Broken

How's the first week of NaNoWriMo going? I hope you're keeping up -- I know how difficult it can be!

Today I'm going to tell you a little about my favorite punctuation marks, and how to properly use them. I may have an addiction to these, and if you've read any of my work you probably already know that. If you didn't notice, I thank you.

Breaks

1. Semicolons;

I had a teacher once who told me we no longer use semicolons in the English language. I promptly found two examples in our textbook and proved her wrong. Bwahaha!

You should note that it always connects two complete sentences (or a sentence to the list that it points to).

It works like this: (see what I did there?)

Sometimes I wondered; what was the world coming to?

2. Colon :

The basic purpose of the colon is to point. At least, that's how we use it in fiction. It's also used for lists, but those are used more rarely in this line of work.

Anyway, they work to connect two partial sentences (fragments, frequently, or a fragment and a complete sentence) that have something in common with one another, that have a unified goal.

Sometimes I wondered what the world was coming to: it couldn't have been good.

3. Em Dashes — (if you're on a PC and trying to make one of these, the alt code is 0151)

I have an em dash fetish. I've had it for years. People occasionally pick on me when they beta read my novels and realize just how often I use them.

They're used almost the same way as either colons or semicolons, except that they tend to add even more emphasis to a point, and are intended to add dramatic flair. Here's how I generally use them:

I needed to get out of here—now.

My time was coming to an end—and I didn't want it to.

Em dashes can also be used to add a point to the middle of a sentence, which I also do quite frequently.

Sometimes I wondered what the world was coming to—whether we were all about to die or if there was a way to get out alive—and I was afraid. 


One last thing before I let you go, is that you should never use a hyphen in place of any of these. That is a completely different punctuation mark that has nothing to do with any of these breaks.


I sincerely hope that this helps you in your writing adventures this month, and that you won't judge me too much when you read something I've written and count the break-marks.


[love]

{Rani D.}