Comma Usage Explained

COMMA USAGE EXPLAINED
Copyright 2004, Michael LaRocca

Don't they drive you nuts?

You can visit all the rules of style you want, and you can read
all the books and articles you want. You will still be
confused. You will see inconsistency. You will see experts who
don't agree with each other. And, you'll pull out your hair.
Unless you're Michael, since my hair's falling out all by
itself. I think it'd do that even if I weren't an editor
hunting down errant commas.

Well, folks, here are some rules. A bare minimum. Internalize
these and ignore everybody else.

(1) Never put a comma between a subject and a verb. It's always
wrong. The dog, barked. What is that? Idiocy. I'm sorry, but it
is. Read it aloud, and pause at the comma. Don't you feel
stupid?

(2) If you want to separate a clause, put a comma on both sides
of it. Otherwise, no commas at all. "The dog, who held a bone
in his mouth, ran to the porch." See how there's a comma on
both sides? That's because you could skip that whole clause
entirely and it'd still be a complete sentence. "The dog ran to
the porch."

If I delete the first comma, I have to delete the second one.
You decide which looks best, two commas or none. But, one comma
doesn't work. Try deleting either one and reading the result
aloud, remembering to pause at the comma. It's a wreck, isn't
it? You don't talk like that, so don't write like that.

(3) "He saw the cat, the cat was on the couch." This is not a
good sentence. It's two sentences. The one before the comma has
subject object verb, and so does the one after the comma.

Run-ons like that can emphasize the run-on nature of a
character's words or thoughts, but use the device sparingly.
It's okay to break a rule, as long as you know what it is and
why you're breaking it.

But in the example above, it'd be best to make them two
sentences. If you find you just can't do it, consider a
semicolon. Don't believe anyone who says semicolons aren't
allowed in fiction. I wouldn't use one in the sample sentence,
but I've used them in other sentences I've written. Sparingly.

But for something as lame as a sentence about a cat on a couch,
it's best to follow the rules exactingly and make that two
sentences. Do you really think your reader's gonna pop off for a
beer or a toilet break between them and lose his place? As long
as they're in the same paragraph, they'll be read together.

(4) And finally, THE rule. It works for narrative and it works
for dialogue. Read what you've written aloud. Wherever you
would pause for breath, whack in a comma. Because, you have
internalized the rules. You've been speaking English all your
life. But as an aspiring writer, you've been so busy trying to
learn "the rules" that you've forgotten the rule you've known
all along. And you do know it!

If you'd like, you can look over some sentences in the
preceding paragraphs. You'll note some commas where they're not
strictly necessary. Often, it's where I begin a sentence with a
conjunction, also an alleged no-no. But that device can be used
sparingly to emphasize a point. And when I do that, sometimes I
whip in a comma for extra emphasis. A comma is a pause. That's
what you should note if you indulge in this exercise. I'm
pausing for emphasis. Read my sentences aloud. Pause at every
comma. The rhythm works. It's how I talk, and you won't be all
freaked out and confused as you listen because I paused in
funny places.

Speaking as an editor, I run into a lot of writers who have
problems with commas. Heck, speaking as someone who likes to
read books and newspapers and magazines, I see commas where
they shouldn't be, or missing commas where they should be. It's
because we're trying to be too fancy, drifting dangerously far
from the "write what you know" mantra because we think we're
stupid.

We're not stupid. As Sean Connery noted in FINDING FORRESTER,
critics spend a day destroying what they couldn't create in a
lifetime. That's also what I think of people who want us to
memorize hundreds of silly rules about commas. They're pauses.
Nothing more, nothing less. Pause where you want to pause, not
where you think someone else thinks you're supposed to pause.

Wanna know who's the best at this whole comma business? Sports
journalists. Some of them make up words, are given to
hyperbole, and are guilty of many other sins. But they get
their commas right. (Maybe they have good editors?) You can
read what they wrote and dang near hear their voices. You know
what they said and what they meant to say, and you can agree
with them or be totally outraged by them.

And that is, after all, what writing is. Telepathy. I'm in
Shaoxing and you are not, and you're reading this many days
after I wrote it, but you know what I'm thinking. Stray commas
would be a barrier to that. Good writers don't like barriers.

Just remember that a comma is a pause, and pause wherever you
think you should. Blow off the rules--there are too many and
they just keep changing--and trust your gut. If you do that, I
think you'll find that when you seek out publication, and find
yourself working with an editor, you'll hear very little about
your commas.

About the Author

Michael LaRocca's website at http://freereads.topcities.com was
chosen by WRITER'S DIGEST as one of The 101 Best Websites For
Writers in 2001 and 2002. He published four novels in 2002 and has
two more scheduled for publication in 2004. He also works as an
editor for an e-publisher. He teaches English at a university in
Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, China, and publishes the free weekly
newsletter Mad About Books.