showing and telling
• Character description
• Filter words
• Action beats
• Sentence length, flow and rhythm
• Adverbs and adverbial phrases
• Tentative language in relation to a told narrative

DIALOGUE AND THOUGHTS

• Voice, mood and intention
• Dialogue layout
• Dialogue punctuation
• Effectiveness of dialogue tags
• How thoughts are styled

TECHNICAL ELEMENTS

• Spelling
• Punctuation
• Grammar
• Syntax

FORMATTING

• Pre-proof layout recommendations
• Using Word’s styles tool

The tags in the sample allow editors to search for and locate the text we want to use as examples of good practice and to highlight areas with improvement potential.

​Here’s an example of one of those sections (I’ve disguised the identifying traits of the original in order to respect the author’s confidentiality):

5. Wrapping up and emailing the report
When the report is complete, we save it as a PDF and email it to the author. PDF is the tool of choice for many editors because it can’t be edited. If the client wishes to refer back to it during future writing projects, they can do so safe in the knowledge that nothing’s been accidentally removed.

Summing up
If you want to hone your line craft and polish your book at sentence level, but a full line- and copyedit is beyond your budget, consider a more affordable alternative: the line critique.

Think of a critique as another form of authorial development, of book-craft study. And what you learn from your critique won’t be something you can apply just to the current book. It’s a tool you can use with every story you write thereafter.
​
And here’s a free booklet that outlines the various levels of editing. Just click on the cover to get your copy (and, no, you don’t have to give me your email address!).

It doesn’t matter a jot to me which kind of English an author wants to write in. What does matter is their readers' expectations and perceptions, and being consistent.

​This free booklet shows you how to stay on track.

If your characters seem or appear to be doing or feeling something – probably, maybe, perhaps – then you might be using half measures to express a good chunk of that action or emotion. Uncertainty can drag a story down. Here’s how to edit for it at line level.

In fiction, tentative language can lead to the following:

• Flatness: Tension and dynamism are reduced
• Woolliness: The narrative voice can’t make its mind up
• Distance: The reader is pulled away from the story

Authors sometimes introduce tentative language into a novel because:
​

• They’re afraid of dropping viewpoint

• Their narrative voice lacks confidence
• They think it’s appropriate

Tentative language: words to watch out for
I’m not suggesting you remove every tentative word; some might be deliberate and necessary. More likely, you’ll be checking that your prose isn’t rife with them.
​
Still, these little blighters can slip in accidentally and it’s worth taking the time to root them out and decide whether to give them space on your page or remove them.

Here are some of the words (or word groups) to watch out for:

• as if to
• almost as if
• appeared to
• considered
• could
• hoped
• looked as if/looked like
• maybe
• might
• perhaps
• presumably
• probably
• seemed
• thought
• wondered

When there’s a problem, it can sometimes be fixed with a simple deletion, or a stronger verb.

When viewpoint, tension and reader immersion are at stake, more intervention might be required.

How to fix it without dropping viewpoint
I see the likes of seemed, appeared, and looked as if creeping frequently into line editing projects for less experienced authors because they want to hold viewpoint.

Hats off to them – I’ll take a seemed over a head-hop any day of the week! Still, there might be a better fix.

Here’s a framework you can use to recast in a way that removes the uncertainty but keeps the narrative alive.

In the examples below, I’ve used this framework to craft a shown narrative rather than an assumed one. The original text is based on real examples that have been adapted to respect confidentiality.

How to fix an insecure narrative voice
In the examples below, the tentative words have crept in because the authors are still developing the confidence to make every word count.

Useful tools of the trade include deletion, stronger verbs, smoother recasts, and free indirect style. 

The fixes below are suggestions only, offered so you have an idea of what to look out for and how you might tackle the solution. The approach you use will depend on your writing style and the mood of the scene.

When tentative language creates a flat sentence
In these examples, the tentative mood is justified but the sentences are rather flat. We need to inject tension.

When tentative language creates a woolly sentence
In these examples, the tentative words relate to viewpoint characters’ experiences. The uncertainty introduces distance because it pulls the reader out of their experience. It makes us say, ‘Why the lack of commitment? Doesn’t the viewpoint character know?’
​
Once more, I’ve used real examples and adapted them to disguise the originals.

When tentative language works
In these examples, the tentative words work. They show the reader that the viewpoint character is guessing.

​Summing up
As soon as a writer or editor begins line editing fiction, subjectivity comes into play. It’s rare that there’s a right or a wrong way.
​
With that in mind, don’t ban tentative language in your prose; just watch out for it. It may well have the right to be there, though it shouldn’t trump tension or add clunk. 
If removing it messes with viewpoint, use the fixing framework to craft an alternative shown narrative.

You have a choice when it comes to tense in your fiction’s narrative. Here’s an overview of the tenses you’ll most likely be working with, and some guidance on the benefits and challenges of each.

The present tense
Here’s an overview of the present tense, with basic examples:

• Simple present: I write a novel; he writes a novel
• Present progressive (also called present continuous): I am writing a novel; he is writing a novel
• Present perfect: I have written a novel; he has written a novel
• Present perfect progressive: I have been writing a novel; he has been writing a novel

The present is immediate, and that right-nowness forces the reader to stick close to the viewpoint character. We’re in the moment with them. That’s why it appeals to some fiction authors, and why others find it restrictive.
​
With second-person viewpoints, the present tense is intensely voyeuristic, invasive even. Here’s an excerpt from Iain Banks’s Complicity (p. 60). This is a transgressor narrative with a difference – the narrator is anonymous, at least until later in the novel:

And in this example from a later chapter (p. 90), we’re back with the protagonist. Here, the main narrative tense is present. The viewpoint is first-person:

RECOMMENDATION
​The present tense is great if you want to shorten the distance between the reader and the viewpoint character. 

Present tense works particularly well for short fiction because space is limited. I use it often in my own shorts and flashes because it enables me to pack an immersive punch quickly. 

However, it’s tricky to manage if there are multiple viewpoint-character chapters or sections, all operating in the present tense. You’ll need to keep a close eye on the timelines so that the reader’s clear on what ‘now’ really means. If your plot twist hinges on deliberately duping them via your use of tense rather than story craft, you’ll break their trust.

The present tense can also be tiring for readers because it’s emotionally immersive. If you’re writing a novel, you might consider using it only for certain viewpoint characters – your transgressor or victim, for example.

In Let Me Lie, Clare Mackintosh mixes it up: the Anna-viewpoint chapters are set in first-person present; the Murray-viewpoint chapters are third-person past. 

The past tense
Now let’s turn to the past tense, starting with some basic examples:

• Simple past: I wrote a novel; he wrote a novel
• Past progressive: I was writing a novel; he was writing a novel
• Past perfect: I had written a novel; he had written a novel
• Past perfect progressive: I had been writing a novel; he had been writing a novel
• Habitual past: I would write a chapter every week; he would write a chapter every week; I used to write a chapter every week; he used to write a chapter every week

The past tense is the choice of most contemporary commercial fiction writers. What’s interesting is that readers are so used to this style that they can still immerse themselves in a past-tense narrative as though the story is unfolding now.

Here’s an excerpt from T. M. Logan’s 29 Seconds (p. 73). We’re given a past-tense narrative with a third-person limited viewpoint (Sarah’s):

WHEN PAST TENSE FLOPS – UNDERSTANDING PAST PERFECT​
​Less experienced writers can end up in a pickle when referencing events that happened earlier than their novel’s now.

The crucial thing to remember is that when we set a novel in the past tense, anything that happens in the story’s past will likely need the past perfect, at least when the action is introduced.

Here’s an excerpt from The Wife Between Us (p. 57) by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. This chapter’s primary narrative tense is past (see underlined verb):

When we’re told that ‘She stood’, that’s the novel’s now. But when the narrator recalls events that happened further back in time (bold) – Samantha’s decorating her bed, and the two women’s procuring a rug – these need to be anchored in the past-perfect tense: had, had been.

When authors fail to anchor past events in a novel whose now is already set in the past tense, the reader will be confused.

RENDERING BYGONE ROUTINE – UNDERSTANDING HABITUAL PAST
Now and then, you might want to reference events from your novel’s past that happened routinely or habitually. This is where the habitual past tense comes into play, and the tools are would and used to.

This excerpt from The Templar's Garden by Catherine Clover illustrates the usage. The narrative is set in third-person past but the viewpoint character is recalling regular journeys taken earlier in her life:

And in Time To Win (p. 62), Harry Brett uses the simple past and past progressive for the most part, but then Frank, the viewpoint character, recalls something he’d done habitually in former times:

Like the past perfect, the habitual past acts as an anchor, so that readers don’t mix up the reminiscence of a routine event with the novel’s now. 

To see that confusion in action, replace ‘used to enjoy’ with the simple past: ‘enjoyed’. It reads as if Frank is enjoying driving down South Denes Road right now. 

If you don’t want to use the habitual past, then an alternative anchor is necessary. Here I’ve added an anchoring clause and changed the tense to past perfect (he’d, or he had):
​

• Back in the day, he’d enjoyed driving down [...]

RECOMMENDATION
The past tense is flexible; it’s easier to shift narrative distance (the distance between the reader and the narrator) than is the case with the present tense, though this does increase the risk of flatter writing. Dramatic scenes – fights, escapes, arguments – could end up laboured if the writing isn’t lean and rich.

Still, it’s traditional and readers are used to it. No one will get tired of reading in the past as long as the line craft is strong.

Do take care, however, with rendering events that have taken place in your novel’s past. Use the past perfect or the habitual past when necessary to ensure your readers know what happened when. 

Summing up
Write in the tense you feel most comfortable with, and that you think readers of your genre will be most comfortable reading. The past and the present both have their challenges and their advantages. The most important thing is that readers know where and when they are in the story. 

Cited sources 

• 29 Seconds, T. M. Logan, Zaffre, 2018
• Complicity, Iain Banks, Abacus, 1994
• The Templar’s Garden, Catherine Clover, The Holywell Press, 2017
• The Wife Between Us, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, Pan, 2018
• Time to Win, Harry Brett, Corsair, 2017

Round brackets, or parentheses, crop up less frequently than many punctuation symbols in fiction writing, but that doesn’t mean we must ban them. This post explores two ways to make them work effectively.

What are round brackets?
This is what they look like: ( )

They always come in pairs, and act as alternatives to paired dashes or commas in fiction. They have other functions in non-fiction writing but I’ll leave that discussion to a non-fiction editor!

​Compare these examples:

All of the above are grammatically correct, though paired brackets (like dashes) are stronger than commas, and more interruptive to the eye than both commas and dashes, probably because they’re used less frequently and associated more with non-fiction work.
 
Every writer will do well to ask themselves how their choice of parenthetical styling will affect the rhythm and clarity of their prose.

Every writer will also do well to ask themselves whether readers will be annoyed by them. Like serial commas, adverbs and the singular they, round brackets rarely pass a reader or an editor without evoking opinion. More on that later.

Brackets, full points and capitalization
Regardless of which English you’re using – British or American, for example – the rule is the same: 

• If the bracketed information is included as part of a sentence, the full point comes after the closing bracket. The bracketed clause takes a lower-case initial letter unless it starts with a proper noun.

• If the bracketed information stands as a sentence in its own right, the full point comes before the closing bracket. The bracketed sentence takes an initial capital.

Danger, Will Robinson!
Round brackets in fiction garner strong opinion, usually negative. 

The most-cited reason I’ve seen – and it’s a valid one – is that they pull readers out of a story. Given that there’s no reason on earth why you’d want to pull a reader out of a story, tread carefully.

Still, given that they’re not grammatically wrong, it’s only right that we should consider the ways in which round brackets might work in your fiction. The two I’ve seen most often are as follows:

• Satire – narrators poking fun
• Viewpoint shifts – narrators interrupting

Round brackets in fiction: Satire
For an example of how round brackets can be used for satirical purposes, we need look no further than Dickens.

In Our Mutual Friend (Wordsworth Editions, 1997), the viewpoint is omniscient. The scene is an ostentatious banquet hosted by the Veneerings. Dickens uses round brackets to set off narrative asides that poke fun at the guests and show them as the bumptious fools he believes them to be – and wants us to.

Here’s an excerpt from p. 11:

In other words, the crest is a farce.

And one of the diners, a Mr Twemlow, is obsessed over whether he is Veneering’s ‘oldest friend’, though he would never admit to being bothered by such a thing.

​Dickens’s bracketed snipe (p. 12) leaves us in no doubt about the man’s snobbery; it interrupts the dialogue of Lady Tippins, a frightful show-off whose ‘my dear’ sends Twemlow into a tizzy:

This approach is unlikely to find favour with readers who bought your high-octane thriller expecting a rollercoaster ride. The external narrator’s voice is overwhelming, and in most contemporary commercial fiction it will slow readers down, drag them out of the story, and infuriate them.

Round brackets in fiction: Viewpoint shifts
Take a look at this example from Stephen King’s The Outsider (p. 252; Hodder, 2018):

The brackets are effective here precisely because they’re interruptive. The narrative viewpoint in this section is third-person; we see the world as Holly, the private investigator, experiences it.

Given that it’s third-person, our finding out something that Holly hasn’t considered shifts the narrative distance. Such a shift might jar under other circumstances because it yanks us out of Holly’s head.

King, however, is a master of viewpoint, and he writes his characters with a rich immediacy. Still, he finds ways to introduce flexibility seamlessly, and in this case it’s with round brackets to introduce his omniscient narrator.

The parentheses allow an external narrator to enter the story just for a moment – an all-seeing eye that tells us what Holly didn’t think – but that voice is cocooned safely within those round brackets, and is gone as soon as the reader’s eye passes over the closing symbol.

King’s an experienced writer. If you’re not, I recommend holding a single character viewpoint and steering clear of bracketed interruptions from another narrator.

Here are four ways we could recast the King excerpt:

Round brackets in fiction: Dialogue
In Fix Your Damn Book! How to Painlessly Self-Edit Your Novels & Stories (Gift Horse Productions, 2016), James Osiris Baldwin advises never using round brackets in dialogue because they break ‘the fourth wall’.

What’s the fourth wall? It’s originally a theatrical term but in our case refers to ‘The conceptual barrier between any fictional work and its viewers or readers’ (Lexico/Oxford Dictionaries).

It’s good advice. It makes no sense to give an external narrator space inside a character’s speech. That’s why in the earlier Dickens example, the interruption comes between the speech-marked dialogue rather than within it.

Summing up
There’s nothing grammatically wrong with using round brackets. Stylistically, however, they could be a misfire. If you use them in your fiction, think care and rare: understand the impact they have on story and viewpoint, and use them infrequently.

Are your hyphens, en dashes and em dashes giving you the run-around? Here’s a guide to conventional usage in UK and US fiction publishing.

Terminology
Dashes are sometimes referred to as ‘rules’, especially in the UK. Oxford’s New Hart’s Rules (NHR) refers to the ‘en rule’ and the ‘em rule’ whereas The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) discusses ‘en dashes’ and ‘em dashes’.

​Both terms are acceptable but I’ll use ‘dash’ in this article.

A word on exceptions
Take a look at the likes of CMOS and you’ll see plenty of exceptions to the rules, which is why I don’t much like rules when it comes to fiction editing! What I’ve given you here is what I think you’ll need to know most of the time for most of your novel writing.

What do the dashes look like?
There are four dashes you’re most likely to use in fiction:

• Hyphen: -
• En dash: –
• Em dash: —​
  
• 2em dash: ⸺

Dashes that set off text and replace alternative punctuation
The EN DASH and the EM DASH can be used to set off an augmenting or explanatory word or phrase in a sentence that could stand alone without the insertion.
​
Brackets, commas and colons can act as alternative forms of punctuation. Here are some examples that demonstrate how it could be done:

In the UK, it’s conventional to use a SPACED EN DASH. This is not the law, not a rule, not the only way or the right way. It’s just the style that many UK publishers choose, though not all.
​
Here’s an example from my version of Stephen King’s The Outsider (p. 171):

​In the US, it’s conventional to use a CLOSED-UP EM DASH. Again, this is not the law, not a rule, not the only way or the right way. It’s just the style that many US publishers choose, though not all.

Here’s what King’s sentence looks like when amended according to US convention:

Some style guides even ask for SPACED EM DASHES, though I see this usage less frequently:

I recommend you stick to spaced en dashes or closed-up em dashes in fiction because that’s what your readers will be most familiar with. As for which style you should choose, think about:
​

• where your target audience is based
• what they’re used to seeing

If you’re publishing internationally, pick one style and be consistent.

Dashes in number spans
In fiction, number spans are often written out, though again this is convention rather than a rule that must be adhered to. Number ranges might make their way into emails, texts, letters and reports in your story, and they’re perfect for date ranges.
​
A CLOSED-UP EN DASH between number spans is standard in publishing, whether you’re writing in British English or US English:

Note that the en dash means up to and including (or through in US English). 

CMOS and NHR both recommend using EITHER the closed-up en dash in a number range OR a from/to or between/and construction, but not a mixture of the two:

Dashes as alternative speech marks
The CLOSED-UP EM DASH can act as an alternative to speech marks (or quotation marks) in dialogue in both UK English and US English.

Sylvain Neuvel uses this technique in Sleeping Giants and it works because the scenes in which it occurs take place in a secret location with an anonymous (even to the reader) agent running the interrogation. Each speaker’s turn is indicated with an em dash. The agent’s speech is rendered in bold.

​It can be an effective tool for fiction that’s dialogue driven – almost like a screenplay – but it gets messy when there are more than two speakers in a conversation, and becomes unworkable if you want to ground your dialogue in the environment with narrative (action beats, for example). And, of course, the dialogue needs to be standout because that’s all there is.

Dashes that indicate end-of-line interruptions
To indicate that a speaking character has been interrupted, use a CLOSED-UP EM DASH, whether you’re publishing in US or UK English.

Here’s an example from Mick Herron’s Dead Lions (p. 115)::

And another from Linwood Barclay’s Parting Shot (p. 380):

Dashes for dialogue interrupted by narrative description
Dashes offer clarity when dialogue is broken by narrative description and the speaker hasn’t finished talking.
​
Here’s how it could be rendered in US English using CLOSED-UP EM DASHES:

And if you’re following UK English convention, use SPACED EN DASHES:

​
Notice how I’ve also used double quotation marks in the US version and singles for the UK one. Again, this isn’t about being right or obeying a rule; it’s a convention, and one that’s not always adhered to. Consistency is king.

​Dashes that indicate faltering speech
If your character is out of breath, taken aback, caught off guard, frightened, or nervous, you might want to indicate faltering speech with punctuation.
 
There are no absolute rules about how you do this; it depends on the effect you want to achieve.

If you want to denote a staccato rhythm, HYPHENS are a good choice. This works for sharper faltering where the character stammers or stutters.

If the faltering related not to letters but to phrases, you could use a CLOSED-UP EM DASH (US style) or a SPACED EN DASH (UK style).

Ellipses are another option. They're not dashes but they're handy for faltered speech that has a pause in it. You can use these with your dash of choice.

​Dashes as separators
HYPHENS are the tool of choice here. They’re short and sharp, and are perfect in fiction when you want to spell out words or numbers:

Number separation comes in handy when you want to ensure your reader reads the numbers as distinct digits rather than inclusively. Compare 1918 (nineteen eighteen) with 1-9-1-8 (one, nine, one, eight).

Dashes that indicate connection, relation or an alternative
We use EN DASHES in place of to and and/or to show a connection between two words that can stand alone and that together are modifying a noun:

Dashes with adjectival compounds
Either EN DASHES or HYPHENS are used here, regardless of where you live.
​
When one adjective modifies another adjective, these words create a compound. If this compound is placed before a noun, it usually takes a HYPHEN for the purpose of clarity. When the compound comes after the noun and a linking verb, the hyphen can be omitted:

Care should be taken, even in fiction, with regard to weighting. Let’s revisit the example of our polyglot Amir. Consider the differences between the following:

In the first example, with an EN DASH, Amir’s Asianness and Britishness have equal weighting. In the second, with the HYPHEN, ‘Asian’ is modifying ‘British’ and carries less weight. In the third and fourth, where the dashes are omitted, the weighting is ambiguous.

The dash of choice (or its omission) can tell us something about Amir’s identity – how he, or the narrator, or the author perceives this – so it needs to be used purposefully.

Dashes indicating omission
You might want to omit words, fully or partially, because they’re profane, or to indicate that some of the letters are illegible, or to disguise a name.

There are several options for managing omission: em dashes, 2em dashes, en dashes and asterisks. Spacing comes into play. There are different conventions for US and UK style.
​
NHR recommends the following for UK style:

​CMOS recommends the following for US style:

Summing up
Using dashes purposefully, and according to publishing convention, will bring clarity to your fiction writing. Think about your audience and what they’re used to seeing on the page, then choose your style and apply it consistently.

Consider, too, whether your choice of dash will amplify or reduce the significance (or weight) of your words when you’re using dashes as connectors or modifiers.
​
And if you’re still bamboozled, ask a pro editor. We know our dashes!

Denise and Louise discuss how to use quote marks (or speech marks) in writing ... and when not to use them.

​Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 10

Other ways to listen

Summary
Listen to find out more about:

• What quote marks are and how they're used
• Whether to use straight or curly quote marks
• Choosing single or double quote marks
• Where the closing quote mark goes in relation to other punctuation​
• When not to use quote marks

Editing bites

• ‘How to punctuate dialogue in a novel’: (blog) http://bit.ly/2vYflIf
• ‘How to punctuate dialogue in a novel’: (video playlist): http://bit.ly/2ZzUCXG
• ‘Worry-free Writing: how to use quote marks’: http://bit.ly/2ZyTzag

Other resources

• Chicago Manual of Style
• Penguin Guide to Punctuation
• New Hart’s Rules

Ask us a question
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Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services
• Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk about adverbs, and how to use or remove them purposefully.

​Click to listen to Season 2, Episode 4

​​Can we ask a favour of you? Would you rate and review us on iTunes, please? It would mean a lot to us. Thank you!

Download transcript
Prefer to read rather than listen? No problem. You can download the transcript from the show by clicking on the button below.

Summary
Listen to find out more about:

• What Stephen King said about adverbs
• Adverb use versus adverb abuse
• Definition of an adverb with examples
• Definition of an adverbial phrase with examples
• Adverb red flag #1: the double tell in narrative
• Adverb red flag #2: the double tell in dialogue
• Adverb red flag #3: the double tell in dialogue tags
• Fixes: using stronger verbs and strengthening dialogue
• Why adverbial phrases don’t solve the problem
• Extent of overuse

Editing bites

• How to Write Dazzling Dialogue by James Scott Bell
• Oxford Guide to Plain English by Martin Cutts

Other resources

• Stephen King on Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button

Denise and Louise

• Denise Cowle Editorial Services (non-fiction)
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader & Copyeditor (fiction)

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Semi-colons are disliked by some, misused by others, and avoided by many. If you want to keep them out of your writing, that’s fine. In this article, I show you how they work conventionally. That way, you can omit them because that’s your preference, not because you daren’t include them!

What is a semi-colon?
It’s one of these: 

3 ways to use a semi-colon
There are 3 situations in which you’re likely to use a semi-colon in fiction:

Here, I focus on parallelism and clarity, but sentence pacing comes into play too – a useful addition to any fiction writer’s toolbox.
​
A little bit of grammar
Above, I mentioned independent clauses. An independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate. In case you don’t know what they are – and many writers know how to write extremely well without knowing grammar terminology so there’s no shame in that – here’s an overview.

Subject
A subject is the thing in a sentence that’s doing something or being something. In the examples below, the subject is in bold.

If you’re not sure what the subject of your sentence is, try this trick: change the subject into a question that you can answer yes/no to, as in the examples below.

​Predicate
A predicate is the part of a sentence that contains a verb and that tells us something about what the subject’s doing or what they are.
​
In the examples below, the predicate is in bold.

If you’re not sure what the predicate is in a sentence that’s a question, turn it into a statement, as in the example below. The result might be clunky but it’ll show you what’s what. The subject is in bold and the predicate in italic.

Independent clauses
Quick recap: an independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate. The subject is in bold, the predicate is in italic, and the full independent clause is in red.

​Parallelism and the semi-colon
Take a look at these two independent clauses.

• The FBI agent fell to the ground.
• The gravel dug into her elbows.

The second sentence is related to the first because the gravel that’s digging into the agent’s elbows is what she experiences after falling to the ground. We can therefore use a semi-colon to indicate this relationship, if we wish.

• The FBI agent fell to the ground; the gravel dug into her elbows.

Note that the first word of the clause after the semi-colon does not take an initial capital letter.

Could we use a colon?
A colon is non-standard because colons introduce additional/qualifying information about the first clause, not new information. Think of the information they introduce as subordinate, if it helps.

I recommend avoiding colons to join parts of a sentence that are equally weighted.

Could we use a comma?
A comma is non-standard when joining two independent clauses. Sentences using commas in this way are said to contain comma splices.

​I recommend avoiding this usage.

Clarity and the semi-colon
Heavily punctuated sentences can be confusing and clunky. For the reader, it can mean limping through your prose rather than moving at a pace dictated by narrative intent.

​Take a look at this example from Mick Herron’s Dead Lions, p. 88. There are two semi-colons in the original version, but for this example I’m focusing only on the first (see the section in bold).

​The en dash in the first alternative version looks awkward because we already have two parenthetical en dashes in play.

What happens if we introduce a comma instead? The sentence is already comma-heavy. All we’ve done is bring in yet another to muddy the waters.
​
The semi-colon works best. It effectively links the clauses it connects, but in a way that subdivides the sentence clearly.

​However, pacing comes into place here too. There’s more on pacing below but, for now, compare the original and the version amended with a comma. The creepy voyeurism is starker when set off by the semi-colon.

​More on pacing and the semi-colon
The semi-colon is harder than the comma. It lengthens the pause or increases the distance between two clauses that could have been linked with a comma, making them both stand out.

The semi-colon is softer than the full point. It shortens the pause or reduces the distance between two clauses that could have been linked with a full point, indicating a stronger, more intimate relationship.

Back to Herron for a closer look at the second semi-colon (see the section in bold) and some alternatives we could try:

​In the original, the semi-colon acts as a super-comma, subdividing the whole sentence into two more readable chunks.

However, more marked is the impact on the pace. The semi-colon forces us to slow down. That’s important because the clause that comes after it is about the denial of interrogations. The semi-colon makes us pause a little longer, which makes the sinister information that follows stand out.

Semi-colons and dialogue
Some authors resist the use of semi-colons in dialogue, usually on the grounds that the reader can’t hear the punctuation. Does that mean you shouldn’t use them?

A novel’s dialogue isn’t real-life speech; it’s a representation of it. Speech, like narrative, has rhythm. The writer’s job is to create speech that’s clear and well paced. If a semi-colon helps you to do that, why wouldn’t you use it?

Here’s a great example from David Rosenfelt’s New Tricks, p. 316:

Both versions work but Rosenfelt elects to use a semi-colon because he wants to show the relationship between the two independent clauses. A full point would pull the clauses a little further apart and reduce the intimacy between them.

Should you use semi-colons in your fiction?
Some authors prefer to omit semi-colons for a variety of reasons: they're deemed pretentious, confusing, interruptive or ugly. But I’m not sure we should judge them so harshly:

• They needn’t be pretentious. There’s nothing pompous about Herron and Rosenfelt’s writing. Both authors create compelling modern commercial fiction that keeps their readers on a page, and dying to turn it.
• While not all readers understand the grammatical nuances of the semi-colon, few will be stopped in their tracks if you use it well.
• Are they interruptive? Yes; if you use them too frequently; and your writing lurches; like a driver who’s too heavy on the brakes; too much of anything can grate. And; yes, if; you put them; in the wrong; place. Used purposefully, however, they can affect rhythm and bring clarity to a story.
• As for ugly, well, that’s subjective. I think they’re just lovely!

Further reading and cited works

• Dead Lions, Mick Herron, John Murray, 2013
• Dialogue tags
• How to punctuate dialogue
• How to use adverbs
• How to use apostrophes
• More resources for indie authors
• New Tricks, David Rosenfelt, Grand Central, 2009
• Style sheet template
• Using commas and conjunctions

Is your dialogue pushing your novel forward or making the reader feel like they’re eavesdropping on a mundane conversation at the bus stop? Here’s how to ensure your dialogue pops.

What good dialogue isn’t
Good dialogue is the icing on the cake of a well-structured novel. Bad dialogue will mar a well-structured narrative and bury a story that is barely hanging in there. Before we look at what makes great dialogue, let’s look at what dialogue isn’t: 

3 components of effective dialogue
‘Dialogue should be the character in action,’ says John Yorke in his must-read Into the Woods (p. 151). Yorke’s talking about the art of screenwriting but the advice is just as pertinent for novelists. I recommend you read it even if you have no intention of writing for the screen because it’s a masterclass in storytelling, whatever the medium.

When we stop thinking about dialogue as words spoken – as conversations – and instead frame it in terms of characters, we create something that’s fit for a novel.

​What does your dialogue tell readers about who your characters are, how they’re feeling, and what their motivations are?

Unreliable dialogue
What a character expresses through dialogue need not match their true voice, mood or intent. Unreliable dialogue is powerful precisely because it jars the reader by masking the truth (which the characters themselves may even have buried).

Imagine this scenario: John has been kidnapped by Jane. They met in a club where she spiked his drink. He started to feel unwell and she offered him a ride to the Tube station. He never made it. He’s been held captive for several days, during which time he’s been physically abused and deprived of food. He’s frightened out of his wits, and weak to boot.

The dialogue between John and Jane could go as follows: John raves and rants, telling Jane her behaviour is monstrous, that Jane’s going to pay for her actions and that he’s going straight to the police as soon as he’s escaped. Jane responds in fury, telling John he deserves it all and how there’s no way he’ll ever escape.

Or the dialogue could be unreliable. John might be polite, sycophantic even, as he thanks her for the water she provided, compliments her on her appearance, or asks her about her life. Through that speech, we are shown his desperation. It’s about keeping her on side and calm in order to save himself.

And Jane’s verbal response might be chipper, seductive even. Through that dialogue, we are shown her psychosis.

The result is a sinister verbal exchange that allows us to explore the inner workings of the characters’ minds without it being forced down our throats via an all-to-obvious narrative that’s centred around the viewpoint character.

Breaking free of viewpoint limitations
Most novelists opt to hold third- or first-person narrative viewpoints. That means the story in a chapter plays out through one person’s perspective.

When authors drop viewpoint, readers end up playing a game of narrative table tennis in which they bounce from one character’s head to another. We know who everyone is (voice), what everyone’s feeling (mood), and what everyone wants (intention) all of the time. Readers become disengaged because they don’t have time to immerse themselves in any one character’s experience.

Good dialogue allows writers and readers to break free without head-hopping. Through dialogue, readers can intuit the voice, mood and intention of multiple characters, yet the singular narrative viewpoint remains true throughout. That keeps the reader engaged and the writing taut.

Purposeful dialogue in action
Here’s an excerpt from Lee Child’s Never Go Back (pp. 457–8). I chose it because I’ve also seen the movie, which allowed me to compare my experience of the screen dialogue (and the advice Yorke gives) with the novel’s, and because there are no action beats, only two speech tags and no narrative. It’s just dialogue between a teenage girl and Jack Reacher. 

WHAT WE LEARN

• Viewpoint: Reacher is the viewpoint character. However, through the dialogue, readers are able to access information about him and the teenager.
• Voice: Both characters speak in a no-nonsense fashion. Reacher might think he holds the balance of power, given his job and age, but the girl’s streetwise tone suggests she thinks otherwise; they’re equals.
• Mood: Reacher is calm (we’d expect nothing more) and measured, but there is emotional engagement; he seems keen not to give too much away (probably in respect of the fact that he’s talking to a child, perhaps his daughter). As for the girl, she’s almost disinterested. I imagine her stuffing fries into her mouth, as focused on her food as she is on the conversation ... until she thinks her mother might be in trouble. Child doesn’t tell us, but I can see her in my mind’s eye, mouth full, looking at him, just a twitch of alarm registering in her expression. There’s almost a sense of the traditional mother/daughter relationship reversed; this is a kid who’s used to looking after herself. There’s movement in this dialogue; the speech is infused with its own action beats.
• Intent: Reacher wants to find out who the mother is. This exchange is all about building trust with the girl in order to achieve that. The girl needs someone she can turn to because bad people are watching her and her mother. She wants to know how Reacher might know Candice; Reacher wants to keep the possible sexual encounter and his resulting paternity to himself. The girl’s not stupid and picks up on his vague inference to a sexual encounter. As the conversation and the chapter close, Reacher and the readers discover that Candice and our protagonist have never met, and that the girl can’t be his daughter.   

This is characters in action, expressed through speech. Child makes every line count towards the chapter denouement. If he was tempted to introduce narrative and action beats that ensured we’d get it, it doesn’t show. In fact, they would have been interruptions and slowed the pace. Instead, he trusts us to do the work because the dialogue gives us everything we need.

Here’s an excerpt from The Poison Artist by Jonathan Moore (pp. 244–5). I chose this because of the contrast between Kennon and Emmeline’s speech.