Nonfiction Omnibus: Nonfiction

By Harvey Stanbrough

This Nonfiction Omnibus contains the complete updated texts of my three best selling writer's guides:

Punctuation for Writers
Writing Realistic Dialect & Flash Fiction
Quiet the Critical Voice and Write Fiction

None of these are the regurgitated "same old advice" you will find almost everywhere else on the how-to shelves.

Punctuation for Writers is basically the rules as they should read, a completely unique approach to punctuation. It explains how to wield punctuation as a tool rather than react to it as a reader (or fear it.)

I even boiled down the several pages of comma rules you saw in high school and college to five simple rules. Because we don't use punctuation in a vacuum, PFW also includes a grammar refresher.

Writing Realistic Dialect & Flash Fiction does exactly what the title promises: It teaches you how to write realistic, fluid, unstilted dialogue.

WRD & FF explores concepts like why and how authentic, realistic dialogue works to engage the emotions of the reader, why and how narrative is effective when used in conjunction with dialogue, and the appropriate use of dialect.

Finally, in Quiet the Critical Voice and Write Fiction, you'll learn how to push down the overpowering fears and self-doubt that are keeping you from writing or finishing.

The truth is, you've been telling stories since before you even knew there was an alphabet. You can do this, and you can do it well.

Your critical voice is fear-based. It exists to protect you. It keeps you from putting your hand on a hot stove or from crossing the street without checking for oncoming traffic.

That's good. Those actions have actual real consequences.

But it also strives to keep you from writing. It's trying to protect you from rejection by editors and publishers, or from the possible embarrassment you might feel from a bad review.

That fear is baseless. If you write fiction, you will occasionally get a bad review. You will also get many good ones. It's all a matter of the reader's personal taste.

Overcoming that fear and writing fiction has no consequences other than a feeling of elation.

Quiet the Critical Voice and Write Fiction will show you in detail how to recognize and silence the critical it so you can get on with your life's work.

And when you overcome that critical voice, writing fiction will become the most fun you've ever had.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: StoneThread Publishing
• Release date: Feb 15, 2025
• ISBN: 9798227834072

Harvey Stanbrough

Harvey Stanbrough was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas and baked in Arizona. For a time, he wrote under five personas and several pseudonyms, but he takes a pill for that now and writes only under his own name. Mostly. Harvey is an award-winning writer who follows Heinlein's Rules avidly. He has written and published over 100 novels, 10 novellas, and over 270 short stories. He has also written 18 nonfiction books on writing, 8 of which are free to other writers. And he's compiled and published 27 collections of short fiction and 5 critically acclaimed poetry collections. These days, the vendors through which Harvey licenses his works do not allow URLs in the back matter. To see his other works, please key "StoneThread Publishing" or "Harvey Stanbrough" into your favorite search engine. Finally, for his best advice on writing, look for "The New Daily Journal | Harvey Stanbrough | Substack."  

Book preview

Punctuation for Writers, 2nd Edition

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my students in college and college-prep classes, in GED classes, and in seminars and writers’ conferences who have proven the value of these simple guidelines by their practical application.

Introduction to the Second Edition

When the first printing of the first edition of this book began to run out, the publisher and I considered simply running a second printing, but I’d received so much valuable input from those who’d used the first edition that I soon decided a second edition was necessary. Much of the original text from the first edition, validated as it was by real writers around the globe, remains unchanged, but I’ve also added information to make this reference more valuable to you, the reader. Finally, to hold down costs I decided to publish this edition electronically.

I’m ever cognizant that the value of a book like this rests not only with the information it conveys, but with concrete examples. To that end, I’ve added more examples of certain uses of punctuation as well as a short chapter on the use of punctuation in poetry, a subject that is dear to my heart.

Finally, I’ve added a new appendix that both serves as a sample manuscript format and discusses the mechanics of manuscript preparation. I hope you will find this electronic edition not only useful, but as entertaining and enjoyable as the first.

More than that, I hope you will realize the most important lesson this book has to impart: each mark of punctuation affects the reader in a particular way and causes a particular reaction. It forces the reader the pause for a particular length of time, thereby conveying a sense that adds to the meaning of the sentence and paragraph.

Once you are aware of why the various marks of punctuation work the way they do and the effect each has on the reader, you will no longer need to memorize dozens or hundreds of arbitrary rules. Instead, you will use punctuation pro-actively as a tool to direct the reading of your work, as it was intended.

Introduction to the First Edition

Whether you’re a beginning writer or an old pro, a full- or part-time freelancer, a student writer, an essayist, a short story writer, a novelist, or a poet, punctuation is the third most important tool in your inventory. It ranks only after your ability to form letters from lines, circles, and arcs, and your ability to arrange those letters into words. Unfortunately, punctuation also is one of the most often misused tools at your disposal.

Remember, your most important task as a writer is to keep the reader reading, and punctuation has everything to do with that. Well-placed punctuation marks go quietly about their task, smoothly and invisibly guiding the reader through your work.

But if it isn’t used well, punctuation becomes far too apparent. Hasn’t your own reading been interrupted by a misplaced comma? You had to stop reading, go back to where the sentence or line or paragraph last made sense, and mentally repair the error that caused the confusion before you could continue reading. In fact, if you read the newspaper, you probably performed that very exercise this morning.

Your lack of skill in using punctuation can create the same problem for your reader, actually causing her to stumble through your work as she is forced to stop now and again just long enough to subconsciously repair a damaged line or sentence. Then, if you’re very lucky, she’ll continue to read.

But if the subconscious punctuation-repair process happens too often, the reading will become too much like work and the reader will simply put down your book or essay or poem—and if that happens too often, she will not spend her hard-earned cash on your other works.

But it gets worse: If your reader also happens to be a publishing house editor, an agent, or a reviewer, your lack of skill in using punctuation can translate into a rejection of your work. Conversely, the easier you make it on the editor, agent, or reviewer, the more likely you are to win a contract or a good review. Today more than ever, it really is all up to you.

Punctuation for Writers Will Not Teach You

how to react to punctuation as a reader (you already know that)

a bunch of boring, out-of-context rules that don’t make sense

to use a comma when you need to take a breath and other such nonsense

Punctuation for Writers Will Teach You

how to wield punctuation as a tool and use it to achieve a particular effect in the reader

a set of usage guidelines that fit most writing scenarios

the different uses of punctuation in narrative, dialogue, and poetry

how and why all readers must and do react in a given way to each punctuation mark, and what that means to you as a writer

Definitions

To provide a better understanding of punctuation and its uses from the vantage point of a writer, here are a few definitions:

Long-pause punctuation, which is usually used in normal writing (prose or poetry) only at the end of a complete thought, consists of the period, the question mark, the exclamation point, and the colon.

Medium-pause punctuation, which provides a transition from one part of a sentence or thought to another—that is, it shows the reader that what follows is closely related to what she just read—consists of the semicolon and the dash (also referred to as the long dash or em dash).

Short-pause punctuation, which forces the reader to pause only briefly, consists solely of the comma.

Now, let’s get to work!

Section One: The Punctuation

A Reason for Pause—Punctuation is not a mystery, or rather, it’s mysterious only in the same way spiders and bats are mysterious. Anything we don’t understand seems a little odd and frightening, and we don’t understand punctuation because we were never taught its nuances.

We were taught where to place particular marks of punctuation according to a set of rules, but not why or what would happen as a result. And of course, those rules change depending on which style manual is being used at the time. The rules also change depending on the circumstance in some sentences and paragraphs, and some people say the rules change from genre to genre.

For example, many pundits say a poem should not be punctuated. A few contemporary writers are actually creating dialogue between fictional characters without using quotation marks. To such inanities, I say Use punctuation as it was intended to be used: to direct the reading of your work.

Remember these from your school days?

The comma means you should take a breath.

The period marks the end of a declarative sentence.

The question mark comes at the end of an interrogative sentence.

Use an exclamation point after an expletive or a command.

What does all of that mean? Why do we always pause or take a breath when we encounter a comma in our reading? Why does the period belong at the end of a sentence? If you ask this question, most teachers will say some version of because that’s the rule.

But what purpose does punctuation serve? What effect does it cause? Why do we get a sense of anticipation when we encounter a colon in some places, but not in others? You know that a comma and a period are not interchangeable, but why aren’t they? Aren’t commas and semicolons interchangeable? (No.)

Understanding these things—understanding the nuances of punctuation and how the marks of punctuation absolutely will affect your reader each time she encounters them—will help your writing immensely.

The knowledge you glean from this book will enable you to wield punctuation as a tool you can use to direct the reading of your work. It will no longer be just a series of symbols that you fear because their effect on the reader has never been properly explained to you.

How It Works

Punctuation is a system of agreed-upon symbols—various marks composed of tiny dots and lines and curves. Each symbol causes the reader to pause at a certain place and for a certain length of time and alerts her to the relationship between what she has just read and what she is about to read. In this way, punctuation sets the tempo of the work. In other words, punctuation enables you to set the tempo of the work.

Your careful, intentional use of punctuation will cause the reader to read your work precisely as you meant for it to be read. He will become involved. Horror stories will be rendered more frightening by well-placed punctuation. (And I don’t mean just the exclamation point!)

Stream-of-consciousness vignettes will become more lively and engaging, making the reader feel an integral part of the character’s speeding thought process rather than a passive, yawning observer. Individual paragraphs in essays, articles, and stories will become a steep slope of sentences from which the reader can’t escape until he is slammed, headlong and breathless, into the punch of the last terse statement.

You can accomplish all of this and more by your intentional, intelligent use of punctuation—that is, your ability to force the reader to pause where you want him to pause and for a precise length of time. As you might have guessed, the keyword here is pause.

By controlling where and how long the reader pauses while reading, the writer directs the reading of the work. This means the writer who uses punctuation intelligently stands a much better chance of having the reader understand her authorial intent—what the writer wanted the reader to understand from her work.

In other words, you can (and should) use punctuation intentionally to enhance the reader’s understanding and enjoyment of your work.

Finally, although I’ve written that you can use punctuation to cause your reader to pause for a precise length of time, that does not mean that all readers pause for exactly the same length of time when they encounter a particular type of punctuation. For example, Readers A, B, and C do not all pause for a full second when they encounter a period (or other long-pause punctuation mark) at the end of a sentence.

However, for the sake of illustration, let’s say Reader A pauses for a full second when he encounters a period; if that’s true, he will also pause for a full second when he encounters a question mark, an exclamation point, or a colon. Likewise, if Reader A pauses for a half-second when he encounters a semicolon, he will also pause for a half-second when he encounters an em dash. When faced with a comma, he might pause for only one-fourth of a second.

If Reader B pauses for a half-second when she encounters a period, she will also pause for a half-second when she encounters a question mark, an exclamation point, or a colon. Reader B’s medium-and short-length pauses also will be progressively shorter. Likewise for Reader C and all the other readers in the world.

I’m about to discuss each punctuation mark and its use. For now, just remember this: Your mastery of punctuation is a powerful tool that will bring you that much closer to having your work published and ensuring your message is getting through to your reader.

Now it’s time to learn the nuances of this powerful tool, how it works, and how to use it effectively.

Chapter 1: Long-Pause Punctuation

The period (.), the question mark (?), the exclamation point (!), and the colon (:) are the marks of long-pause punctuation. They typically are used at the end of a complete thought to adequately separate thoughts that are not immediately related before the reader goes on to the next sentence.

But it’s especially important to remember that no matter where these marks are used—or misused—they still force the reader to pause for the longest time period. If you drop a period into the middle of a sentence, the reader will pause as if she’s reached the end of the sentence. Of course, she will know she hasn’t, and confusion will ensue.

Long-pause punctuation is touted as always being placed at the end of a complete sentence or complete thought, and that’s true in formal writing, such as scholarly essays. In less-formal writing, however—personal essays, fiction, and articles, for example—writers often use sentence fragments. We’ll discuss sentence fragments at some length in Chapter 7.

It’s also important to understand that misuse is defined by the writer and the reader. If the writer uses these marks intentionally to force the reader to pause for a particular reason, the marks are not misused. In other words, if the writer intentionally uses the marks in a new way and that use achieves the desired effect, the marks are not misused.

For example, perhaps the writer wants to force the reader into placing more emphasis on certain material. The section on the colon, below, provides an excellent real-life example of a professional writer having done just that. He intentionally used punctuation in a non-standard way to achieve a particular effect in the reader—in this case, to intentionally disrupt the reading at regular intervals—and it worked beautifully.

As you will see in that example and in others, sometimes breaking the rules of punctuation enables the writer to make a much stronger impression on the reader. Whether you use punctuation strictly according to the rules matters only to your English teacher, but failing to use it intentionally and  purposefully—whether by the rules or not—will always cost you readers.

The Period and the Question Mark—Because their use is generally universal, the period and the question mark are most often used appropriately. It would do us little good to discuss them here, except to review the basic rules.

The period is used most often at the end of a declarative statement, usually a complete thought, whether fully written out or partially implied. (See the discussion of sentence fragments in Chapter 7.)

The question mark is used most often at the end of an interrogative, or question. The only confusion I encounter with the use of this mark is the occasional misuse of it to follow an indirect question.

Consider the examples that follow. The first is a direct question that calls for the use of a question mark, and the second, although it poses an indirect question, is actually a declarative statement:

Will Margaret join us at the theater?

I wonder whether Margaret will join us at the theater.

The use of a question mark after a sentence like the second one (the indirect question) is not correct because the question mark still refers to the main subject and verb, I wonder. Using the question mark there makes it seem that the speaker is questioning whether he wonders. (Do I wonder?)

However, more and more writers are using the question mark in such instances anyway. Notice in the following examples that when the indirect question is posed in the past tense, it seems more natural to follow it with a period; when it is posed in the present tense, however, the question mark seems at least somewhat appropriate:

I wondered whether Margaret would join us at the theater.

I wonder whether Margaret will join us at the theater?

So what’s my definitive advice regarding the use of the question mark in a case like this? I suggest you follow your own preference, but as always, be aware of the effect it will have on your reader. Also, if a particular editor or publisher wants to change the way you punctuate an indirect question, I recommend you don’t argue.

Finally, the direct question that’s imbedded in a declarative sentence also takes a question mark. In the examples below, note that the question mark, because it’s part of a thought, is contained within the italics that I’ve used to indicate unspoken thought and that the overall declarative sentence itself is not followed by a period. Too much punctuation at the end of a sentence leads only to confusion.

For ease of comparison, I repeated the second example from above. In the third example, you see the same rule applied with regard to a spoken thought (dialogue) in which a direct question is imbedded in a declarative sentence. The fourth example shows another form of the indirect question. Notice that it’s followed by a period since it’s a declarative sentence.

I wondered, Will Margaret join us at the theater?

I wondered whether Margaret would join us at the theater.

She asked, Will Margaret join us at the theater?

She asked whether Margaret would join us at the theater.

I hope you will glean from this section that the writer’s use of the more common marks of punctuation will be routine most of the time.

It’s important to remember, though, that when these marks are used, they will cause the reader to pause for a long time. Even when they’re used routinely, they should be used purposefully. The writer should always be conscious of the effect s/he’s having on his or her reader.

The Exclamation Point

The exclamation point is used most often after an expletive (Darn it!) or a strong or urgent command (Come here!).

In addition to creating the same long pause as its cousins—the period, the question mark, and the colon—the exclamation point also conveys to the reader a sense of urgency or stress or both.

For this reason, many beginning writers seem to believe if using one exclamation point is a good thing, using several would be exponentially better. It’s as if they believe the emphasis created by the mark will be doubled or tripled if they use two or three exclamation points at the end of a sentence instead of one.

That is not true. One exclamation point per occurrence is adequate, and using more than one will irritate the reader. Subliminally, subconsciously, the reader will think All right! Enough! I get it already! And in case you’re wondering, the same thing goes for question marks.

Another important, although somewhat unorthodox, use of the exclamation point is to place emphasis on a selected word or phrase within a sentence. (Remember, though, unorthodox is good when it comes to writing, as long as it’s also intentional.) Consider this example:

Poor use of the exclamation point tends to aggravate! the reader, label the !writer as a beginner(!), and possibly even cause a loss of sales!

In this example,

the first exclamation point puts specific emphasis on aggravate to make it stand out as something the writer definitely does not want to do;

the second, placed immediately before writer, seems a subliminal curse word; and

the third, enclosed in parentheses to quiet or subdue it, still stresses beginner (although not as strongly as the first, which emphasized aggravate). Its purpose is to convey Beginner? I don’t want to be labeled a beginner!

The fourth exclamation point emphasizes a phrase—a loss of sales—to indicate that this is something to be avoided. To a lesser degree, it also emphasizes the sentence as a whole rather than a specific word. Look closely at the end of the sentence again. If the final exclamation point emphasized a particular word, the word would be sales, and you probably can sense that isn’t the case.

The Colon

Let’s get the standard uses of the colon out of the way first: It is used to separate chapter and verse, hours and minutes, and so on. It also is used as in the first sentence in this paragraph, at the end of a complete thought to place emphasis on and introduce (with its long pause) the material that follows it.

In the case of this example, the colon is used to introduce another complete thought; therefore, the first word of the second sentence is capitalized. When the colon is used to introduce a list or other incomplete thought, the first letter of the second group of words is not capitalized unless it’s a proper noun. That’s the stuff you probably remember from  school. Now let’s get down to the good stuff.

Earlier in this chapter, I referred to an example of a professional writer using long-pause punctuation in a unique way to achieve a particular effect. In this excerpt from After a Time, a short story Jason Gurley included in his first collection, Close Program (Pixel Press Publishers, 2001), Mr. Gurley thoroughly shattered one of the major rules of punctuation. He used the colon seemingly randomly and never (as would be appropriate) at the end of a complete thought!

In this scene, the narrator has just called an old friend he’s recognized by his name, Robert, only to discover the man has changed his name. Notice that the placement of the colon not only adds to the intrigue and suspense we feel as we read it, but that it also adds a somehow necessary emphasis to the word or phrase that follows it.

Finally, notice that Mr. Gurley’s use of commas to run sentences together causes us to speed through the passages that aren’t intentionally interrupted by his unorthodox use of the colon:

It’s Garrett now, he said darkly, and let the big door grind shut, then leaned on it and stared up at the same sky I had been admiring, and I wondered if the rust on the door was staining his bald head. Garrett Holman.

I’m confused, I said, and I was, but I thought that I knew why Robert Mitchell had become Garrett Holman, and my thinking led me back to: sweaty, leafy jungles full of scared white boys in grease-paint and torn camos, back to: sludgy swamps that killed more men than Charlie did, seeping into boots and socks and infecting unsuspecting feet, back to: napalm rain-showers and near-insane sergeants, and I knew why Robert became Garrett: to escape.

But there was no escaping the skin graft that patched together his cheek and his lip, on both sides of his face like a flesh-tone manhole cover that’s been warped and adjusted by the traffic and weather, only the adjusting here had been done by a bad surgeon.

I gotta go back in, Robert said, and the door wouldn’t open from the outside, and he knocked lightly, but: nobody answered, and he knocked harder, but: there was nobody there, and he pounded, but: nobody came to his rescue, and he was stuck in the cool night with a memory he didn’t want to talk to.

Robert, I said quietly, and when he turned, his face seemed whiter beneath the caked-on makeup, makeup that couldn’t hide the strange, shifting layer of skin on either side of his face, like a mud pie slapped on by a child, and he breathed deeply, over and over, and I said his name again.

I don’t want to talk to you, he answered, I don’t, I don’t—

My name is Greg, I said, and he closed his eyes and paranoid leaks sliced through his makeup and trickled in smeary white rivulets down his neck and stained his