Why do we let something as trivial as a comma divide us?

Human beings will use any excuse to go tribal, even over the most trivial issues. You don’t need examples from politics to demonstrate this, although such examples are seemingly endless. All you need to do is consult a grammar nerd.

At least people who argue over things like Star Wars vs. Star Trek, Coke vs. Pepsi, or dogs vs. cats can make a cogent case that, at least on some level, the debate matters. (For the record, Star Trek is better than Star Wars because it’s more cerebral, Pepsi tastes better than Coke, and cats are less trouble than dogs — plus, they purr.)

But if you really want to get a writer or editor riled up, all you have to do is mention the Oxford comma. The rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge, the actual schools, is nothing compared to the battle over this tiny mark that appears (or doesn’t) before the final item mentioned in a series.

Is it “red, white and blue” or “red, white, and blue”?

OH MY GOD!

It’s worse than asking a heads person to call tails at the flip of a coin or a stripes person to play solids in pool. It’s like asking a Dodgers fan to root for the Giants, or a Metallica fan to listen to “Baby Shark” on an endless loop.

Journalists vs. authors

This battle largely pits journalists, who shun the Oxford comma as though it were Ebola, against authors, who cleave to it the way Gollum clings to his “Precious.”

From journalists, I’ve heard the excuse that it takes up space on the page. But even in this era of the incredible shrinking newspaper, that’s like offering to knock a penny off the price of a car makes a damn bit of difference. It does not. Why not stop using question marks instead(?) They’re wider!

Bereft of any rational rationale for banishing the serial comma (as it’s also known), newspapers fall back on the “because they said so” excuse.

“They,” in this case, is the publishers of the supposedly venerable Associated Press Style Guide, which has issued some pretty stupid decrees over the years — only to reverse itself frequently and without warning. Some compound modifiers are hyphenated, and others aren’t, for no particular rhyme or reason, although the editors seem increasingly allergic to hyphens, as they are to Oxford commas. Maybe they just don’t like punctuation marks. Bigots!

They’re fine with using “alumni” as a plural for" “alumnus,” and “data” is perfectly acceptable as both the plural and, erroneously, the singular form of “datum.” (Well, Data on Star Trek was a single android.) But don’t try writing “stadia” as the plural of “stadium.” Or “aquaria” as the plural of “aquarium.” Just add the “s” instead, because this is Merica, and Latin is a dead language, unless you’re a doctor or a scientist. (Those people are just stupid, right? We live in the 21st century! Carpe diem!)

Authors and their editors, by contrast, are adamant that the Oxford comma must be employed, ostensibly to avoid confusion. It doesn’t bother them that dropping that final comma would cause zero confusion in the vast majority of cases. I suspect they just want to establish themselves as superior to those lowbrow journalists by employing this flourish as a conceit.

Conflicting instructions

Point of order: Mark Twain was a journalist before he was a novelist. So were Charles Dickens, and H.G. Wells, and Neil Gaiman, and John Scalzi. So was I.

Yes, you caught me. I did want an excuse to put myself in that elite company, but it is true: I spent 30 years as a journalist and I’ve written 30 books, so I’ve been in both camps. Newspaper editors have demanded that I omit the Oxford comma, and literary editors have demanded I use it. Some bloggers insist on it; others resist it. And they all make it seem more important than climate change or homelessness or the fact that a whole bunch of species went extinct last year.

No one seems to like my idea: Use it where it’s needed to avoid confusion, and omit it otherwise. That would require people to actually think for themselves, which is probably asking too much in this era of knee-jerk tribalism, Trumpism and identity politics. See? You don’t need a comma between “Trumpism” and “identity politics” to avoid confusion. Trumpism and identity politics cause enough confusion all on their own.

I admit, internal consistency is important, but can’t we have external consistency, too?

Of course not. That would require one side to give in, and heaven forbid journalists would lower themselves to the level of purveyors of fiction (otherwise known as fake news), or that authors should demean themselves by adopting the rules of dying industry that produces disposable print. You might as well ask a Democrat to listen to a Republican, or vice versa.

So I suppose I’ll just have to keep going along with obstinate editors who demand the Oxford comma’s inclusion or exclusion based on nothing more than their own particular bias, which they probably learned from someone else with the same proclivity.

It’s stupid. It’s nonsensical. And it’s the perfect illustration of where we are as a society.

Now, please pass the Pepsi so I can watch Star Trek with a cat in my lap.

Stephen H. Provost is the author of Please Stop Saying That!, a humorous look at jargon and clichés, available on Amazon in paperback and ebook.

Quotes and dialogue: 10 tips on how to use them effectively

Quotes are great. They’re often my favorite part of a novel. In the form of dialogue, they move a story along like almost nothing else, and they break up those chunks of heavy gray description that can weigh a book down if the author isn’t careful.

But quotes don’t write themselves. Some authors use them well; others, not so much. So here are some simple, practical suggestions about how to use quotes effectively.

1

Emphasize dialogue

A good novel should have both, but there’s an advantage to dialogue: It lets you inside a character’s head without a lot of tedious description. When the characters themselves tell you what they’re thinking, you get their thoughts from their own lips. And the way they tell you what they’ve got to say gives you even more insight: into their motivations, their emotions, their biases, their limitations.

In practical terms, quick-hitting dialogue is a lot easier on the eyes than dense blocks of text from an author who presumes to know what his characters are. Of course, the author does know. After all, those characters were born in the author’s head. Still, a narrator who describes what a character is thinking seems like a secondhand source. Readers want a front-row seat; at least, I know I do, and dialogue provides that.

This does not mean dialogue is the only way to get inside a character’s head. In a first-person story, especially, you can get inside the character’s head without it. But it’s still the most natural, direct way of communicating what’s on the character’s mind.

It’s also a good idea to break up dialogue with description, and vice versa. Extremely long sections of dialogue can feel more like a screenplay than a novel, while extended description can feel static, like a visit to an art gallery.

2

Write conversationally

Remember that the people are talking. Writing dialogue is not just taking some description and slapping a couple of quotes around it. It’s a way of describing what characters are thinking, what they want to communicate, and who they are without some third-party analysis.

This isn’t as easy as it seems. In watching a well-reviewed TV show the other day, I noticed a teenage character say something like, “We will need to trek over to that mountain.” What teenage uses the word “trek” in a sentence (unless the character’s a science fiction nerd talking about Star Trek)? This was probably a case of description masquerading as a quote that was placed in the character’s mouth — a particular risk with screenplays, which lean heavily on dialogue.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when writing dialogue is that it’s meant to be spoken. That doesn’t change just because it’s on a printed page. As you’re writing, recite it to yourself (or even aloud) to be sure it sounds natural to your own ear. But be careful: Don’t go to the other extreme and rely on buzzwords and catch phrases you’ve heard just because they sound like dialogue. Stay original.

3

Define each character’s voice

This can be one of the biggest challenges for a writer. You know how you talk, so it’s easy to simply transfer your own conversational style to your characters. But if you do that, they’ll all sound alike — and like you.

Be sure the words spoken come from the mind of each particular character. If you’ve put a lot of effort into developing a unique character, you’ll have an easier time defining his or her voice. If, however, the character is two-dimensional or poorly developed, it will be tempting to fall back on stereotypical accents and rely heavily on clichés as crutches when writing dialogue.

Strong character development is the key to engaging and convincing dialogue.

4

No speeches, please

You’re not writing a speech for some self-important politician. You’re writing for someone who’s reading to be entertained or informed. Long blocks of text, whether they’re descriptive or in quotes, can seem daunting to a reader — especially in the age when tweets are in and Shakespearean soliloquys are out.

Just looking at a dense block of gray on a page can feel exhausting. (This is another reason snappy dialogue, with its frequent paragraph breaks, can move a story along so effectively. It’s like running a treadmill instead of struggling up a hill.)

Besides, it’s not realistic. Most people in a conversation don’t drone on ad nauseam. Those who do tend to get tuned out, right? So why should you expect a reader to keep paying attention to a character who does the same thing?

If you have to break a quote up over two or three paragraphs, ask yourself whether it’s worth it — and whether there might be a better way to present that information.

5

Make clear who’s talking

Don’t keep the reader guessing about this. How often have you seen a quote go on for four or five sentences before finally identifying the speaker? “She said,” shouldn’t always go at the end of the paragraph. Inserting the attribution after the first sentence breaks up the quote and keeps things moving.

It doesn’t hurt to change things up occasionally by leading with the attribution, either.

Just don’t leave readers wondering who’s talking if it’s not clear in the flow of the narrative. It can become a distraction. The more they focus on trying to answer that question, the less attention they’ll be paying to what’s on the page.

6

Minimize dialogue tags

On the flipside of No. 5, if it’s already clear who’s talking, you don’t need a dialogue tag. If you’ve got a back-and-forth between just two characters, inserting “she said” after each line slows the section down and quickly becomes tedious. Don’t be condescending to the reader. Let the dialogue speak for itself.

For the most part, dialogue tags (aka attribution) should be reserved for cases where it’s not clear who’s talking. If three or more people are engaged in a conversation, they can be helpful in sorting things out. The same is true if you’re starting a section of dialogue and it’s not clear who’s going first.

If you decide to use a dialogue tag, “said” is usually fine. You don’t need to switch things up by using words like “criticized” or “gasped” or “enthused.” These are fine occasionally, but they’re often overused in a quest for variety. (If you must use “exclaimed,” please don’t use it with an exclamation point. That’s redundant.) The main point to keep in mind is that these varied tags draw attention away from the dialogue itself, which is the last thing you want to do.

The best writing lets the dialogue speak for itself, conveying the speaker’s tone, emotion and vocal inflections without relying on dialogue tags and exclamation points.

7

Avoid jargon (except…)

On the one hand, a character’s words should reflect his or her background. On the other, the reader should be able to understand them. There can be a tension between these two goals if the reader and character come from two different worlds, and it’s up to the author to bridge this gap as seamlessly and effortlessly as possible.

Sometimes, genre can help your audience make the necessary connection. Readers of science fiction are likely to know what a character means in referring to wormholes, cyborgs and quantum drives are. Fans of noir fiction will probably understand a character who talks about a “button man” or a “canary.” But in general fiction, you can’t make those assumptions.

Unfamiliar and unclear jargon will stop readers in their tracks or send them scrambling for a dictionary. But explaining that jargon in the author’s voice will slow things down, too. That’s why the jargon is used best when it 1) flows naturally from the character and 2) can be understood based on the context.

The same thing goes for accents. If your character’s accent is so thick you have to convey it with multiple odd spellings, readers may feel like they’re reading something in a different language. The energy it takes to translate thick accents inside the reader’s head can be tiring or distracting, and may or may not be worth it. Use accents sparingly and with discretion.

A related topic: Swearing. You have to balance how natural, and expected it might be from mouths of certain characters with how acceptable it is to your readers. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. So, be true to your characters and trust that your work will find an audience that appreciates your authenticity. Or, write to your audience and create characters who will speak naturally within that framework.

8

Avoid fads

Remember the mullet? Maybe you do. What you might not remember is that it was actually popular for a while (at least in some circles). The same goes for beehive hairdos, per rocks and The Partridge Family.

It may be popular today to write in the present tense, but will it be a decade from now?

Characters don’t speak in computer shorthand. They’re not going to go around saying “LOL” or “AFK.” You might want to think twice about using here-today, gone-tomorrow pop culture references. If you try too hard to make your characters sound hip or trendy, you might accomplish just the opposite. It’s entirely possible for something to be all the rage when you’re writing Chapter 1 and yesterday’s news if your book’s published months later.

Another downside: Such references often look forced. Don’t try too hard.

9

Quotes shouldn’t boring (even in nonfiction)

You don’t see much dialogue in nonfiction. Quotes, however, serve the same primary purpose: They allow the source to speak directly to the reader.

In nonfiction, though, the author doesn’t have as much control. You’re not dealing with a fictional character, so you can’t simply make something up or change it to suit your purpose. You have to remain true to what the person actually said.

Even if it’s awkward. Or grammatically incorrect. Or boring as hell.

Nonfiction does have a reputation as sleep-inducing. The authors of those tedious textbooks from your school daze made them educational, but not engaging. (No wonder kids don’t like homework.) So, it’s become almost come to be expected. Many authors use an “academic” tone because they’re writing for an academic audience; but still others emulate that style because they want to sound impressive or knowledgeable.

That’s not good if you want people to actually read what you’ve written: About only thing more boring than academic writing is the fine print in a contract.

The way quotes are used in nonfiction doesn’t help. They’re not usually part of a dialogue. Most authors include them for the sake of authority: “If Dr. So-and-So from Harvard says it, it must be true.” But even if the author isn’t writing a textbook, quotes from professors, scientists, lawyers or other experts will likely seem like they belong in one.

Yawn.

Those experts are not, generally, professional writers. If you, as the author, devote too much space to quoting them directly, your writing won’t seem professional — or original. It’ll seem dense and derivative.

The solution is to limit the use quotes from such sources, and to choose those quotes that are the most lively and conversational. If you know what they’re saying and can say it more clearly, do so. There’s nothing wrong with paraphrasing, as long as it’s clear that’s what you’re doing, and the message isn’t lost in translation.

10

Nothing is absolute (even this rule)

There are exceptions to almost any rule you can come up with. It all boils down to this: If you keep your dialogue compelling, authentic and easy to understand, you’ll be golden.