comma
Commas, commas everywhere! Yes, I’m talking about everyone’s least-favourite, most-misunderstood bit of punctuation, the lowly comma, yet again.
Here’s a sentence with two variations.
He stomped down the stairs and left the house in a rage.
He stomped down the stairs, and he left the house in a rage.
So what’s the difference? Why does the second have a comma but not the first?
In the first sentence, you do not have a complete phrase (with a subject and a verb) in the second half of the sentence. You have a verb (left) but no subject. In the second, you have both a subject (he) and a verb (left). That’s your first clue that you’ll need a comma.
The second clue is the presence of the conjunction “and,” which is one of the FANBOYS, the conjunctions which call for a comma IF the part of the sentence following said conjunction is complete with subject and verb.
So what are the FANBOYS?
For
And
Nor
But
Or
Yet
So
FANBOYS
I’ve been editing for clients quite a bit lately, and this is one of the most common mistakes I see: putting commas where there isn’t a FANBOYS or not putting one where there is.
It’s one of the easiest errors to correct in your writing, too. An easy mnemonic. An easy search for subjects and verbs.
The man entered his home, and he found his wife waiting for him in the living room.
The man entered his home and found his wife waiting for him in the living room.
She smiled at her husband and gave him the good news.
She smiled at her husband, and she gave him the good news.
Granted, these aren’t great sentences, but they show the FANBOYS in action.
Pen and Notepad
To be a professional writer, to gain and keep a good reputation, you need to act like a professional. You can’t blow off responsibility and decorum because you are “a genius.” You just can’t. Don’t tell me that such-and-such fantastic writer spends his days drunk in a hotel room and then churns out brilliant novels in a cocaine fueled haze, misses all his deadlines, spits at publishers, and is beloved by all. Chances are you aren’t a genius – they are not thick on the ground – and I’ll wager his publisher, agent, publicist, and third and soon-to-be-ex-wife are all eagerly awaiting his fatal coronary so they can be rid of him. And write the tell-all book which will expose his nastiness to the world after he’s safely out of it.
So, dear writer, and I need to keep this in mind myself, let’s say you see an open call with the following guidelines: We seek short stories, 2K words max, no zombies, no rape, pedophilia, bestiality. Please don’t send that publisher a 10K novelette about a zombie apocalypse where the villain rapes the 8-year-old girl next door by means of a bull mastiff. I mean, just don’t. And, furthermore, don’t think publishers haven’t seen that story as a result of that sort of open call. More likely, though, if the publisher says “No reprints,” don’t send a reprint. If the publisher wants the story single-spaced in 8 point font, don’t sent it double-spaced in 12 point font.
Say you’ve gotten a contract or are participating in a round robin or other group project. If you say you’ll have your story in by such-and-such a date, do your dead level best to fulfill that promise. As a person who suffers from more than one debilitating illness, I understand that sometimes your body will fail you. Sometimes other life circumstances will get in your way. That’s not what I’m talking about here. Truthfully, sometimes circumstances just stop even the strongest of us from making our goals. Mental, emotional, physical illnesses. Family turmoil. Loss of parents, partners, spouses, children, even jobs. I am not talking about those things. I’m talking about something a good deal more frivolous — and something I see happening with some writers. I am urging you, for the sake of your reputation, not to ditch your obligations because it’s summer and you’d rather be swimming. Do that too many times and you’re apt to find those opportunities drying up.
If you get a bad review, don’t blow up on social media. It’s an opinion. Not everyone will like your work. When you feel as if no one likes your stuff, go to Amazon or Kobo or Barnes & Noble, and look up your favourite book — one you truly love. I’ll bet there are some 1-star reviews on that book which will curl your toes. Opinions. Seriously, everyone’s got one. Thicken your skin.
When you hire an editor, listen to him or her. That doesn’t mean you have to take every suggestion you editor makes. But you need to pay attention. Know why you are rejecting this or that suggestion. Understand why the editor suggested the change.
I usually say, “Treat other people the way you’d like them to treat you.” A very wise Man said that many years ago. Others have said it, too. No one ever said it better.
Reputation matters in business – and in the publishing business it matters a lot.
Let’s talk about commas, shall we? Not all uses of commas, mind you, because that would take way more time than either of us has and way more space than one wee blog post. Let’s talk about one use only today. It’s one that confuses lots of the writers I work with – and lots of writers whose books I read.
My brother, Frank is a good driver.
My brother Frank is a good driver.
My brother, Frank, is a good driver.
Look at those three sentences. Each one uses the same words. The only variable is the comma. Let’s examine each one in turn.
Number one is wrong. Period. If you do that, stop it. Just stop. You’ve left things unfinished. You began something with that comma and then dropped the ball, fumbled the hand-off, stumbled out of the blocks, whiffed your at-bat, and probably five or six other sports-related phrases I could throw out.
The second sentence shows that the particular brother you mean, Frank, out of your two or more brothers, is a good driver. You might mean that your other brother, George, is a bad driver. And maybe your third brother, Henry, is too young to drive. But Frank, that one particular brother, is a good driver.
Sentence number three indicates that your ONE brother whose name is Frank is a good driver.
If you want to think of it as an equivalency, go ahead because that’ll work, too. Your brother (your only brother) is equivalent to the name Frank, so you set that additional information off with a comma. Your one-brother-of-several Frank is NOT equivalent to the word brother, because you have other brothers as well, so you don’t set his name off with commas.
My stove, that annoying appliance I’m chained to, provides meals for my family.
In this case, the stove is the equivalent of “the annoying appliance I’m chained to,” so – you guessed it – that latter phrase is set off with commas.
My husband, Walter, is the love of my life.
My husband Albert is the love of my life. (My other husband, the one I’m committing bigamy with, isn’t.)
Try these.
Vinnie’s cousin Cleo thought her brother, Michael, hung the stars. (Vinnie has more than one cousin; Cleo has only one brother.)
That dog Sparkles is a huge nuisance .(Well, of course, there’s more than one dog in existence.)
My dog, Sparkles, is a huge nuisance. This time there’s only one dog.
I’ve used simple sentences in these illustrations, but the principle will remain the same, no matter how complex the sentence.
Why do women write horror? That’s really too broad a question for me to answer. I’ll just try to say why I write horror. I write horror because that’s where my mind goes. I like to wonder how human beings react when they’re put under the worst kind of stress. My stories are never about the monsters or the demons or the Great Big Evil, even though they often contain monsters, demons, and Great Big Evil. My stories are always about the people, their responses, their failures, their successes.
I’ve always loved horror. I’ve loved the terror – which I could still control, at least in part, by closing the book or turning off the television, leaving the theatre, or shutting down Netflix. (Disclaimer: I never once walked out of a theatre because I was frightened. I’ve closed a book to take a break, etc., but only rarely.)
Darkness is interesting to me. Dark colours of the palette. Dark corners of the mind. We know that light cannot exist without darkness – and vice-versa. I’ll let other writers write the sunny side of the street, though. I’ll be over here playing in the shadows.
As one of my sons said once, “You don’t look like the kind of woman who walks around all the time thinking of horrible ways to kill people. But you do. You absolutely do.”
Yes. I do.
A wannabe writer said to me the other day, when we were discussing dialogue, “You know, dialogue is just two or three characters talking. That’s all. There’s nothing to it. I don’t know why people make such a deal out of it.”
Well, after I picked my jaw off the floor and packed my teeth back into it, I tried to answer him. Here are a few of the things I said.
No. Dialogue =/= talking.
When I talk to my sons or my husband (or my dog), the words are frequently interrupted with nonsense sounds like argh, um, er, uhhhh (or eeeeeby, beeeeby, baby doggy — don’t judge me). You know what you don’t want a lot of in dialogue? Argh, um, er, uhhhh (and definitely no eeeeeeby, beeeeeby) — except for a particular effect.
You know what else you find a lot in talking that you don’t want in dialogue? Waffling, wandering, chit-chat, twaddling. Call it whatever you want. A book or even a short story filled with this — again, except in short bits for effect — won’t attract readers. Here’s the sort of thing I mean.
“Hi, George. What’s up?”
“Hey, Pete. What’s up with you?”
“Oh you know. The same old stuff. Wife’s down with the flu.”
“Man, I hate to hear that. Sue had the flu last month. She had a hard time getting over it.”
That is perfectly “real.” You can hear that conversation in any grocery store, hardware store, church parking lot, or bar in the country. What it’s not: dialogue.
Dialogue has to do more than one thing at the same time. It has to reveal character, show us something about the characters who are saying it. We don’t know anything at all about George and Pete except that they’ve both got wives (or significant others) who have had or are now suffering from the flu. The things they say don’t tell us anything else.
Dialogue also has to advance the plot in some way. Idle chit-chat doesn’t do that. Unless you’re writing a book dealing with a mutant flu that’s about to kill half the population, these women’s illnesses really matter only to them and their families.
And dialogue needs to pop. If the dialogue is flat — and what I wrote up there is deliberately as flat as I could make it — you’ll lose the reader. Dialogue needs to sound as if some human being said it — but a clever human being with a great vocabulary.
There are some good books out there to help you improve your dialogue-writing skills. I like James Scott Bell’s “How to Write Dazzling Dialogue.” Robert McKee has also written several good books on dialogue.
I’ve never been terribly fond of talking (or writing, which amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?) about myself. But I suppose I need to put something explanatory here.
I’m a writer. I write slightly snarky, humourous vampire stories, mostly set in the US South. I also write flat-out horror, often featuring my own version of zombies, and still often set in the US South. Then there are non-horror, non-vampire stories that come out of nowhere.
Fright Mare: Women Write Horror Edited by Billie Sue Mosiman
