Mind Your Punctuation Manners

The other week, I was scrolling through the ebooks on my Kindle app, desperate for a good, uplifting book to read, when I remembered I’d downloaded several new titles within the last few months but had yet to read them. As I opened them one by one and began reading their first chapters, however, the number of errors in grammar and punctuation—especially surrounding dialogue—shocked me.

And suffice it to say that the titles with the worst offenses were self-published.

Although sentiments toward the self-publishing industry have improved in recent years, a small, negative stigma still clings to it, and for good reason. For while there are many excellent self-pubbed authors, there are even more mediocre self-pubbed authors. Thus, it’s essential for those of us who have considered or are considering the self-publishing route to excel at the writing craft and edit the daylights out of our manuscripts before putting them on a platform for all the world to read. If we don’t take the time to master our craft, we will continue to give self-publishing a bad rap.

And of all the areas in writing, I would argue that punctuation and grammar are the easiest to master, as they have sound rules to follow. I know, I know—society has a morbid aversion to rules these days, but if we want to communicate with others and if we want others to understand the message in our words, we need to know how to spell and punctuate properly.

Because “my brother’s present” and “my brothers present” have two completely different meanings.

The following is a made-up example to show the types of errors I found in those ebooks the other week. See if you can spot the mistakes:

“So? What do you think,” Mari twirled. her full skirt flared, it’s vintage colors blurring together.
“Um … it looks like something from the last century,” Standing, Tanya drew near to examine the tiny yellow flowers on the sleeves.
Mari glanced toward the door, “Don’t say anything but,” she giggled behind her hand, “I found it in Great Aunt Verdie’s trunk.”

Did you catch the flaws? They’re minor, sure, but they reflect the most basic rules of writing. If I’m reading a book in which the author hasn’t mastered the basics, chances are he or she hasn’t mastered the more confusing and aggravating areas of the writing craft, either.

Here is the corrected example:

“So? What do you think?” Mari twirled. Her full skirt flared, its vintage colors blurring together.
“Um … it looks like something from the last century.” Tanya stood and drew near to examine the tiny yellow flowers on the sleeves.
Mari glanced toward the door. “Don’t say anything but”—she giggled behind her hand—“I found it in Great Aunt Verdie’s trunk.”

And here is the corrected example with explanations inserted for each instance:

“So? What do you think?” [Always end questions with a question mark.] Mari twirled. Her full skirt flared, its vintage colors blurring together. [Always begin a new sentence with a capital letter. It’s is a contraction for it is. Its is the possessive form of it.]
“Um … it looks like something from the last century.” [Sentences must end with a period, unless we use a dialogue tag.] Tanya stood and drew near to examine the tiny yellow flowers on the sleeves. (Another option: Drawing near, Tanya examined the tiny yellow flowers …) [Using the present participle of one verb followed by the present tense or simple past in the second verb (V1: stand; V2: draw near) implies both actions are taking place at the same time. Tanya cannot stand and draw near at the same time. She stands first and then draws near. Tanya can, however, draw near and examine flowers at the same time. The closer she gets, the more details she’ll see, but she can physically examine at the same time as she’s drawing near.]
Mari glanced toward the door. [This is a complete sentence and requires a period, regardless of the comment that follows.] “Don’t say anything but”—she giggled behind her hand—“I found it in Great Aunt Verdie’s trunk.” [When we interrupt dialogue with an action beat but no dialogue tag, we must use em dashes, not commas. When we interrupt dialogue with a tag, we must use commas. Example of dialogue tag: “Don’t say anything,” Mari whispered with a wide grin, “but I found it in Great Aunt Verdie’s trunk.”]

These are the basics of the basics for punctuation. I realize the last 10+ years of social media posts have allowed for sloppy writing and an acceptance for bending the rules, but we should hold books to a higher standard. Just as we expect a dentist or surgeon or architect or financial coach to put the time, effort, study, and training into their areas of expertise, so should we as writers put our time, effort, study, and training into the writing craft. Emphasis on time. 😉 Yes, it’s thrilling when we’ve typed “The End” on a novel. We can’t wait to share it with the world, and Amazon, IngramSpark, and other platforms have made it easy and tempting to duck around the gatekeepers and hit that “publish” button. But let’s hit the “pause” button instead and take a few extra weeks or months, or maybe even years, to polish our work so that when readers devour our first chapter (which is usually their first impression of us as authors), they’re compelled to continue turning pages, not throw the paperback in frustration or, as I did the other week, delete ebooks from the Kindle app. 😬

For more examples and explanations when it comes to punctuation in dialogue, I recommend The Editor’s Blog, which contains a wealth of information for writers. The link will take you to a helpful post on dialogue and from there, you can use the search bar to browse any other area of interest as it pertains to the writing craft.

Happy editing. 😊