Meet Your Keyboard!

[gnomi]

(Please note: This is not aimed toward anyone whose manuscript I may have on my desk at this time, regardless of the stage at which you sent it to me... I've been reading too much fanfic, I think.)

Dear Writer,

I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to some important keys on your keyboard. I know you're familiar with the keyboard itself; you have pounded out 5,000 words of your latest masterpiece. However, I believe you may need to reacquaint yourself with the following players:

First, there's the return key, also called "Enter." It moves your cursor to the beginning of the next line. It is appreciated if you use it between paragraphs. And if you're not indenting the beginning of your paragraphs? It's especially appreciated if you use it twice between paragraphs, thus leaving a blank line periodically amongst all that text.

Next, there's the comma. He's a little guy, frequently underappreciated. He sets off all sorts of clauses and separates items in a list. Either way, it's a good idea to get to know him (though don't get too friendly with him; there are those who should be written up for abuse of the comma for overworking the poor little guy).

Lastly, there's the period. He's a friendly, hardworking key. He comes at the end of sentences, or at least he should. You're overworking him if you make him and two of his buddies form an ellipsis at the end of every sentence. Trust me on this.

Acquaint yourself with these few keys and you will discover the difference between writing a story I'll happily read all the way through and the one I'll click away from immediately upon seeing your first paragraphs.

Comments

[queue.livejournal.com]

Do people think it makes their writing more dramatic if they use lots of ellipses? I find it completely bizarre.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what causes people to use ellipses so frequently. I just know I see them a lot.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

But ellipses are our friends...and they keep me from saying, "he said wistfully" every other sentence...

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

They are our friends. However, they get abused a heck of a lot. Poor little ellipses. ::sniff::

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

... signals that material has been omitted. In dialogue, it frequently signals a petering off of whatever is being said. "You know," he said, "I think that Bob is..."

-- signals an interrupted statement. "You know," he said, "Bob is-- Oh, hi, Bob!"

The em-dash (which is what the -- is) also can be used to call out something. The rule I learned is that dashes yell and parentheses whisper. Thus, there's a difference between:

That guy -- the one I mentioned on Tuesday -- is watching me.

and

That guy (the one I mentioned on Tuesday) is watching me.

The dashes make the fact that I mentioned that guy on Tuesday more important, whereas the parentheses make it less important.

[violetcheetah.livejournal.com]

it seems like, in the press releases from various companies that i copyedit, dashes are almost always limited to places where a comma would work better, and are almost never used where they would work better than the comma. i want a magic wand so i can click on a dash and my computer will automatically know i mean, "this should be a comma," and vice versa.

also, why does everyone use an en-dash for an em-dash? does an em-dash look to big and scary?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

They want it to scream, so they use dashes.

As for the en-dash in place of em-dashes? That I can't answer, alas.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

BTW, screened due to icon issues (http://gnomi.livejournal.com/277549.html).

No Problemo

[eroticjames.livejournal.com]

Of course that meant I acutually had to look through all my icons to find one that might work... gave up and uploaded one.

Re: No Problemo

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I appreciate it!

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

Heh. This would be perfect for cranky_editors (even though it's too polite to be truly cranky)!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I pondered cross-posting it there, but then I decided it wasn't sufficiently cranky.

[arfur]

must...gank...userpic...

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

Please, take and enjoy! I found it in mock_the_stupid ages ago, and the person using it couldn't remember the source. I'd love to thank the person who made it.

[arfur]

awesome. Thanks! :-)

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

Man, it sounds like you're lucky this person knew where their shift key was!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yeah. They did seem to know where the shift was, which is a point in their favor, but I didn't give them more than two paragraphs before I gave up on them. For all I know, they misplaced the shift key somewhere along the lines, as well.