A Dash of Style (21 page)

Brackets

These should never be used in creative writing. They have a limited technical use (mainly to indicate omitted or substituted words in a quotation), but in creative writing they have no place. The only reason I even bring them up is because occasionally you see them confused with parentheses. Make no doubt about it: these are entirely different creatures, not even fourth cousins. (By the way, the British call our parentheses "brackets," so don't confuse the two.)

Underline

It is questionable to even consider this a punctuation mark: some writers do, others don't. Back when typewriters ruled the world, the norm was to underline text in order to indicate to the printer that such text would ultimately need to be italicized. Now, with computers, we can italicize text ourselves. Underlining is a thing of the past, and should not be used.

Bold

This is not truly a punctuation mark, but it is worth mentioning here. If italics and underlining are included in most discussions of punctuation, then the use of boldface should be, too. The reason it's worth mentioning is because when writers are desperate to make something stand out, they'll try every trick there is—ALL CAPS, underline, italics, and even bold. I can't tell you how many query letters I've received sprinkled with bold, and how many times this spilled over into the manuscript itself. Bold should never be used. Emphasis can be indicated with italics, or, when referring to a title in a query letter, in ALL CAPS—but never bold. The only time bold might be used is in a practical work of nonfiction, but even then, only for chapter or header titles, and never in the text itself.

THE WORLD
of punctuation is a complex one, each mark having its own needs and rules. Sometimes marks will complement one another, at other times they will be in conflict. A period won't feel the same when preceded by a semicolon. A comma won't do as well near a dash. A colon won't allow a semicolon in the same sentence. Quotation marks need paragraph breaks in order to shine. And the slightest change to any of these marks will reverberate throughout the work, affecting sentence, paragraph, section, and chapter. Punctuation marks are skittish. A rock isn't needed for a ripple effect—a pebble is.

Grasping how to use a mark in its own right is difficult enough; mastering how to use it in context of the content, and in context of all the other punctuation marks, is a lifelong endeavor. It is truly an art. But it is worth the effort. When we look at punctuation collectively, we begin to see that punctuation marks, in the right hands, can truly bring out the best in one another. A period used with a dash becomes so much more than a period on its own could ever be. We begin to see that punctuation marks by themselves are like col-

ors in a palette: it is only through the collective that they become all they were meant to be.

But this is abstract. In order to better understand the symphony of punctuation, let's look at what the masters have done over centuries. We return to E. M. Forster's brilliant novel
A Passage to India:

Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, swelling here, shrinking there, like some low but indestructible form of life. Inland, the prospect alters.

In the first sentence, Forster uses commas to capture the feeling of a town ebbing and flowing; he also gives us a long sentence, asking us to take it all in at once. He follows this with a paragraph break and a short sentence, which allows the next sentence to provide a sharp contrast. This furthers the purpose of his content, showing the contrast between his two settings. Best of all, he is subtle: the punctuation weaves itself seamlessly through the text, might even be missed if you were not looking for it.

Here's an example from Henry James's "The Tree of Knowledge":

Such a triumph had its honour even for a man of other triumphs—a man who had reached fifty, who had escaped marriage, who had lived within his means, who had been in love with Mrs. Mallow for years without breathing it, and who, last but not least, had judged himself once for all.

Notice how he avoids commas in the first portion of the sentence, which allows us to rush headlong into a dash, which in turn sets us up for a grand summary, an elaboration. That elaboration is carried out with an abundance of commas, which breaks up the style of the sentence and helps contrast the second portion of the sentence to the first. The commas also mimic items in a list, subtly hinting that we should take with a grain of salt what the character considers "triumphs."

Vladimir Nabokov adroitly uses punctuation in his story "Signs and Symbols":

For the fourth time in as many years they were confronted with the problem of what birthday present to bring a young man who was incurably deranged in his mind. He had no desires. Man-made objects were to him either hives of evil, vibrant with a malignant activity that he alone could perceive, or gross comforts for which no use could be found in his abstract world. After eliminating a number of articles that might offend him or frighten him (anything in the gadget line for instance was taboo), his parents chose a dainty and innocent trifle: a basket with ten different fruit jellies in ten little jars.

He begins with a long sentence, devoid of commas. He follows with a short sentence, which provides a nice contrast for the first and third sentences. In the third sentence he brings in commas, and in the final sentence he brings in parentheses and then even a colon, allowing for first a building effect and then a wonderful feeling of finality. Even the paragraph break is well timed: he opens the paragraph with a problem and breaks it having resolved that problem.

Let's look at an example from Edith Wharton's story "The Muse's Tragedy":

Danyers afterwards liked to fancy that he had recognized Mrs. Anerton at once; but that, of course, was absurd, since he had seen no portrait of her—she affected a strict anonymity, refusing even her photograph to the most privileged—and from Mrs. Memorall, whom he revered and cultivated as her friend, he had

extracted but the one impressionist phrase: "Oh, well, she's like one of those old prints where the lines have the value of color."

Using varied punctuation, Wharton manages to prolong a sentence that would otherwise be too long. Calling on the semicolon, double dash, colon, comma, and quotation marks in a single sentence (!) she creates enough ebbs and flows to allow such a length. Notice also her unusual placement of quotation marks at the conclusion; it makes us feel as if the quotation is inherently connected to what came before.

Cynthia Ozick also varies her punctuation in her story "The Shawl":

Rosa did not feel hunger; she felt light, not like someone walking but like someone in a faint, in trance, arrested in a fit, someone who is already a floating angel, alert and seeing everything, but in the air, not there, not touching the road. As if teetering on the tips of her fingernails.

Notice her immediate use of the semicolon, which offsets the idea that she did not feel hunger, and sets it up to be contrasted to what follows. She then switches to abundant commas, which capture the feeling of the content, evokes what it's like to feel "light," each comma buoying us further up in the air. Finally, she concludes with a short sentence and immediate period; this is conspicuous, since the final sentence could have easily been tacked on to the previous sentence with a comma, and it helps once again to provide contrast, and to emphasize the notion that she felt as if she were "teetering." Consider this example from Jack London's "In a Far Country":

How slowly they grew! No; not so slowly. There was a new one, and there another. Two —three—four; they were coming too fast

to count. There were two growing together. And there, a third had joined them. Why, there were no more spots. They had run together and formed a sheet.

This comes toward the conclusion of the story, when the character is freezing to death, hallucinating and envisioning icicles surrounding him. The punctuation helps capture this feeling. First, it is hysterical and chaotic: we have an exclamation point; we have a semicolon coming after the very first word in a sentence; we have two solo dashes following each other; another immediate semicolon; and a series of short, abrupt sentences. All these marks work together to capture his demise.

Perhaps no story better illustrates this principle than Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." Consider the incredibly bold opening line:

True! —nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why
will
you say that I am mad?

We find an exclamation point after the very first word, followed by a dash, followed by another dash after a single word, followed by a conspicuous comma to repeat the word "very," followed by a semicolon, an italicized word, and finally a question mark. Poe achieves it all in the first sentence: we already know that we can't trust this narrator. The punctuation says it all.

Poets tend to be skillful at balancing a symphony of punctuation; their medium allows them to hold an entire work in their head at once, and thus they can get a better overview of the punctuation as a whole. They also need to call on as much varied punctuation as they can, given their finite space. Consider this excerpt from Daniel Halpern's poem "Summer, 1970":

Your black hair a wood scent and dark,

the thickness of pitch or dark amber—

an olfaction of night. We go inside

to comb your hair. You bring brandy, there is glass

on wood, our tongues on fire, the flames licking

the lonely caves of speech by day, together

here, moving quickly in silence.

He begins by being spare with commas and adding a conspicuous dash. Then he follows with a short sentence. Thus far, it is a halting feeling. But once they get inside, he offers a long sentence, filled with commas, which evokes the feeling of letting it all out.

My left eye is blind and jogs like a milky sparrow in its socket; my nose is large and never flares in anger, the front teeth, bucked, but not in lechery—I sucked my thumb until the age of twelve.

This comes from Jim Harrison's poem "Sketch for a Job Application Bank." He begins with no commas, allowing the clause to rush into a semicolon; he follows with several commas, then switches to a dash, enabling him to change direction. The punctuation here lets him describe his features in one long sweep, yet also allows the reader a pause for emphasis when need be. Note also the placement of line breaks: "flares" is made to stand out, as is "bucked" and "sucked" (which also rhyme); these breaks unconsciously help signal images he'd like to emphasize.

"The art of punctuation is of infinite consequence in writing: as it contributes to the perspicuitv, and consequently to the beauty, of every composition."

—Joseph Robertson,
"An Essay on Punctuation," 1785

As if all of this were not tricky enough, complicating matters, you will always find great writers who break the rules, who defy every convention of punctuation and yet still somehow manage to come off better for it. Consider, for example, this excerpt from Kent Meyers's novel
The River Warren:

Prayers, that's what it was. I been living across from that house for twenty-two years, and I seen some odd things go on there, I'll admit I like to stand and watch.

By all convention, there should be some other mark before "I'll admit," such as a period, dash, parentheses, colon, or even semicolon. A comma is the most unlikely choice, and at first is jarring. But upon reflection, you come to see that it actually works for the voice of the character. Consider this example from Donald Rawley's "The Bible of Insects":

These are the women Inez knows she will never be. They are twenty-four and blond, in billowing beige chiffon, standing in open doorways of their grandfathers' houses. They are used to massive walls of stone, crystal, candlelight, and the smug silence of being better. Inez never had, and never will have, that Grace Kelly chignon, that Elizabeth Taylor white dress, that Joan Fontaine way of craning one's neck so attractively.

Again, by all convention there should be a colon or dash in the opening line after "never be." But Rawley, one of the great stylists, instead chooses a period. It is a subtle, unusual approach. Edgar Allan Poe also defies convention in his story "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall":

Nevertheless, about noon, a slight but remarkable agitation became apparent in the assembly: the clattering of ten thousand tongues succeeded; and, in an instant afterward, ten thousand faces were upturned toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes descended simultaneously from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and a shout, which could be compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara, resounded long, loudly, and furiously, through all the city and through all the environs of Rotterdam.