The Comma - My White Whale

Coreyt0304 · Jul 19, 2014

I am working on writing a book. I have the story laid out so perfectly in my head, and have four chapters written so far. The only issue I am having is the damn comma. I'm going to put up the first 3 examples, from the CH 3 WIP, I posted in the SYW section. I want to give the examples, so maybe someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

I think I put it in the right places, but then others look at it, and not so much. I put too many, I dont put enough, it's starting to frustrate me lol

Thomas and Gus, carried the wood through the door. They placed it against the wall, of the now empty storm shelter. Thomas looked around the room, a lot of empty cots, but no Theresa or Chelsea. He turned to Gus, opening his mouth to speak, a loud crash echoed from the next room.*

“I said get your ass home,” they heard through the wall. “Shit Keith's here,” Gus said, as the two men raced from the storm shelter. They made their way out to the bar room, as a glass flew past them, shattering against the wall.*

“Woah! What the hell is going on?” Gus shouted, storming toward the center of the bar room. He looked around, taking notice of a few turned chairs. Keith stood over a trembling Chelsea, who was down on her knees, cleaning up a broken mug. Theresa stood in the middle, trying to calm Keith.*

TheNighSwan · Jul 19, 2014

I would write the first sentence this way

Thomas and Gus carried the wood through the door. They placed it against the wall of the now empty storm shelter. Thomas looked around the room; a lot of empty cots, but no Theresa or Chelsea. He turned to Gus, opening his mouth to speak, when a loud crash echoed from the next room.

The two other sentences do not seem to me like they need modifications.

King Neptune · Jul 19, 2014

I would also drop the comma after "cots".

mirandashell · Jul 19, 2014

I remember somebody here had a recommendation for a really good grammar book. Anyone remember what it was?

I shall go and have a poke through the stickies.

Sage · Jul 19, 2014

I found this pretty helpful when I was trying to explain a comma rule to someone a while ago: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm

ETA: This is an academic-writing site, so some things that are important in fiction, aren't covered, but it's good for basics.

Bufty · Jul 19, 2014

The comma may not be the root problem. Restructuring and pruning might help. You seem to want to try and cover every single thing instead of focusing on flow and clarity. Stay with the POV character. I could be wrong, but these extracts suggest an omniscient POV to me and that may be one of the issues - omniscient is often taken as a liberty to leap around and is not the easiest of POVs to use effectively.

mirandashell · Jul 19, 2014

Aha! Found this which should be useful.

Corey, scroll down for what you need.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95899

Coreyt0304 · Jul 19, 2014

Thank you all for the tips. I am going to look at what you posted, Miranda and also look at reconstructing and pruning it. -wimpers- This is not the fun part of writing lol. Is it okay if I do focus more on him, but still give some background on the other characters and what they are doing? That is what I was trying to do, but think I focused too much on them.

mirandashell · Jul 19, 2014

I'm not sure what you mean, Corey. Head over to your SYW 3rd chapter post and show me which bit.

blacbird · Jul 19, 2014

Thomas and Gus, carried the wood through the door. They placed it against the wall, of the now empty storm shelter. Thomas looked around the room, a lot of empty cots, but no Theresa or Chelsea. He turned to Gus, opening his mouth to speak, a loud crash echoed from the next room.

Quick observations on this small paragraph: The first two sentences need no commas. The third sentence works best with a colon after the word "room", instead of a comma. The last sentence is an example of a comma-splice and needs, at minimum, to be rendered as two separate sentences. But more than that, it just needs to be rewritten. As it stands, it's just a mess.

Read your stuff aloud. It can be very helpful in spotting all manner of grammar/style problems.

There's also Purdue OWL, the best grammar/style guide available on-line. Gooooogle will get you there instantly. Bookmark it.

caw

Chase · Jul 19, 2014

I agree with Blacbird about suggestions for correcting the first paragraph. Both Blacbird and Bufty are spot-on about problems beyond hapless comma placement (and other faulty punctuation) in all three paragraphs.

Almost all posters made good suggestions for the need to consult a grammar guide when forming sentences and writing dialog.

Blacbird is right about the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) as excellent for free helps.

Edit: Corey, I sent you a PM with suggestions and a few comma rules and examples. I hope you find some of it helpful. :yesway:

Jamesaritchie · Jul 21, 2014

I think you're trying to use commas by sound, by where you think the pause in speech is, rather than by actual rules. This never works.

I'd strongly suggest fining a grammar book for beginners, say a seventh grade grammar book, and using it. You'll find everything a writer needs in such a book, including how to use commas, and you'll get it all in bite-sized lessons.

I still have my jr. high English book from almost fifty years ago. It's the best grammar book I've ever found.

BethS · Jul 21, 2014

Thomas and Gus carried the wood through the door. They placed it against the wall of the now empty storm shelter. Thomas looked around the room: a lot of empty cots,* but no Theresa or Chelsea. He turned to Gus, opening his mouth to speak, but a loud crash echoed from the next room.

“I said get your ass home,” they heard through the wall.

“Shit. Keith's here,” Gus said, as the two men raced from the storm shelter. They made their way out to the barroom as a glass flew past them, shattering against the wall.

“Woah! What the hell is going on?” Gus shouted, storming toward the center of the barroom. He looked around, taking notice of a few turned chairs. Keith stood over a trembling Chelsea, who was down on her knees, cleaning up a broken mug. Theresa stood in the middle, trying to calm Keith.

(*Possible alternative: "Thomas looked around. There were a lot of..."

I did a sweep through to correct the punctuation, but the others are right; this could use some prose clean-up as well. For one thing, when you use "as" to join two events, it often presents the actions out of order. The reader sees the reaction before the action that caused it.

Also, one thing I can say about commas right now: never, ever, ever put a comma between the subject the verb of the a sentence. You did that twice.

NRoach · Jul 21, 2014

Jamesaritchie said:
I think you're trying to use commas by sound, by where you think the pause in speech is, rather than by actual rules. This never works.

I'd strongly suggest fining a grammar book for beginners, say a seventh grade grammar book, and using it. You'll find everything a writer needs in such a book, including how to use commas, and you'll get it all in bite-sized lessons.

I still have my jr. high English book from almost fifty years ago. It's the best grammar book I've ever found.

I don't know that it never works; it's far from perfect, but it's a starting point.

Chase · Jul 21, 2014

NRoach said:
I don't know that it never works; it's far from perfect, but it's a starting point.

When it works, it's a happy coincidence of a guess based on sound hitting the same juncture as a structural mark designed to ease reading; unfortunately, it's far enough from perfect to qualify as flawed, and the starting place for the imperfect practice is usually elementary school and arguably shouldn't be adults writing novels.

blacbird · Jul 21, 2014

NRoach said:
I don't know that it never works; it's far from perfect, but it's a starting point.

Not really. It's a door open into an avenue of punctuational problems. Even in the examples in the OP, when I read them aloud, the commas are not in a place where one would naturally pause.

Commas are nothing more than a part of the conventions of transforming spoken words into written ones, for the purpose of clear communication. As such, they are no different from periods, question marks, the letters of the alphabet or spaces between words. There are clear principles for their proper use, and plenty of guides available for reference. I can see no good reason not to understand these for any person aspiring to write prose.

caw

Jamesaritchie · Jul 22, 2014

NRoach said:
I don't know that it never works; it's far from perfect, but it's a starting point.

It never works, except maybe by accident, and it's the worst possible starting point you can have. It's a guaranteed way of making it harder than ever to learn the rules of comma usage.

It's much harder to break bad habits than it is to learn the basic rules in the first place. Basic comma usage isn't difficult to learn, if you start by learning the basic rules. If you start by guess, or by trying to insert commas where you think there's a pause, it's difficult to unlearn such bad habits.

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