Can commas be allowed where it normally shouldn't in order to add a pause in fiction

What we've done in conversation is use hyphens. That probably wouldn't work in a formal paragraph.

"I - um - I - can't -"

-MM

MindsMirror said:

What we've done in conversation is use hyphens. That probably wouldn't work in a formal paragraph.

"I - um - I - can't -"

-MM

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That isn't recognized by any authority that I know of. It would not have been taken by a reader as a hyphen use, anyway. It would be taken (and was given in some examples up the line) as an em dash, but it isn't properly rendered as an em dash either--either in the symbol or the spacing.

Green_Knight said:

This is quite a useful guide to the use of commas in both English and American, starting on page 117. It takes a few seconds to download. It should open automatically if your browser's appropriately set up.

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Thank you for this link. Commas drive me nuts and I'm sure I use too many, mostly. So many commas, so little time...

ArielRacine said:

Thank you for this link. Commas drive me nuts and I'm sure I use too many, mostly. So many commas, so little time...

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That link is very useful but it also looks like it is copyright infringement.

I don't know if it's copyright infringement. The Oxford people may have put the guide there, but I do know that it isn't both British and American style, as Green_Knight claims. It's just British style. There's much crossover of the two styles, but to claim that Oxford is good as an authority for American publishing is just incorrect (and British jingoist, which has become a Green_Knight hallmark on this forum). For American style, consult the Chicago Manual of Style.

I don't mind at all if story writers here use British style. It's a fine style, if you are consistent with it. It just is incorrect to say the British and American styles are the same or to think that those using British style don't sometimes have trouble getting their stories accepted here. This is an American Web site and it uses American style, and it's questionable how experienced the editor is in the legitimate differences between American and British styles, as about every month we get a post to the forum complaining because some treatment that's fine in British style was rejected. That's just reality. The styles aren't the same and this is an American-style site. And there's no reason to be bambozzeled about the styles being the same or British style not having some trouble being accepted here.

sr71plt said:

I don't know if it's copyright infringement. The Oxford people may have put the guide there, but I do know that it isn't both British and American style, as Green_Knight claims. It's just British style. There's much crossover of the two styles, but to claim that Oxford is good as an authority for American publishing is just incorrect (and British jingoist, which has become a Green_Knight hallmark on this forum). For American style, consult the Chicago Manual of Style.

I don't mind at all if story writers here use British style. It's a fine style, if you are consistent with it. It just is incorrect to say the British and American styles are the same or to think that those using British style don't sometimes have trouble getting their stories accepted here. This is an American Web site and it uses American style, and it's questionable how experienced the editor is in the legitimate differences between American and British styles, as about every month we get a post to the forum complaining because some treatment that's fine in British style was rejected. That's just reality. The styles aren't the same and this is an American-style site. And there's no reason to be bambozzeled about the styles being the same or British style not having some trouble being accepted here.

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I noticed that the Chicago Manual of Style is available online via an annual subscription. Are you familiar with it? It appears the annual single user subscription is about the same price as ordering the hard copy book via Amazon. It would be useful to be able to access it via phone or laptop anywhere as opposed to lugging the book around.

SimonDoom said:

I noticed that the Chicago Manual of Style is available online via an annual subscription. Are you familiar with it? It appears the annual single user subscription is about the same price as ordering the hard copy book via Amazon. It would be useful to be able to access it via phone or laptop anywhere as opposed to lugging the book around.

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I'm aware it's on subscription on line, but it wasn't when I had my editorial services open. I lugged the hard copy around when I was doing editing while on the road. I suppose I'd find it useful now, but I don't do much editing. It might be useful if the CMS updates its online version in real time (rather than every nine-to-thirteen years), like Webster's international and collegiate dictionaries do. Webster's does it even with its print version--updating with each printing rather than waiting for a new edition.

If I was still book editing for more than two publishers, I'd probably get the online version, as my eyesight now requires that I use a magnifying glass with the CMS and the dictionary, whereas if I had it on line I could just up the font size.

sr71plt said:

This is an American Web site and it uses American style...

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You keep on making this jingoistic statement. Please provide evidence of where Laurel has laid this down.

norfolklad said:

You keep on making this jingoistic statement. Please provide evidence of where Laurel has laid this down.

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I've often wondered about that myself. I count a number of colourful little flags on the front page (somewhere, anyway), and there's no Stars and Stripes there (no Southern Cross either, but no matter). So are the flags aspirational, suggestive of an intent to make the site international, or merely decorational?

Regardless, Laurel has never said to me de-aussify your writing. My spelling, colloquialisms, geography, use of what is basically pommy style, none of that seems to offend. I drive on the left too, shock horror.

I'd never even heard of the Chicago Style Manual until I arrived here. I vaguely used some green book published by the Australian government - "The Australian Style Guide", I think it was called, an imaginative name - whenever I was in doubt. But that was for business writing, so it probably doesn't count.

But Pilot's bookshelf, no, I don't think it's listed in the FAQs as gospel truth. Maybe there's a special page that can only be seen by Americans....

electricblue66 said:

I've often wondered about that myself. I count a number of colourful little flags on the front page (somewhere, anyway), and there's no Stars and Stripes there (no Southern Cross either, but no matter). So are the flags aspirational, suggestive of an intent to make the site international, or merely decorational?

Regardless, Laurel has never said to me de-aussify your writing. My spelling, colloquialisms, geography, use of what is basically pommy style, none of that seems to offend. I drive on the left too, shock horror.

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Take a look at the Strawberry story in my signature. Strawberry so mutilate english. So awful bad grammar. So atrocity on use of words. So bad written. So passing Laurel review and being accepted for publication on so esteemed literotica website. Author so happy. Author so throwing style manuel out window. Readers so accepting of so awful chinglish. Chloe so happy.

So it depends. I guess it is a bit subjective. And some of its intent. If its deliberate and well done its okay. If its just sloppy it may not pass review regardless of chicongo style, ocford style, aussie dialect or so awful written chinglish.

e.e. cummings offered the best agvice about punctuation: 'SEASON TO TASTE."

PILETTE is who I call THE GRAMMAR GESTAPO. Ten years ago my first brawl on this board was a fught with PILETTE about the function of grammar. GRAMMAR exists to improve your writing, it is not the ten commandments. Music advanced because artists discovered good places to use disgraced stuff.

NOIRTRASH said:

e.e. cummings offered the best agvice about punctuation: 'SEASON TO TASTE."

PILETTE is who I call THE GRAMMAR GESTAPO. Ten years ago my first brawl on this board was a fught with PILETTE about the function of grammar. GRAMMAR exists to improve your writing, it is not the ten commandments. Music advanced because artists discovered good places to use disgraced stuff.

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You don't show any evidence of knowing how to handle grammar and punctuation, JBJ. Your views are whatever the last book you read you have misinterpreted or swallowed without context.

I wish I had my old copy of The Years With Ross by James Thurber. (Harold Ross was the founder and editor of the New Yorker magazine.) As I recall, there was a discussion about a scene in one of the articles where people were sitting down to dinner, or whatever. Ross was asked why there was a supposedly needless comma in one of the sentences, and he replied that the comma gave the diners time to pull in their chairs.

I probably have the specifics wrong, but that was the general idea.

norfolklad said:

You keep on making this jingoistic statement. Please provide evidence of where Laurel has laid this down.

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Why would Laurel have to "lay" anything down on this? Everyone who has referred to the hosting documentation for this Web site has said it's located in the United States. If you doubt that, provide the evidence yourself. And all you have to do is look at the content text of the Web site and you can tell it's in American style--grammar, punctuation, and spelling--unless you don't know the difference between American style and any other style. Are you saying you can't tell the difference?

Beyond that, we have folks crab almost monthly that they have stories rejected (mostly because of dialogue punctuation) that were written in acceptable British style. This is because Laurel uses American style. Even the FAQs on writing dialogue are in American style. If you don't believe it, this is your problem. You can check it out for yourself--that might mean you'd have to learn what American style is, though, and maybe that would give you the vapors.

And my use of the word "jingoist" is because some of you British folks are hard headed about accepting these realities even though they are reality here--not because one style is better than the other. I've lived in several former British colonies, and although I've met ugly Americans in volume I've also met Britishers who can't accept that the sun no longer never sets on the British empire (or that it doesn't shine out of their asses).

There are some things American here at Literotica simply because this is an American-hosted site, its own presentation is in American style, and some its editorial rules and practices lean in that direction too.

It has nothing to do with whether the English had the language first and therefore think they own all variations of it.

NOIRTRASH said:

e.e. cummings offered the best agvice about punctuation: 'SEASON TO TASTE."

PILETTE is who I call THE GRAMMAR GESTAPO. Ten years ago my first brawl on this board was a fught with PILETTE about the function of grammar. GRAMMAR exists to improve your writing, it is not the ten commandments. Music advanced because artists discovered good places to use disgraced stuff.

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This made me smile.

There is a difference between "correct grammar" and style. "Correct grammar" changes as the language evolves--it's a constantly moving target that, at any one point, is rarely unanimously agreed upon anyway.

Style is absolutely, 100%, up to the individual.

Are you writing a resume? Might be best to play it cautious, to make certain your writing doesn't distract from the content. Are you writing fiction? In that case, do what feels right.

Frank Hebert (in the Dune series) often deletes the conjunction "and."

William Gibson has evolved his style to the point where his writing is remarkably dense and often identifiable within a sentence or two.

Mark Z. Danielewski stretches words across entire pages in House of Leaves.

People who get overly fixated on format and the minutiae of rules sometimes forget the primary purpose of language--which is communication--and the fact that living languages evolve daily, by having their borders pushed.

So to answer the OP's question: "Can commas be allowed where it normally shouldn't in order to add a pause in fiction?" Yes, absolutely.

It made me laugh to, because James is lying through his teeth concerning anything I post to the forum about writing fiction.

Among other things, I constantly make a differentiation between what probably will work on Literotica and what wouldn't work with publishers. There are some folks here claiming to be trying to develop their writing--and development is pointed at moving to being published. I'm trying to help them see what will give them a leg up on that point in the greater world of publishing. That's quite different from what they can do here at Literotica if they want to.

electricblue66 said:

I've often wondered about that myself. I count a number of colourful little flags on the front page (somewhere, anyway), and there's no Stars and Stripes there (no Southern Cross either, but no matter). So are the flags aspirational, suggestive of an intent to make the site international, or merely decorational?

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This was answered. They merely are the international code signs for the language you'll get if you click on those buttons.

Need we continue to be dumb about this?

Emdashes

sr71plt said:

…First, that's not an em dash that you've put in your examples. So, a U.S. publisher would change that--an em dash, with no open spaces on either side…

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You can accomplish a real emdash ("—") in text on Lit by entering the HTML code

&-#-8-2-1-2-;

with no embedded spaces—and without the hyphens I've used as spacers. (The semi-colon is part of the code; don't leave it off.) As Pilot has indicated, there shouldn't be any spaces between the emdash and the text to either side.

This doesn't work in most of Lit's titles—like those of the posts in this forum.

CarlusMagnus said:

You can accomplish a real emdash ("—") in text on Lit by entering the HTML code

&-#-8-2-1-2-;

with no embedded spaces—and without the hyphens I've used as spacers. (The semi-colon is part of the code; don't leave it off.) As Pilot has indicated, there shouldn't be any spaces between the emdash and the text to either side.

This doesn't work in most of Lit's titles—like those of the posts in this forum.

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I get a real em dash in a Lit. submission just by putting a real em dash in my Word document. I cut and paste into the dialogue box. Maybe this is a problem in other forms of submission, but apparently not in cut and paste. (But, no, it doesn't work in the title block. I haven't tried it in the descriptor block)

Green_Knight said:

[A]uthors, instead of learning a set of rules and following them slavishly, must now think more carefully about what they're writing and the way in which their words might be interpreted (or misinterpreted) by readers.

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It's always been incumbent upon authors to think about their writing somewhat more carefully than they believe that they can. Now they just get to think in rather different ways.

sr71plt said:

This was answered. They merely are the international code signs for the language you'll get if you click on those buttons.

Need we continue to be dumb about this?

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Bit slow on the trawl through, mate, this was curiosity two days ago my time. Poor physicists, they need to reset their clocks, the smallest time increment known to man has just wobbled.

Don't you have anything better to do than check on every single post posted? Of course you don't. Post number 47,308 and ever onwards. And you reckon old Noir is an attention seeker. You got no mirrors at your place, or what?

sr71plt said:

I get a real em dash in a Lit. submission just by putting a real em dash in my Word document. I cut and paste into the dialogue box. Maybe this is a problem in other forms of submission, but apparently not in cut and paste. (But, no, it doesn't work in the title block. I haven't tried it in the descriptor block)

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I don't use M$ Word unless I must. Most of my writing is done in a text editor, and I submit stories to Lit. in text.

electricblue66 said:

Bit slow on the trawl through, mate, this was curiosity two days ago my time. Poor physicists, they need to reset their clocks, the smallest time increment known to man has just wobbled.

Don't you have anything better to do than check on every single post posted? Of course you don't. Post number 47,308 and ever onwards. And you reckon old Noir is an attention seeker. You got no mirrors at your place, or what?

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I have you on ignore. I opened up this evening without signing in and saw your dumb attack post.

I think that's enough explanation for the flak you're throwing up in the air.

CarlusMagnus said:

I don't use M$ Word unless I must. Most of my writing is done in a text editor, and I submit stories to Lit. in text.

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OK. I take it you're saying that your program doesn't have em dashes. But, yeah, Word is industry standard. Anyone using anything else to do anything has problems to deal with.

sr71plt said:

OK. I take it you're saying that your program doesn't have em dashes. But, yeah, Word is industry standard. Anyone using anything else to do anything has problems to deal with.

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There are ways to deal with those problem. Calibre, for example, translates text (with a sprinkling of HTML code) into .docx files very nicely. (As well as into e-pubs or .mobi files.)