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.

WHAT WE LEARN

• Viewpoint: Even though Emmeline isn’t the viewpoint character, we get to access her transgressor headspace through the dialogue, and the result is powerful and sinister.
• Voice: Kennon doesn’t say much, but what he does say is what we’d expect from a trained inspector, though it’s offered quietly. Emmeline, however, is pathologically measured. We’re left in no doubt that she’s dangerous.
• Mood: We sense Kennon’s fear and desperation through his truncated, whispered speech. There’s almost exhaustion in play. Emmeline, in contrast, is seductive (offering him a drink as if she were hosting a dinner party). Given the torture in evidence, her dialogue is obscene.
• Intent: Kennon is trying to save himself, Caleb and the twitching man, but he’s playing by the rule of law, warning Emmeline that he will fire his gun. Emmeline wants to finish her game, and her desire to play is evident in her speech. Of course, this may be unreliable; it could be masking a deep-seated fear that she’ll be harmed or killed.

This, too, is characters in action, expressed through speech. Moore draws us deep into the transgressor’s mind – even though she’s not the viewpoint character. Her dialogue, juxtaposed with Kennon’s exhausted near-silence, generates a powerful scene that oozes with sickly tension.

Here’s a third example from Harlan Coben’s Run Away (pp. 68–9):

WHAT WE LEARN

• Viewpoint: Simon is the viewpoint character but through Ingrid’s speech we learn how she uses her professional mindset to manage stressful situations. 
• Voice: Simon’s voice is emotional and verbose; Ingrid’s is precise and clinical.
• Mood: Simon’s disgust and distress are evident. You can almost feel the words falling out of his mouth. Ingrid’s speech exudes clinical detachment. She’s in doctor mode.
• Intent: Simon wants to unload. Ingrid wants to understand.

Again, through speech we see the characters in action. The contrasting voices and moods show us Simon and Ingrid’s different intentions. There’s no need for more than a peppering of supporting narrative.

Summing up

1. Make your characters’ speech count. Use it to show who the character is (voice), how they feel (mood) and what they want (intention).
2. Play with unreliable dialogue if it will enhance our understanding of characters’ emotions and motivations. Those deliberate juxtapositions will deepen our engagement.
3. Realistic everyday speech, while authentic, is dull, invasive and will disengage your reader. Remove it! 

​Free dialogue enrichment tool
To help you think about your characters' voices, moods and intentions, and how these will enrich your dialogue, download this tool. It's a fillable PDF with ready-made examples and space for you to record your own decisions. ​

A vocative expression is one in which a person is directly referred to in dialogue. It needn’t be someone’s name; it could be a form of address that relates to their job or position, or a term of endearment, respect or disrespect. Here’s how to work with them.

Purpose of vocative expressions
Vocatives serve several purposes in fiction writing:
​
1. They help readers keep track of who’s saying what to whom. This is especially useful when a character is talking to two or more people.

2. They can enrich characters’ emotions by conveying a deeper sense of urgency, frustration, surprise or patience.

3. Readers can learn quickly about how characters relate to each other. Does one rank higher or defer to the other? Perhaps they’re friends, lovers, or loathe each other.

Overuse that distracts
Overusing people’s names and titles can be grating. Vocatives aren’t the only way of signalling who’s being talked to – you could use action beats (See: What are action beats and how can you use them in fiction writing?). And if there are only two people in a scene it will be unnecessary to continually use direct forms of address.

Think about the natural speech you hear in your everyday life. Most of the time, people don’t use vocative expressions excessively. Follow their lead in your novel.

Compare the following examples:

The original version is much cleaner. The vocative in the first line helps to convey Vivian’s sarcasm. After that, Chandler lets us do the work and the conversation sounds natural.
​
How to punctuate vocatives
Commas are required for clarity.

• If the vocative expression comes at the beginning of the sentence, place a comma after it.
• If the vocative expression comes at the end of the sentence, place a comma before it.
• If the vocative expression interrupts a sentence, place a comma before and after it.
• A vocative at the beginning of a sentence can also stand alone, in which case it will be followed by a full stop (period) or exclamation mark.

Punctuating vocative expressions incorrectly can lead to ambiguity. Compare the following examples of dialogue. Notice how the missing comma changes the meaning from expressions of address to instructions to carry out acts of violence.

Lower-case or upper-case initials?
Should you use lower-case or upper-case initials when addressing a person in written dialogue? It depends.

People’s names
Names are proper nouns and therefore always take initial capital letters in the vocative case.

Terms of respect, endearment and abuse
Vocative terms of respect and endearment take lower case when used generally. Examples include: madam, sir, m’lady, miss, milord, mister; buddy, sweetie, darling, love, dear; and dopehead, fuckwit and plenty more I’d love to write here but won’t!

When terms of respect are used in conjunction with names, they become proper nouns and take upper case. Endearments and insults usually remain in lower case because they’re used adjectivally.

Titles of rank and nobility
Titles of rank and nobility take initial capitals when used vocatively. Examples include: Your Majesty, Commander, Constable, Agent, Lord, and Detective Inspector.

Compare these with narrative text and dialogue that include indirect address forms. If the relational titles are used as names (proper nouns), we retain upper case. If we’re using common nouns with determiners (a modifying word that references a noun such as ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘each’, ‘her’ and ‘my’) we use lower case.

Titles indicating a relationship
When used as a form of direct address, relational titles take upper case. Examples include: Mother, Uncle, Dad, Auntie, Grandma and Papa.

Again, compare these with narrative text and dialogue that include indirect address forms. If the relational titles are used as names (proper nouns), we retain upper case. If we’re using common nouns with determiners, we use lower case.

Summing up
Use vocatives as follows:

• to convey who’s being spoken to
• to enrich mood and emotion
• to indicate what the mood or relationship is between the speakers

Use appropriate punctuation to set off forms of address in order to avoid ambiguity. And be judicious – overuse will distract and irritate readers.

And, thank you, dear reader, for getting to the end of this article! (See what I did there?)

Cited sources

• 29 Seconds. T.M. Logan. Zaffre Publishing, 2018
• Dune. Frank Herbert. New English Library, 1984
• Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë. Scholastic, 2014. Kindle edition
• Maddon’s Rock. Hammond Innes. Fontana Books, 1947
• The Big Sleep. Raymond Chandler. Penguin, 1948
• The Hard Way. Lee Child. Bantam Books, 2006
• The Inspector and Mrs Jeffries. Emily Brightwell. C&R Crime, 2013
• The Punishment She Deserves. Elizabeth George. Hodder, 2019. Kindle edition 

Powerful dialogue and thoughts enrich a story without the reader noticing. When done poorly they distract at best and bore at worst. Here are 8 problems to watch out for, and ideas about how to solve them.

Problem 1: Maid-and-butler dialogue
Is one of your characters telling another something they already know just so you can let your reader access backstory? If so, you’ve written maid-and-butler dialogue. It’s a literary misfire and should be avoided.

Here's an extreme example:

SOLUTIONS

• Dialogue should be purposeful. If you’re using it to introduce information, have the characters seek answers to questions they don’t know the answers to.
• Unveil backstory that’s known to the speakers through the narrator, not the speech:

Problem 2: Real but mundane
The conversations many of us have in real life are deathly boring. Here’s one I had recently:

It’s realistic, certainly, but has no place in a novel. Most of the words are a waste of space, and the trees that were felled to create the paper on which they’re written deserve better.

Dialogue needs to be natural, but not too natural. The best dialogue is a hybrid of the real and the contrived, ‘a kind of stylised representation of speech’ as Nicola Morgan calls it in Write to be Published (p. 151).

SOLUTIONS

• No one in Star Trek ever goes to the loo. Viewers know that the crew members of the USS Enterprise need to use the bathroom and like their hot drinks served in a variety of ways. The writers know all of that’s best left to our imagination. The same applies in novels.
• Replace filler dialogue with narrative or speech that drives the novel forward.
• Minimize the stumbles. They’re natural and frequent in real life, but mar the flow of dialogue when overdone on the page.

Problem 3: Written accented dialogue
It can be tempting to convey accents with phonetic spellings, as in these appalling examples below:

There are so many problems with this approach that I recommend you avoid it altogether. Bear in mind that dialogue tells us what words have been spoken, not how they’re spelled.
​
Phonetic spelling can turn dialogue into pastiche, and offensive pastiche at that. It’s also difficult to absorb and distracts readers from your story.

SOLUTIONS

• If your novel is written in, for example, British English, use standard spelling regardless of how your character pronounces words.
• Use location rather than pronunciation to enrich characterization – how where they’re from affects the story, their perception of the conflict or their approach to solving it.
• Read ‘How to convey accents in fiction writing: Beyond phonetic spelling’ for more ideas on how to flavour characters’ voices.

Problem 4: Troublesome tags
The function of speech tags is to tell the reader who’s speaking. They shouldn’t push the dialogue into the background. Nor should they repeat what the reader knows from the dialogue.

​Furthermore, the verbs we use to tag the dialogue should be speech-related. Otherwise we end up with a reality crash that jars the reader.

SOLUTIONS

• Said is often best. Readers are so used to seeing it that it’s almost invisible.
• Use action beats to indicate movement.
• Use emotionally evocative adverbs to modify the tag.
• Recast the dialogue so that a showy tag is unnecessary.
• Read ‘Dialogue tags and how to use them in fiction writing’ for more ideas on tagging artfully.
• Read ‘What are action beats and how can you use them in fiction writing?’

Problem 5: Talking heads and monologues
Some books can turn into podcasts on the page when dialogue isn’t grounded in the physical environment.

Too much dialogue can make the reader feel dissociated from the story, as if the characters are talking in the cloud.

In Jo Nesbo’s The Bat, McCormack starts talking on p. 249. On p. 250, Nesbo introduces one line of movement: ‘He turned from the window and faced Harry.’ Then McCormack’s off again. He doesn’t stop talking until p. 251.

It’s a monologue in which Hole, the viewpoint character, seems to be nothing more than a receptacle for McCormack’s ear bending. There’s a little bit of back and forth with Hole, plus some action beats in the lower third of p. 251, but then McCormack’s off again for all of p. 252 and the top third of p. 253.

The blue highlights show how much of these four pages are taken up with just one character’s speech.

Perhaps it’s deliberate, a way of showing that McCormack’s feeling jaded, worn down by the business of policing. Plus, Jo Nesbo has a big enough fan base to get away with this. However, for the writer who’s building readership, lengthy passages of speech that aren’t grounded in their environment could turn into snooze-fests.

SOLUTIONS

• Think about what’s physically surrounding your characters. What can they smell, see, hear? Where are they and what time of day is it?
• How are the characters moving as they talk? Are they fidgeting, escaping, hiding, snuggling?
• If your viewpoint character is on the listening end of a long rant, how are they feeling and moving? What are they seeing?
• Could some of the dialogue be recast as narrative?
• If you’re worried about slowing the pace, use action beats rather than longer narrative descriptions to break up the speech.

Problem 6: ‘Too many vocatives, Louise.’
The vocative case enables the writer to indicate who’s being spoken to in dialogue. In a bid to avoid speech tagging, some less experienced writers overuse vocatives, which renders the speech unnatural.

Next time you get the opportunity to listen to a conversation between two people, notice how often they use each other’s names. You might find they don’t, other than for emphasis.
​
Overuse can labour dialogue, as this example illustrates:

The exception is dialogue between ranking officers or titled people and their staff. Omitting the sir, Your Lordship, Your Majesty, milady and the like would be unrealistic:

SOLUTIONS

• Use vocatives appropriately and sparingly.
• Speech tags and action beats are alternatives that you can bring into the mix.
• Trust your reader. If there are only two people in conversation, indicative nudges once in a while as to who’s speaking will be enough.
• Read ‘How to punctuate dialogue in a novel’ for guidance on how to punctuate vocative expressions.

​Problem 7: Thoughts in speech marks
Speech marks (or quotation marks) have one function – to show the reader that a character is speaking out loud. While some recognized style guides allow for the use of speech marks to indicate thoughts, most professional editors and experienced writers don’t recommend this method because it’s confusing.

Some authors might be tempted to use a different speech-mark style to indicate a thought. Again, this is confusing. Your reader might assume that you’ve not edited for consistency.

Here’s an example in which dialogue and thought have become muddled:

​SOLUTIONS

• Reserve speech marks for the spoken word and keep the style consistent.
• Render thoughts in italic or roman.
• Experiment by combining short present-tense italicized thoughts with past-tense free indirect style.
• Read ‘ How to write thoughts in fiction ’ for a more detailed analysis of how to show what characters are thinking.
• Read ‘3 reasons to use free indirect speech in your crime fiction’ (the principles apply across genres).

Problem 8: Thinking unlikely thoughts
If your character’s in the middle of an escape, a heist, great sex, or a mixed-martial arts smackdown, thoughts need to be handled with care to remain realistic. High-intensity scenes require rapid-fire thoughts otherwise the thinking becomes intrusive and moderates the pace of the action.
​
Here’s an extreme example of how things can go awry: