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The Editing Blog: for Editors, Proofreaders and Writers

FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

Should I use a comma before coordinating conjunctions and independent clauses in fiction?

7/9/2020

14 Comments

 
Are you confused about when to add commas before coordinating conjunctions linking independent clauses? This post offers guidance and a few examples to show you the way.
Should I use a comma before coordinating conjunctions and independent clauses in fiction?
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Rules, convention and meaning
Some writers and editors love a rule. I’m not so keen on the language of ‘rules’ because it sets up a binary mindset that’s focused on ‘wrong’ versus ‘right’ rather than clarity of meaning. Instead, I prefer to think in terms of convention.

Grammatical conventions are useful and purposeful. They provide us with a common frame of reference that helps us communicate clearly through the written word. We can start by at least acknowledging the following:

  • Breaking with convention requires understanding convention’s intent.
  • However, ignoring convention doesn’t always render a sentence unreadable or misunderstood.
  • And adhering to convention doesn’t always mean a sentence is as powerful as it could be.

Balancing convention and meaning
Writing and editing fiction requires deciding when to break with convention. But how do we work out what works and what doesn’t? Here’s how I frame the balancing act:

  • Punctuation should serve meaning as long as that doesn’t butcher rhythm.
  • Rhythm should serve emotion as long as that doesn’t butcher understanding.
  • Both should serve the reader and the story rather than the style manual and the grammar book.

So how does that apply to commas, coordinating conjunctions and independent clauses?

What are coordinating conjunctions?
Coordinating conjunctions are words that join other words or groups of words of equal weight. You might see them referred to in short as FANBOYS: 
F
for
A
and
N
nor
B
but 
O
or
Y
yet
S
so
What are independent clauses?
Independent clauses are groups of words that can stand as a sentence on their own and still make sense. They include a subject and a predicate.

Subjects are people/things that are doing something or being something – the noun (the thing) and the adjectival information describing that noun. The four examples given below are all subjects.

  • Louise
  • That fiction editor Louise Harnby
  • The dog
  • The Labrador in the corner

Predicates are what they’re doing – the verb (the doing word) and the thing the verb’s acting on. The four examples below are all predicates.

  • slumped over the desk.
  • loves working on thrillers.
  • licked its paws.
  • is pale yellow.

Joining subjects and predicates gives us independent clauses. Here are two simple examples (subject in bold; predicate underlined).
​
  • The dog is pale yellow.
  • It is licking its paws.
The comma convention
​The comma convention
If two or more independent clauses in a sentence are joined by a coordinating conjunction, it’s conventional to place a comma before that conjunction.

EXAMPLE AND EVALUATION #1
In the following example, the independent clauses are in bold.
The dog is pale yellow, and it's licking its paws.

The independent clauses could stand on their own as complete sentences and be understood perfectly well. Let’s revisit our balancing act and assess the impact of the comma.
​
The degree to which the comma serves meaning here is, I think, debatable. This is what it looks like without the comma:
​The dog is pale yellow and it's licking its paws.

There’s no ambiguity there, and so one could argue that insisting on a comma would be grammatical pedantry. An editor would struggle to justify adding a comma for any other reason than ‘that’s the rule’ or 'I think it looks better' because the meaning is perfectly clear.

Could someone argue that the comma enforces the equal weighting of the independent clauses lying either side of the coordinating conjunction?

Yes in that it acts as a separator of two ideas: the dog’s colour and what it’s doing to its paws; the one isn't related to the other. And so I certainly wouldn’t remove it if it were already in place; there’s no justification for such an action.

MORE COMPLEX CONSTRUCTIONS
Many sentences in fiction are more complex. If our example looked like this, we might have a sounder justification for adding the comma:
She stops in the doorway and holds her breath. She’s found it. The dog is pale yellow and it's licking its paws and nipping at the bloodied fur around the wound.

​In the revised example below, I think applying the conventional punctuation helps. The rhythm is moderated – we take a little breath when we reach the comma – and experience (through our viewpoint character’s eyes) first the colour of the dog and then what it’s doing and why.

The two ideas have a starker separation, and the punctuation convention supports that meaning. 
She stops in the doorway and holds her breath. She’s found it. The dog is pale yellow, and it's licking its paws and nipping at the bloodied fur around the wound.

EXAMPLE AND EVALUATION #2
Here’s an excerpt from Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Directive (Orion, 2003, p. 355). Once more, both independent clauses are in bold.
Another dumb, inanimate slug would shatter another skull, and another life would be stricken, erased, turned into the putrid animal matter from which it had been constituted.

The independent clauses could stand on their own as complete sentences and be understood perfectly well. Again, let’s revisit our balancing act and assess the impact of the comma.

I think the comma serves meaning and is necessary. Without it, we might start to read the sentence as if the slug would shatter not just a skull but another life too. That’s not what Ludlum is saying. Instead, we’re alerted that another idea is coming into play.

A trip-up here means the reader would have to fix the grammar in their head and reread the sentence to make sense of it. That’s a momentary distraction no writer wants.
When to break grammar and punctuation rules
Breaking with convention in fiction
Let’s have a look at when we might ignore grammatical convention.

Below is a short scene I’ve made up. Our protagonist is a forty-year-old woman having a nightmare about a past event.
There’s a huge yellow dog snarling in the doorway, blocking the way out. Its hackles are raised and it’s grinding its teeth and it’s foaming at the mouth and it’s—​
     I wake, slick with sweat, the six-year-old me hovering spectre-like in my mind’s eye. It’s the third time I’ve had that dream in the past week.

There are three independent clauses (and the start of a fourth) linked by a coordinating conjunction. The ‘rule’ says there should be a comma before all those ‘and’s.
​
EVALUATION
A pro fiction editor would want to think twice before they start adding in commas because of some rule or other.

  • First of all, we need to recognize the literary device in play here – anaphora: deliberate repetition for the purpose of emphasis or meaning – in this case ‘and it’s’.
  • Notice, too, how the beats in those independent clauses are similar: dee-dum-da-dum, dee-dumdum-da-dum, dee-dumdum-dada-dum.

Using anaphora doesn’t mean we have to ignore commas, far from it. But what would introducing them do to rhythm and mood?

I think the lack of commas helps us to feel our way under the skin of that dream-child because young children in a panic don’t introduce pauses or moderate their speech according to a style manual or a grammar guide. Instead, words fly from their mouths like tiny storms.

What we have instead is the sense of terrified disorientation being experienced by the dreamer, one that’s shown rather than told.

Commas would moderate the pace and separate the ideas contained in each independent clause; omitting them means we’re offered a stream of terrified consciousness.
More exceptions to grammar and punctuation rules
More exceptions
Some grammarians do allow for an exception when the independent clauses are short and closely related.

In the examples that follow, the coordinating conjunctions are underlined; notice the absence of the preceding comma. Sense isn’t marred because of the missing punctuation.
  • The gig was finished but no one seemed keen to leave.
  • ‘You need to return that or the boss is going to fire you,’ said Harvey.
  • She’d told him three times yet he wouldn’t listen.
  • The dog is almost white so it stands out in the dark.
  • Mara was late yet again and Aisha was furious.

​It’s an eminently sensible exception – one that allows for decluttering but also avoids a separation of ideas that isn’t appropriate.

  • In the first example, ‘no one seemed keen to leave’ is an independent clause, but the reason for telling us this rests on the gig being finished. No comma required.
  • In the fifth example, Aisha’s fury is standalone, too, but it’s a result of Mara’s tardiness. No comma required.

Summing up
The grammatical convention of placing a comma before a coordinating conjunction linking independent clauses is helpful and useful. However, sometimes we can omit those commas:

  • Because the comma interrupts rhythm and emotion, and therefore shown meaning.
  • Because the meaning is clear, and a comma would be unnecessarily cluttering.
  • Because the comma introduces an inappropriate separation of ideas.

Style and grammar resources offer guidance, and we should use them, but only in so far as they serve the reader and the story, not because we are rule enforcers. That’s nothing more than a road to literary butchery.

More resources to help you line edit with confidence
  • Author resource library (includes links to free webinars)
  • Editing Fiction at Sentence Level: A Guide for Beginner and Developing Writers
  • Making Sense of Punctuation: Transform Your Fiction 2
  • ‘Playing with sentence length in crime fiction. Is it time to trim the fat?’
  • ‘Playing with the rhythm of fiction: commas and conjunctions’
  • ‘What is anaphora and how can you use it in fiction writing?’
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
14 Comments
Kim link
16/9/2020 02:30:49 am

Hi Louise, thank you so much for your consistently helpful blog posts.

I have a question related to this post. I often come across the use of a comma in a sentence with a coordinating conjunction when the second clause is not independent but dependent. In these cases I understand a comma shouldn't be used unless both clauses are independent, but am I correct in thinking this? It seems clearer with short sentences but gets harder to decide with longer and more complex sentences.

For example:

Matisse was a great artist, and sold many art works. (Incorrect)
Matisse was a great artist and sold many art works. (Correct)
Matisse was a great artist, and he sold many art works. (Correct)

Reply
Louise Harnby
16/9/2020 08:53:57 am

The examples you give follow the standard, yes. Just bear in mind that sometimes commas are sometimes used as a rhythmic tool in fiction, which is why I tend to shy away from correct/incorrect. There are grammatical conventions/standards but that doesn't mean we should always adhere to them (in my humble view)!

Here's another couple of examples:

Matisse was a great artist, and often sold exquisite art on the cheap on Sundays.
Matisse was a great artist and often sold exquisite art on the cheap on Sundays.

The comma in the first example above isn't impeding clarity, and to my eyes it actually functions as a healthy separator that gives weight to that second clause even though it's invisibly referring back to the original object (Matisse). So I wouldn't necessarily want to edit that out because I can't see a justification for doing so, even though, according to grammatical convention, it's non-standard.

This is why I'm loathe to talk about rules when it comes to fiction!

Reply
Kim link
16/9/2020 09:50:52 am

Thanks for your thoughtful and prompt reply, Louise. That all makes sense, especially in the context of editing fiction.

Would you take the same approach with this comma conundrum when editing nonfiction or academic writing where the conventions are usually expected to be more closely followed?

Louise Harnby
16/9/2020 10:44:54 am

I can't answer that, Kim, because I don't work on those kinds of materials. You'd need to ask the opinion of a non-fiction editor. Denise and I are probably going to discuss this kind of stylistic decision-making in the next season of The Editing Podcast, so listen out for that!

Sophie Playle link
26/9/2020 11:48:43 am

Excellent article! Thanks, Louise.

Reply
Louise Harnby
26/9/2020 01:07:28 pm

Cheers, Sophie. I recall you and I having a brief conversation about those darn commas! I think our thoughts on the issue chime!

Reply
Tess Marie link
1/10/2020 01:31:43 am

I'm thrilled you wrote this post, Louise, thank you! I've often pondered this particular comma usage in fiction but have never seen it specifically addressed--let alone in such great detail--by a fiction editor before. You have a wonderful, refreshing way of clarifying grammar issues with sensitivity and common sense. I appreciate it!

Reply
Louise Harnby
1/10/2020 08:51:49 am

You've made my morning, Tess Marie! Thank you so much.

Reply
Vivienne link
22/11/2020 10:17:12 am

Thank you for that, Louise. It's something I've wondered about. Some grammar software highlights the comma and says to remove it. Others say add it.
You have clarified this very well. I'm currently editing my latest wip, and this is timely.

Reply
Jenny Needham link
22/11/2020 10:33:08 am

Thank you for writing this! I find your articles very clear and helpful.

Reply
Jill Culiner link
25/11/2020 01:30:25 pm

Thank you very much for clarifying those tricky little commas, and the dog is still licking its paw.

Reply
Chris Norbury link
25/11/2020 03:14:22 pm

Thank you thank you thank you for expressing and validating my (untrained) opinion on comma usage, especially wrt FANBOYS and independent clauses. The rhythm of the sentence and the meaning are paramount. Use commas where necessary, but don't use them blindly and automatically. :-)

I used to feel like everytime I omitted a comma that "should" be there, my editor would flag it. Now I'll feel justified in leaving some of them out (or in).

Chris

Reply
Brent Miller
16/10/2022 12:40:58 pm

Louise, I'm so grateful that you shared this, and just the concept of convention vs. right/wrong is extremely helpful, as I proofread my way through some sample texts in a course I'm doing and compare my work to the "correct" answers. You've taken a weight off my shoulders that I have been carrying around for a week--the burden of duplicating the "correct" use of commas. I hadn't realized how heavy those little commas were.

Reply
John Rogers link
1/11/2022 01:26:39 am

THat's about the best, most balanced discussion I've seen. Younger writers in my critique groups routinely drop commas. But their sentences are often short, which makes the omission less painful. I like your readability criterion. Thank you.

Reply



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