If the punctuation signifies the end of a grammatical unit, whether that unit is a clause of a sentence or a complete sentence, then the line tends to be end-stopped. That might include a comma, colon, semi-colon, dash, period, question mark, exclamation point, or ellipsis. The easiest way to tell if a line is end-stopped is to look for punctuation at the end.Some additional key details about end-stopped lines: However, an end-stopped line is often the end of a longer sentence that stretches across several lines. She has nothing left to give you now." If a line of poetry contains a complete phrase whose meaning doesn't change in light of what follows, it is considered to be end-stopped. Cavafy uses end-stopped lines in his poem "Ithaka" when he writes "Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. You can read more of her tips for writers as well as her review of books and author interviews on her blog- Joan Says, Writes, Reads.What is an end-stopped line? Here’s a quick and simple definition:Īn end-stopped line is a line of poetry in which a sentence or phrase comes to a conclusion at the end of the line. Curtis is an award-winning author of six books, including her recent releases, The Clock Strikes Midnight (November 2014) and e-Murderer (September 2015) MuseItUp Publishing. These are some tips for using punctuation to create mood without cheapening your writing with the over use of exclamation points. Not until his arms crushed her to him did the tears of joy flow.Īs a reader, we are running beside this man, hoping he will get to his beloved before she leaves him forever.Ĭan you feel the emotion the writer is sharing? Spotting her alone as if under the light of a moonbeam, he nearly collapsed with relief. Would he get to her before she stepped on the airplane and disappeared from his life forever? He swallowed the lump in his throat. Sweat ran down his face and his heartbeat quickened. He raced through the terminal, not stopping to apologize when he careened into someone. Here’s an example of good writing that combines punctuation as well as emotion. Pay attention to your own feelings that propel your actions.Īs writers, we must not cheapen our craft by becoming too enamored with punctuation to share what we are trying to convey. Our hands clench when we feel frustration. Tears tumble down our cheeks when we feel sadness or extreme joy. We act in a certain way because we feel something. In other words actions are expressed by feelings. Think in terms of feelings and action.Whenever something happens to you whether it’s a near miss accident or the arrival of that long-awaited contract from a publisher, what happens to you? This journal will help you better describe your character’s actions when they happen. Write down your own emotions.Keep an emotion journal.Do you clap your hands with glee? Does your heart nearly stop from the shear pleasure of it? If you wish to show extreme happiness, think about what you might do to convey that happiness. All these actions show us the emotion without using an exclamation point. Show us the emotion through the character’s action. Here are some tips to add emotion without overusing exclamation points. Recently I read a novel (self-published) in which the author not only overused exclamation points but he also used bold and italic to create emotion. An exclamation point does connote extreme emotion, but the savvy author knows how to convey that emotion without cheapening it with an exclamation point. What I mean by that last statement is when we use (and overuse) exclamation points. In my view, many of today's authors try to use punctuation to display emotion rather challenging themselves to do so with skillful writing. Indeed, the examples showed some creative use of punctuation, but they also demonstrated good writing. She gave three examples, including one from The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. Recently I read in the Red Pencil blog a post titled: Busted: Authors Caught Exciting Emotion with Creative Punctuation. In that post, the author made a case for using punctuation for exciting emotion. Most of us do not talk in complete sentences. Writers use fragments to convey action, quick short events. Of course, if you write only in sentence fragments, your readers will get annoyed. For example, it’s okay to write in sentence fragments. But, is it the be-all-end-all?Īs fiction writers, we can violate some rules of grammar. Punctuation has an important place in the writing. Conversely, when we leave out a comma, the reader may not understand what we are trying to say. When we overuse commas, it distracts the reader. We all know it's important to use good punctuation in writing our fiction.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |