Joe Abercrombie punctuation

[Coragem]

Well, I'm currently reading The Heroes and so far it's good. Awesomely good.

I'm just interested that (so far) I haven't found a single colon, semi-colon or dash. Just full stops and commas.

It works really well, actually. As far as I can see he just works his commas quite hard in places, which I'm fine with, and whenever another author might have opted for colon or dash he just goes with a full stop.

For me this is a more extreme version of the sort of writing I like. For example, I'm really not keen when authors over-use dashes, regularly inserting clauses between dashes.

What do people think?

Coragem

[Montero]

mm.

I certainly use dashes occasionally when writing fiction, but wouldn't like to see them overused. I tend to use them where you might pause in speech, or be making an aside.

I only use colons for the precursor sentence to a list, so only in technical documents.
e.g.
The type of lists can be:
Numbered
Bullet points
Something weird because I've run out of list types and I needed a third point to make it worth having a list.

I know what to do with semi-colons, in terms of separating linked clauses, but I generally don't use them in fiction. Would tend to re-phrase sentences as I prefer a more speech-like, story-telliing, narrated feel/flow to the text. Again, might use them in a technical document.

[Coragem]

Note, I'm not saying it's bad to use semi-colons, colons and dashes. I use them myself and actually that's the grammatically correct way to go. When (often) Abercrombie uses a full stop instead of a semi-colon (for example) he ends up with a fragment after the full stop rather than a conventional 'sentence'.

I just think it's interesting to note that writing can work and in fact be extremely effective without a wide range of punctuation.

Coragem.

[I, Brian]

It's been a while since I read his books, but I suspect it's an issue of pacing - I remember his books as fast paced, in which case, colons and semi's might have lead to longer sentences than possibly he wanted for his pacing.

[Coragem]

Something I found on JA's website, explaining why he doesn't use semi-colons:


Semicolons. Hmmm. I guess I aim for prose that reflects the thought process of the character in question and has a conversational tone, and in that context I tend to find semicolons a bit distracting. I don’t feel as if I think in them, if that makes sense, and I rarely see an instance where a full stop or a comma won’t do as good a job. I’m sure technically there are many examples where I should be using colons or semicolons, but for me the technicalities fall a long way behind creating the right feel and rhythm.


Coragem

[HareBrain]

I read the first few pages of Heroes, and he does write in "extreme close third" where the language is what the character would use, being almost in dialect. Lots of sentence fragments. I didn't get on with it myself, but I can see it does a job.

[Peter Graham]

Semicolons. Hmmm. I guess I aim for prose that reflects the thought process of the character in question and has a conversational tone, and in that context I tend to find semicolons a bit distracting. I don’t feel as if I think in them, if that makes sense, and I rarely see an instance where a full stop or a comma won’t do as good a job. I’m sure technically there are many examples where I should be using colons or semicolons, but for me the technicalities fall a long way behind creating the right feel and rhythm.

All perfectly valid, although I can't imagine that many people think in commas either....

I think there is a lot to be said for knowing one's limitations and not exceeding them. A comma cannot be used as a substitute for a semi colon, but there are very few (if any) sentences which could not be reworked so as to obviate the need for a semi colon. In fact, if you don't mind sounding like latter day Ellroy, you could probably do away with commas too!

Regards,

Peter

[AnyaKimlin]

Lewis Grassic Gibbon used the same arguement for hardly ever using a fullstop.

Personally, when writing I'll use what I think works and in the last few months have got the hang of semi-colons, colons, ellipses, dashes etc

I actually think it would depend what dialect you use. Part of the reason I've been practising using everything is to give it a more natural, conversational feel, inserting the right level of pause/stop.

[Vertigo]

Originally Posted by Peter Graham

All perfectly valid, although I can't imagine that many people think in commas either....

I doubt if many people think in any kind of punctuation (well maybe Chrispy ). However I think probably everybody does think in pauses and whilst conveying those pauses to the reader may not be the only purpose of punctuation but it is a pretty big one especially for the 'stops' (,;.- and ... in particular) and in that sense I think the semicolon is important. When I'm reading I mostly use stops for this purpose with the pauses ranging from short to long in roughly the order ',' ';' '.' '--' '...'. Sometimes the stops are essential to place an ambiguous word in the right clause but as a reader I find that is definitely secondary.

[Ursa major]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, people rarely speak in individual words, i.e. with gaps between them, but I'd hate it if all those inter-word spaces were missing.



Really, the punctuation (and those spaces) perform a number of tasks, including:

• supporting the grammar (which helps the readers parse the text properly);
• dividing the word-stream into manageable chunks - paragraphs, sentences, clauses and the like - again to help the reader parse the text (and not lose their place and understanding while traversing vast sentences where even the commas are rare and exotic);
• giving an indication of how the text is to be "spoken" in the reader's head, in terms of pacing (which can make use of pauses of various lengths: a semicolon providing a shorter pause than a full stop, for instance), as well as revealing the different "colours" that various characters' voices exhibit.

If an author wishes to throttle back on their means of expression - in much the way that a composer might score for a string quartet or string ensemble rather than a full-sized symphony orchestra - that is up to them. But they ought to do so consciously, knowing what they're doing and why.

[Hex]

I am interested in this issue, partly because of my ongoing relationship with commas, but mainly because I was recently advised that I used far too many colons and semi-colons (I have, admittedly, used both in the same sentence fairly often without worrying about it at all). The advice came from an Editor of Tremendous Influence and it was that almost all semi-colons and colons are unnecessary -- commas and full stops can do the work instead. So I wonder if this is a fashion-type thing?

Also, I haven't read Heroes but I have read Joe Abercrombie's trilogy. It was beautifully and skilfully written.
I think, he is (or was), in fact, a composer. I had an 'aaaahh!' moment when I discovered that -- it made sense of the little repeating refrains he uses -- sentences which are repeated almost word-for-word by different characters in different POV sections. If I hadn't found everything else so impressive I would have assumed it was lazy writing, but in his case it seemed unlikely!

[HareBrain]

Originally Posted by Hex

So I wonder if this is a fashion-type thing?

Undoubtedly (partly because "what isn't?"). I think it's part of the vogue for "gritty" and "dirty", which will of course (human beings being, as they are, incpable of making their minds up) eventually swing so far the other way that we'll be snowed under by streams of florid adverbs separated by the punctuational equivalent of those ever-more-complex animated emoticons.

At which point, I shall strike!

[AnyaKimlin]

I think the problem with too many semi colons and colons is that it makes the work feel too 'academic' which in someways, Hex, I think works for yours because of who the character is.

A story without them is fine, but for me the range of punctuation is what can give the character a real, distinct voice. I also think dialogue and thoughts flow more naturally with some use of semi-colons because the sentences work together and flow.

[Coragem]

The argument against is, I think, that full stops are often used when a semi-colon would be technically more correct. In Abercrombie's work a full stop is often a very 'weak' piece of punctuation, often breaking up would/should otherwise be a single longer sentence.

Still, The Heroes is stupendously good, and as a reader I've just adapted to this use of full stops without any difficulty at all.

Coragem.

[Montero]

Originally Posted by HareBrain

Undoubtedly (partly because "what isn't?"). I think it's part of the vogue for "gritty" and "dirty", which will of course (human beings being, as they are, incpable of making their minds up) eventually swing so far the other way that we'll be snowed under by streams of florid adverbs separated by the punctuational equivalent of those ever-more-complex animated emoticons.

At which point, I shall strike!

A long while back I read Caesar's War in Gaul (in translation to English) and it was punchily readable. There was an interesting foreword on literary conventions in Rome at the time. Histories were written by professional historians who could write beautiful, complex prose. These were based on notes of the people who were actually there. What Caesar wrote was technically a set of notes that should have been turned into something larger and more grandiose. However, even though what he was writing lacked all the "proper" embellishments, it came across so well that it was read as it was and no professional historian ever came along and turned it into a "proper" history.

So the same sort of issues ......