A Dash of Style (20 page)

•Take a close look at your section breaks and ask if any of these are
too
significant. Should any of them be replaced with full-fledged chapter breaks?

•You can learn a lot about section breaks by studying how poets use stanza breaks. Read through a wide variety of poetry, looking specifically for these breaks. When are the poets using stanza breaks? What does it add to the poem? What can this teach you about section breaks? How might this principle be applied to your own writing?

I RECEIVED hundreds
of letters in response to my first book on writing,
The First Five Pages.
Many readers loved the book, some hated it, and others told me with a dark satisfaction that they didn't read past
my
first five pages. Accustomed to receiving thousands of query letters a year, some truly bizarre, none of this really surprised me.

What did surprise me was the number of readers who wrote asking me to elaborate on what I'd said about the question mark. I had touched on the subject of punctuation briefly in
The First Five Pages,
devoting a mere two pages to it. Within those two pages were a mere three sentences devoted to the question mark. But for some reason readers fixated on these three sentences.

In this final chapter I will fully address the usage of the question mark, along with other punctuation marks that should be used sparingly, or not at all, in creative writing.

USE SPARINGLY The Question Mark

There is nothing wrong with the question mark in its own right. It is a perfectly fine punctuation mark, and even necessary in many cases. Obviously, it serves a purpose that no other punctuation mark can: to indicate a question. It can also be used creatively to capture a certain form of dialogue, where the character speaks with a rising inflection. This is often found in casual speech, where the speaker is stating a fact yet also trying to discern whether his listener is listening (or understanding). For example:

"I was walking to the store? You know, the one on 8th street?"

That said, you must remember that a publishing professional is looking to reject a manuscript as quickly as he can. This entails scrutinizing the first five pages, particularly the first page. And an abundance of question marks in the first pages—particularly in the first paragraph—nearly always indicate amateur or melodramatic writing. For some reason, the poor question mark gets seized upon by the writer who is desperate to immediately hook the reader in a cheap way. For example, I have seen too many opening lines like this:

Did I kill my wife? Or:

Did I think I'd get away with it?

Or:

Did she really do it?

It feels gimmicky, and actually distances a reader more than entraps him. These writers don't realize that readers, when beginning a book, are prepared to make a mental effort; they don't need to be treated as if they'll put the book down if they don't like the first sentence. It is overkill.

Never use the question mark to create drama. Let it fulfill its role organically, when (or if) it needs to. Always ask yourself if a sentence can somehow be paraphrased. For example, some "questions" might be indicated with periods:

"You didn't really think you'd get away with it?"

Could also be:

"You didn't really think you'd get away with it."

The latter is more subtle, indicating a flat intonation; it is more of a statement than a question. Always consider the desired inflection of the speaker.

Also realize that there is less license for the question mark in creative writing. Practical nonfiction and self-help books can get away with it more easily, particularly if they are prescriptive or directly questioning the reader, for example in an exercise section.

The Exclamation Point

So many people have beaten up on the poor exclamation point (including myself) that I feel bad delivering it yet one more punch. The exclamation point has been referred to as "the period that blew its top," is known as a "screamer" by journalists. Harry Shaw says, "Unless you wish your writing to seem juvenile or empty-headed, follow this rule: Never use an exclamation point when another mark will serve adequately and properly." F. Scott Fitzgerald says "an exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke." Clearly, the exclamation point has many enemies.

Thus let me begin by being contrary: like the question mark, the exclamation point does have its place, does fulfill a role that no other punctuation mark can. There are times when it will be useful, even necessary. For example, to indicate a direct command:

Stop!

Or to indicate someone shouting:

Wait for me! Or to indicate extreme surprise: I can't believe it!

Which, by the way, can also be done in conjunction with the question mark (although this usage is debatable):

You mean her!?

To indicate extreme pain:

Ouch!

Or anger:

You son of a bitch!

Or any other extreme emotion. Indeed,
extreme
is the exclamation point's modus operandi.

This said, the reason so many attack the exclamation point is because, like the question mark, it can be painfully misused. Like the question mark, it can be used as a crutch to create a heightened sense of drama, can be transformed into a screaming car salesman. As a rule, if you need an exclamation point to make a scene come alive, then you better reexamine that scene. Drama should always be built naturally and organically, and not need a ploy to grab a reader's attention.

Ultimately, the problem with the exclamation point is that it's too powerful, too attention grabbing. It's the bright green dress, the flaming pink scarf. There may be an occasion, once every five years, when it is needed; until then, like those clothes, it is best left in the closet.

"It is a sound principle that as few stops should be used as will do the work."

— H. W. and F. G. Fowler,
The King's English

Italics

Italics are a graceful form of punctuation, and in emphasizing a word or phrase they fulfill a role no other punctuation mark can. There are instances when they are needed. If a sentence is open to interpretation, italics can clarify, provide emphasis to a particular word in order to let readers know how to read it. For example:

He was angry that I didn't pick up the phone, but it was
his
mother and I didn't see why I should have to.

Or they can contrast two words in a sentence:

You
might like it but
she
hates it.

They can also be used to indicate thought, to contrast a narrator's interior monologue with the exterior world:

My father's friend grabbed my hand. "Nice to meet you!" he said.
What a snake.

"Nice to meet you, too," I answered, despite myself.

The problem, though, with italics is that writers can easily become addicted, and allow themselves to believe they are needed everywhere. For example:

His exam was
three
hours long. He
never
expected it to be so
hard,
and now he had second doubts over whether he was
truly
prepared.

At first glance the italics may seem necessary, but if you remove them you'll find that the sentence is equally understood without them:

His exam was three hours long. He never expected it to be so hard, and now he had second doubts over whether he was truly prepared.

Readers might not grasp the emphasis as quickly, but eventually they will—and allowing the reader that satisfaction is always preferable. If stresses and meanings are too laid out, if you tell readers at every step how to read your book, they will grow to resent you for underestimating them.

Italics are also annoying because whenever they appear, it is the

writer's voice appearing, telling the reader how he, the writer, would emphasize the sentence. It can be overbearing. Like the question mark and exclamation point, italics are a strong visual, and wield tremendous power. They can dominate a text without even trying. And they can also defeat their own purpose: italics overused quickly lose their power, and have little import the next time they appear. From a publishing professional's perspective, an overitalicized work is a sure sign of an unrestrained writer.

Finally, italics are, on some level, an admission of failure: every time you use one, you concede that you are unable to construct a sentence in a way that naturally emphasizes stress. This is why the Fowler brothers call italics "a confession of weakness."

Points of Ellipsis

Like the other marks in this section, there is nothing inherently wrong with the ellipsis, and it does have its place. It performs a unique function in allowing a writer to indicate a trailing off, or a brief passing of time. It is at its most restrained, and most effective, within dialogue:

The doctor approached her gravely, and put a hand on her shoulder. He said, "Your friend . . . might not live."

In an amateur's hands, though, ellipsis points can be a problem. Like italics, they can become a bad habit, a crutch to use whenever a writer doesn't know how to firmly end a sentence or section or chapter, when he doesn't know how to indicate a passing of time any other way. Worst of all, it can become a cheap device to end sections or chapters; some writers think that merely because they conclude with (. . .) it will force the reader to read on. This is silly. A reader doesn't turn a page because of three dots; he turns a page because of content.

Thus it is not surprising that these three dots are almost always used as a ploy, tacked onto an ending that has no dramatic merit in its own right. It's like shouting "Stay tuned!" It brings to mind the gimmicky endings of
Batman,
the television series, in which the characters are put into a dire situation as a cheap trick to make viewers tune in the following week.

Hyphen

The hyphen has a limited creative use in connecting two words into a compound word. Poets regularly use it for this function; indeed, by connecting unlikely words, you can nearly create your own language. Be sparing in doing so, though; it is attention grabbing. Some writers overdo wordplay, creating a witty vocabulary of their own, but at the expense of distracting from the narrative.

More importantly, be careful not to confuse the hyphen with a dash. These are two separate creatures. The hyphen is indicated by a single horizontal line (-) while the dash must be indicated by two typed hyphens, which connect to form one longer horizontal line, sometimes indicated like this (--) and sometimes like this ( —). Either one is acceptable when indicating a dash, but the hyphen (-) definitely is not.

DON'T USE AT ALL

There are certain punctuation marks that have no place at all in creative writing. I have no idea why they keep appearing, and assume they are simply confused with other marks. So let's clarify this once and for all: