Melissa Maygrove

Grammar's a pretty picky subject, and I'm sure some of my Monday posts make me seem condescending. Believe it or not, I'm softer hearted than I seem. I generally give people the benefit of the doubt ( sometimes to a fault ) and I try very hard not to be harsh, especially when it comes to not-yet-published works. A work in progress is exactly that, a work in progress , and none of us are perfect. I've critiqued single subs for countless writers, and I've line-by-lined entire novels for a handful of folks. One thing I've learned from the longer-term relationships is that every writer has at least one grammar weak spot —myself included !

Today I'm going to cover some less common marks of punctuation as it relates to writing fiction, mainly dashes, parentheses & semicolons.You may have occasion to use these, but you'll want to use them properly and sparingly. Why? Because improper use and overuse can pull the reader out of your story – something you should avoid. Before I discuss proper use of the marks I mentioned above, let's cover the issue of overuse. As with many other details in fiction (e.g. repetitive words and phrases), less common marks of punctuation should be used sparingly. If not, they will lose their effectiveness and possibly become an irritant to the reader.   Take the exclamation point, for example. Your sentence structure and dialogue should be strong enough that you rarely need one. Occasionally you might, but keep its use to a minimum. And, although I can't find a reference to back me up at the moment, I've been told not to use both a question mark and an exclamation ma...