Because this has been pissing me off.

Section One: The Basics

Here is how we format dialogue:

Commonly used wrong way of doing it: "I'd like to pick up my new boots please", said Mary.

How it is in books: "I'd like to pick up my new boots please," said Mary.

Or, if you want to stop in the middle of a sentence:

"I'd like to pick up my new boots please," said Mary, looking at her watch. "Oh no!" she exclaimed, grabbing her bag. "Forget the boots, sorry, I really have to go! Sorry," she muttered, scuttling to the door.

Brackets work like this:

She turned to the door (which had since been replaced by Jack) and sighed. It would be a long time before anyone told her how it had happened (she always felt left out).

Colons, Semi-Colons and Hyphens

A colon (one of these : but you knew that) is used to expand on a point directly, or in ye olde Englishe, to make a list of some kind. It is more commonly found in non-fiction.

'The features of the modern housecat include:
Fur
Four legs
A tail.'

Or, we can bring the semi-colon in there. The semi-colon is more commonly used in prose and fiction to expand a point.

He read the back of the packet skeptically. "The features of the modern housecat include: fur; four legs; a tail."

However, the semi-colon can do much cooler things than that. It is probably the single most useful piece of punctuation available to someone writing prose beyond old classics like 'the comma' and 'apostrophes'. The semi-colon can let you get all stylistic and sexy.

He was walking towards Central Station, by way of St Enoch Square. He knew he was quite close to it; he could see the taller, newer buildings with too few lights in their square windows standing like teenaged guardians over the railway bridge, just as he could hear the inhabitants of that same railway bridge clacking their way towards the South, their slim little lights snaking along, intersecting one another, in and out, the perfect harmony of machinery; trains never bump into one another unless we make them, he thought, they never throw coffee over other trains that they've never met before by accident.

Look at that massive sentence! Whoo boy. All made legtimate by the inclusion of a few semi-colons. Now, don't go chucking them in everywhere and replacing commas with them. They are special weapons to be used wisely. Your own voice and the pace of that voice will guide you. When writing, if you find yourself stopping for a moment to explain something to yourself, explain it to us with a nice little semi-colon. You might even get poetic, who knows. Used right they can speed up or slow down anything you do with far more style than a comma ever could.

Section Two: Crappy Prose and What It Means

Ever get to sentences that make your eyes cross for some reason? Most of the time they're not written by you. You inherently know what you're writing about, so you can cover it in fifty layers of horrible words and still be able to discern what's going on. However, the rest of the population will face problems. This is called your own WTFery, or Writer WTFery (what-the-****ery).

For purposes of illustration, I have gone to The Pit (otherwise known as fanfiction.net) and picked the first Simpsons story as I assume pretty much everyone on here is aware of what the Simpsons is about. I swear to God I just picked this from nowhere. FF.net is a mine of such wonder. Also, please investigate Godawful Fan Fiction.net for MST's and antidotes.

Let's take this inauspicious paragraph.

"Bart! This is an ouiji board! Throw this out!" Lisa yelled. "Ahh! I touched it! I'm cursed!" She yelled. She took the board and she threw it. She told Bart, "Let's continue so we don't get in trouble." Lisa said. Bart sighed and turned around. He opened a soggy box from water leaking out into it and threw it away. Lisa kept turning to the board. When they finished, she snuck upstairs, the board hidden in a box of books she found, to her room.

There are a lot of things that make this crap. Let's run through them so that we don't repeat them.

1: Lisa Yelled, She Yelled

There are only a few ways of describing what people have said and the ways in which they have said them. The fact that this author has managed to write 'yelled' twice in the same sentence in an exaggeration.

It can be easy to fall into a 'he said, she said' trap. Everyone does it. Just try and pay attention to what you are writing. Repetition can be a useful device, but unless you're going totally Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, nobody needs the word 'said' or 'yelled' over and over. Try making gaps in the middle of your characters' dialogue to describe what they are doing, or thinking. Read dialogue-heavy books to see how proper writers achieve speed. Another good tip for maintaining snappy dialogue is to reduce the conversationt to two characters, and remove 'saids' and 'whispereds' altogether; just be sure to remind us who's who from time to time.

2: And Then She Threw It - Explain Yourself

'She took the board and she threw it.'

This reminds me of sentences like 'His hands flying everywhere as he spoke.' WTF? Where are the hands going? In our little story, where is Lisa's board going? Why is it going? Where has it landed? Has it indeed landed, or is it being magical and floating around? I'm sure the auteur had a clear idea of where the board went. They've just chosen not to let us in on the secret.

3: Yodaspeak - Always Trust Your Mother Tongue

"Bart sighed and turned around. He opened a soggy box from water leaking out into it and threw it away."

Otherwise known as:

"Bart sighed and turned around (where or why, we are not to know). The water leak they'd found earlier had spread, but he needed a box to put the board in. He grabbed at the one closest to him and found it to have been waterlogged and destroyed by the water, and threw it away." (extras added by me to reduce WTFery)

Also:

"When they finished, she snuck upstairs, the board hidden in a box of books she found, to her room."

Otherwise known as:

"When they finished, she snuck upstairs to her bedroom. She scanned the room quickly and brought out an old and hidden box of books, and placed the board in the box."


Now then. James Joyce was pretty neat and throwing in backwards sentences and making us question our metaphysical selves. However, none of we reading this (unless something highlighy ****ing up has happened) are in fact James Joyce. We are different from him. Nor are we Shakespeare. We live in a different era and write in a different way. Backwards sentences are hard to do, as the saying goes. It can sometimes work:

Dropping her bag, she turned to the door, jumped over the counter, and ran.

-Yodafied:

Quickly she jumped the counter and ran for the door, dropping her bag seconds before her feet left the floor.


Make sure what you write feels right to you. The second version does appear more stylistic, but takes more work. If you want to do that, it's up to you, but it can easily go wrong. Your clauses are your daily bread and they are your friends. Respect them with proper orders. In English, we go:

SUBJECT > VERB > OBJECT

Ie.

The cat (subject) climbed up (verb) the tree (object).

But it wouldn't be art if we didn't **** about with it. Just watch out. It can go horribly wrong, because you may not see it and, as we have already noted, it is extremely easy for you to miss your own WTFery.

If you are writing in English, you should know what feels right. Always write in your mother tongue. Hell, someone out there must read the same language as you. Trust your instincts. You were born speaking this language. Remember, the main point of a story is to get an idea across. Sure, your writing style can be used as a symbolic tool, but if the way you're writing makes people's eyes cross, it's gone wrong somewhere. And no, I am not of the 'OMG Ulysses is a CLASSIC!' school.

Christ it's late now.

Tune in next time for Purple Prose and Why It is Often Worse, Shitty Dialogue and How to Avoid It, What Makes a Crap Title and Pacing, But Not the Walking Kind.