Commas and Emotion: lil'rant

[Raphai]

yeah, uhhh, I have a little problem with them...?

Please read aloud and with punctuations.

I'm an actor, and because of this, I write as if I were the character.

Meaning, I place commas where I think a character would pause for: emotional or dramatic effect. Not only when they are talking, but also when: describing, explaining, and understanding. Basically, I RP a whole post as if my character were narrating it, even though it is in 3rd person.

Now this is not a problem to me, but it does hurt: my grade in school and on here. Why? because readers, at least the ones I know, don't read in character! Or they forget about punctuation all together, and read it how they hear it! Which destroys my writing!

Now if you have been paying attention, and reading with my punctuation, you'll notice I have been writing what I was describing. So is it bad to write the way you speak/hear it? Or is it a mere matter of taste? Using commas to show emotion.

[Alydia Ettermire]

You're breaking up sentences where they aren't meant to be broken up and it's visually jarring. Really, it gets quite annoying when a writer abuses the comma, so much so that you want to make them attend middle school English all over again.

[Raphai]

Yeah I know...
Luckily I know how not to write like that!
When you read it out loud though, at least to me, it sounds right. Maybe it is just how I talk, I don't know.

[Terror's Thrall]

It does, to a certain extent. However, it would get very annoying if you did it in every sentence. Mainly because narration and speaking have different uses. Generally when you read something you don't read it how you would speak it, unless given a specific reason to. This makes the writing very halting and eliminates any flow that might have been built up.

[Taskmienster]

I'm an actor, and because of this, I write as if I were the character.

Grammatically, the second comma isn't necessary. You can write that "I'm an actor, and because of this I write as if I were the character."

The rule is, basically, that you put things between comma's only if it's necessary to separate them from the idea of the sentence. As I did in the last sentence, I set apart "basically" because it was a mere blip in the sentence that explains the rule. However, I could have written it "The basic rule is, that you put..." since the first clause is dependent, as is the second clause. Without the comma, they are just two dependent clauses forced together to attempt to make a sentence, which in this case would make a cluttered sentence that doesn't flow correctly. I couldn't, however, write the two clauses by themselves without more added since they are dependent and would in turn just be fractions without each other.

For writing, I think it's more common and a bit more proper to set off the two dependent clauses by a single paragraph instead of separating them with the added "basically". However, when you get down to it... it's all a writing technique based differences that means neither is really more proper than the next.

There are other issues to be worried about, in the long run. Comma's are common issues in writing, but other grammatical and writing techniques are what most people struggle with more. Things that you don't quite get enough practice with in a school setting...

[Raphai]

There are other issues to be worried about, in the long run. Comma's are common issues in writing, but other grammatical and writing techniques are what most people struggle with more. Things that you don't quite get enough practice with in a school setting...

Well, in highschool...they don't generally worry about writing anymore. It's all about literature. I have not learned anything about writing! They expect us to know how to write though, XD

[Zander Bastiaan]

No offense or anything, but if, as you say, you write as you talk, then you must talk like William Shatner... which is just amusing to me. I think you misuse or at least overuse the colon a lot too. But that's just me.

[Letho]

No offense or anything, but if, as you say, you write as you talk, then you must talk like William Shatner... which is just amusing to me.And on that note:
"I am not a Starfleet commander, or T.J. Hooker. I don't live on Starship NCC-1701, or own a phaser. And I don't know anybody named Bones, Sulu, or Spock. And no, I've never had green alien sex, though I'm sure it would be quite an evening. I speak English and French, not Klingon! I drink Labatt's, not Romulan ale! And when someone says to me 'Live long and prosper', I seriously mean it when I say, 'Get a life'. My doctor's name is not McCoy, it's Ginsberg. And tribbles were puppets, not real animals. PUPPETS! And when I speak, I never, ever talk like every. Word. Is. Its. Own. Sentence. I live in California, but I was raised in Montreal. And yes, I've gone where no man has gone before, but I was in Mexico and her father gave me permission! My name is William Shatner, and I am Canadian!"
Shatner kicks ass. :cool: