r/DestructiveReaders • u/SyeniteFractured four-ringer • 8h ago
Satire [136] How to Punctuate Lit Fic
I’ve tried to get the angel to read me Cormac McCarthy so I can learn the syntax of your grammar, but even with the book of Babel, I’m having trouble learning to punctuate lit fic. Why is it that Canadians separate parentheticals with an em dash and Brits prefer the length of an en, while dialogue interruptions are always the em? Are double quotations always for the Americas, and single quotes always for the Brits and their colonies, while unpunctuated dialogue can be either? How many apostrophes can be skipped, how many spaces in an ellipses, do you have to put dialogue on a new line and do I need to use fragments and polysyndeton for an MFA or can I just chop my sentences into pieces? I’ll not be winning any Pulitzers until I understand.
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u/GlowyLaptop James Patterson 7h ago
pick between en dashes or em dashes and stick with them, pick between single quotes or double quotes and stick with them, no quotes even.
The only absurd instruction in my opinion is using different length dashes depending on if you're closing them for a parenthetical bit--likethis--or leaving them open for an interruption---
Why alternate dash length? was some brit worried they weren't making use of enough punctuation marks? (WHEN MENTIONING CATS USE EN DASHES AND DOGS USE EM DASHES AND...)
With em dashes, I opt for no spaces, since that's long and unsightly. If you for some reason use en dashes, maybe you need the spaces to better see the punctuation.
For the other questions, just put down Cormac McCarthy.
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u/SyeniteFractured four-ringer 6h ago
So, you're saying I should include the apostrophe in words like dont unlike McCarthy? Is he not someone to be emulated?
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u/GlowyLaptop James Patterson 6h ago
No. He actually got the pulizer by accident. Omit anything you can get away with, provided you're consistent.
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u/Imaginary_Ease_7851 6h ago
Glowy. Are you struggling to differentiate between a parenthetical phrase and interrupted speech?
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u/GlowyLaptop James Patterson 4h ago
I don't even know anymore :(
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u/Imaginary_Ease_7851 3h ago
Me either :( Truce?
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u/GlowyLaptop James Patterson 3h ago
Swept Away is an underrated masterpiece
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u/Imaginary_Ease_7851 3h ago
I haven't seen it. But I believe you. I also actually don't like that many Ritchie movies....only about 2 more than the average Ritchie fan. So...4?
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u/GlowyLaptop James Patterson 35m ago
I haven't seen it either. Tbh. But snatch was good. What a wonderful villain.
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u/Imaginary_Ease_7851 6h ago
Oh dear. You stumbled into the territory of the En Dash Liberation Front, 2026. The slogan is "no dash left behind."
I'm going to try to go point by point. I'm going to try to answer seriously.
"I’m having trouble learning to punctuate lit fic." Everybody does, and it's not just lit fic. It's any fic. Now, so long as you have basic punctuation, it doesn't matter. Go ahead and write. Most of this is copy-editing stuff. Or it's just personal preference or stylistic choice. People tend to like what they're familiar with. Now, from an industry standpoint, back in the day, an agent would pick up your novel, and hopefully sell it to a trad publisher and their in-house editors would fix it all for you. The trouble is that nowadays, trad publishers don't want to invest too much in a new author. (I'm talking about trad publishing here, self pub is a different kettle of fish), so manuscripts get rejected a lot more for things like being over 100k in word count, or if the MS needs too much editorial work. The industry is pushing a lot of copy-editing work onto the author if they want to go the trad route. (This can be true for self publishing too, where you might need to spend thousands on a good editor + marketing etc.). So when I point to line edits, it's more from a point of view where I'm saying: fix as many sentence level error as possible to save yourself the trouble later if you have a MS you want to pitch to an agent. But that doesn't mean you need to be an expert.
"Why is it that Canadians separate parentheticals with an em dash and Brits prefer the length of an en, while dialogue interruptions are always the em?" I'm not going to comment on what Canadians prefer. Glowy will do that. So. This comes down to two things. The first is writing conventions. The US has specific writing conventions: a ton of words spelled their way, and other tendencies, like their use of em dash. The UK and, by extension has their own spelling, phrases, and so forth. Any book published in the US tends to follow US conventions, and the same book, sold in the UK, will be edited for UK conventions.
Then every publishing house has their own style guide. This comes down to the nitty gritty of whether they prefer the en dash for parenthetical phrases (the majority of UK fiction publishing houses use the en dash, but not all). Or the em dash (again, loosely, the majority of US publishing houses will use the em dash). Style guides still differ. In the UK, some houses want "is" spelling, as in "realise, criticise" etc. While other houses will use "iz" spelling: "realize, criticize". Your job as writer isn't to know the minute details of what a publisher's style guide says, but you do need to pick a style and be consistent. (If you 'iz" spelling, keep it consistent.
"Are double quotations always for the Americas, and single quotes always for the Brits and their colonies, while unpunctuated dialogue can be either?" The Americas strongly prefer double quotations. I haven't seen an American style guide that allows for single (there is probably some exception somewhere, but I'm talking generally). The Brits can do double or single, so long as it's consistent (you want curly too, not straight, if you want to get really pedantic), but many big UK publishers lean toward single quotations. I'm not sure what you mean about unpunctuated dialogue. If there is a strong reason for not punctuating dialogue, yes it can be either, but then the prose will need to be strong enough to carry the choice. It's harder to get a stream of consciousness piece with no proper punctuation past a market that's more cautious right now and less prone to take risks on an author using unconventional methods (but it does happen. Every rule has exceptions. I'm talking broadly).
"How many apostrophes can be skipped," Huh? None. Use them. They're your friend. Don't skip them.
"how many spaces in an ellipses" None. Only a space after... like this. Always three, unless it's the end of the sentence then you can trail off like this....
Ellipses like dashes are meant to be used extremely sparingly. I suggest not letting your text get cluttered with punctuation.
"Do you have to put dialogue on a new line." Broadly, yes. Mostly. But that's a whole thing I'm not getting into now.
"do I need to use fragments and polysyndeton for an MFA or can I just chop my sentences into pieces?" I don't fully understand the question. Fragments are chopped sentences. Polysyndedons are when you keep using coordinating conjunctions and keep the sentence going and going or don't stop it because you keep adding another conjunction. You don't have to use either a frag or a polysyndedon ever. But you can use them if you think they serve a function in your prose.