MECHANICS: Punctuation

Punctuation. What the hell is it?

Punctuation is undoubtedly one of the most confusing parts of writing. There are lots of different types of punctuation marks and it’s a real pain in the ass to remember which one to use, or to even use any at all. Today, I’m going to demystify what each punctuation mark means and show you, the Future Writers of Tomorrow, how you can harness the power of punctuation and have it work for you!

But before all that, let me first define what punctuation is. Punctuation (or not-letters, as us professionals like to say) is a set of arbitrary symbols that structure and organize written language and help indicate inundation and pacing when reading out loud. That’s all well and good, but punctuation definitely servers a higher purpose than just that. Punctuation, when used properly, should be more like a decoration for your writing. Did you just write a boring sentence? Throw a bunch of apostrophes and ampersands in there to spruce it up. Does your writing feel bland? It won’t when a dozen brackets and quotation marks and guillemets (look it up) are littering up your page. Shit, if I’m writing a particularly dry paragraph, sometimes I’ll take the words out of it completely and just have 7 or 8 solid lines of pure punctuation marks. I find that a nice chunk of unbroken semicolons can make a dull paper look infinitely more interesting.

Of course, none of this really tells you which punctuation mark to use, where to use it, and what it means?

It’s a good thing you have me, a professional writer, to do that for you.

Periods
No, I’m not talking about the bloody vaginal discharge that signifies the end of the menstrual cycle. I’m talking about that little dot thing that writers sometimes put at the end of a sentence. Those are called ‘periods’ and writers employ them fairly often. Periods are used to mark the end of an idea and should be read as ‘dot’. Proper elocution should sound like Morse code. So say you have a series of sentences that read:

“I am on the couch. I am typing this sentence. This sentence ends with a dot.”

Reading that out loud, it should sound like this:

“I am on the couch dot I am typing this sentence dot this sentence ends with a dot dot”

I can’t stress enough how important periods are. They let you know when a girl has finally reached the childbearing age…I mean, they help regulate the flow of a paragraph.

Question Marks
The question mark is an enigma. No one is exactly sure where it came from. Some say it was invented by the Earl of Bewildermentshire after appearing to him in a particularly confusing dream. Other claim it was the Mayans whom discovered the mark; perhaps a somewhat muddled doomsday prophecy handed down to them by ancient astronauts. Still others claim the question mark has been around since before time existed, somewhere out there in the aether, the question mark watches over mankind, like a peeping tom. Or God.

Whatever its origin, the question mark is used in literature to denote one thing and one thing only: sarcasm.

Example: “Oh, did you want this last piece of pie? I didn’t see your name on it.”

Exclamation Points
Exclamation points! Horray!
Exclamation points are used to indicate strong feelings or high volumes (shouting). Writers should feel free to use exclamation points in place of periods whenever the fancy strikes them. Don’t even think about it. Just swap ‘em out for the hell of it. Readers usually like being yelled at and berated. If they didn’t like being berated, they’d do something less nerdy than reading. Isn’t that right, you nerdy bitch! You fucking love when I talk to you like this, don’t you! DON’T YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The more exclamation points you use, the louder you’re yelling. Always use as many exclamation points as possible. I like to stick them in them ! middle of sentences sometimes, just to keep the reader on his toes. It’s also a great way to take up space if there is a minimum page limit on the piece you are currently writing.

Commas
The comma is the most misused punctuation mark in the entire English language. And by misused I mean most writers don’t use enough commas. Think of a long sentence like a wide river. It’s unrealistic to expect your reader to swim across that. Commas are like stepping stones. The more commas, the easier it is to cross. Here is an example:

“The novice writer didn’t use enough commas in his work.”

Oh my god, I almost drowned trying to read that! Here’s a better, more comma-friendly version of the sentence above:

“The foolish, novice writer, whom didn’t, as of yet, use enough commas when working on his writing,, although communicating in a manner that is understood, concisely, yet incorrectly,, the  writer, whose sentence this is,, lacked enough commas.”

Do you see how the use of commas made that sentence flow? A couple of dozen well placed commas can give your writing cadence. It can make a simple boring-ass sentence sound like poetry. Sometimes, I even like to through an extra comma or two in there, just to make sure the reader doesn’t miss it.

Semicolons
Semicolons are a rarely used and often misunderstood form of punctuation. The purpose of using a semicolon is let the reader know that you know what a semicolon is. As discussed in the post Why Do We Write, the most important thing to writers is to have people think they’re smart; semicolons do all the work for you.

Hyphens, Colons, Asterisks, Ellipses, Parentheses, Backslashes, and That Little Squiggly Line at the Upper Left Section of Your Keyboard
All of these symbols basically mean the same thing. You can intersperse them at your discretion, or be safe and use them all at the same time.

So there you have it.&??””;;(_ Future Writ&rs of Tomorrow*!!~:</??)(,,.. The “*”^secrets’*^^” of punctuation>&!!!?,…”::; At th((e _end_of t-he day,./-):?;;!~?:*…(),~ just rememb&r that l@nguage is about be!ng direct a^nd (com)municating w!th the least amoun’t of confusion possible?,.!!,?::;!.*(?/~!.,,.)(;;?. Dot.

HOMEWORK:Write a short story using every punctuation mark at least once. Finished? Now write a paragraph using every punctuation mark. Now write a sentence using every punctuation mark. Now write a word using every punctuation mark. Can you do it? If so, you’ve mastered the art of punctuation. Congrats. Go get yourself some ice cream.

~ Danger_Slater

PLOT: Finding Your Creative Muse

So you’ve decided to become a writer. Congratulations! Being a writer is the easiest and least-frustrating job a person can have. From Edgar Allan Poe to Charles Bukowski, writers are some of the happiest people on Earth. I’ve never actually read anything from either of those two authors, but from the level of renowned they both achieved, I can only assume they penned paranormal romance tales geared for teenage girls, ages 14-24. Of course, before you get to that point of renown, you must realize that no one is going to pay you to be a well-adjusted cultural icon alone. You’re going to have to do something first. You’re going to have to create a Masterful Literary Work. This will not be easy. Masterful Literary Works require many skills. And the very first question you must ask yourself is:

What the fuck do I write about?

As a writer, inspiration should come easy to you. If it doesn’t, it either means (a.) you’re dumb, (b.) you’re lazy, or (c.) there’s something wrong with you mentally. If you’re anything like me, you have a thousand different ideas bouncing around in your head every single second of every single day – so many ideas it sometimes feels like your goddamn brain is being crushed in a vice grip and you just want to scream out to God “Please, please, please make it stop, you sadistic bastard! I can’t take it anymore!” But in a good way.

For the sake of argument, let’s say you are a dumb, lazy person who has something wrong with them mentally. All hope is not lost! There are many, many things you can do to forcibly hijack creativity and fly it straight into the skyscraper of your imagination. And you don’t even need to be a creative person to come up with them because I’m going to just tell them to you. Please keep in mind that these are not suggestions, but iron-clad rules that every single famous writer who has ever lived follows. What? You don’t believe me? Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you write this novel available on amazon.com? No? Oh, because I did, so shut up.

Don’t Read Books.
You’ve probably had a teacher or some other unqualified non-professional writer tell you that all good writers are good readers. That reading helps the writer refine their own style, gives them a better grasp on grammar, increases their vocabulary, and teaches them what good writing should look like. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If writers spent all day reading lame-ass books, when would they be writing? They wouldn’t. I never read. In fact, I HATE reading. I’ve never once finished reading a book. Not even my own. But then again, I’m not selling my own books to myself, am I? Nope. Reading is a waste of time. DON’T BOTHER. In fact, if you were a real writer, you’d stop reading this right now. Did you stop? I bet you didn’t. You’ll never be a professional with that kind of attitude.

Ride the Subway.
All writers should ride the subway. It’s a great place to people watch. There’s a shitload of freaks on the subway and they’re all talking about the weirdest things. It’s cool because no one is paying attention to you and you can steal ideas from people who don’t even know they’re giving away free ideas. Bring a tape recorder so you can tape record every snippet of conversation from the girls sitting next to you. If you’re like me and take your writing career very, very seriously, then you might want to go even further than that and bring a video recorder instead. Preferably something small and discreet. What you do is turn the video recorder on, bend down like you’re tying your shoe and then slip the camera on the ground over so it’s filming up the hotter of the two girl’s skirt. Later, you can review the footage in more intimate surroundings and take notes. Sexy, sexy notes.
If you happen to live in the kind of place that doesn’t have a subway system, then unfortunately you’re in a cultural wasteland and you will probably never be a famous writer. You can try this tip on the bus, but the bumps usually make the picture all blurry.

When In Doubt, Rip Other Writers Off.
Let’s be honest: Every idea in the world has already been thought of. You can’t help the fact that you were born 500,000 years into human history. It’s been a half-million years since that first asshole monkey decided “Oh, I’m going to eat this apple from the Tree of Knowledge and then bang an alien,” or however human beings came into existence. That’s a hell of a head start! It’s very difficult to be original, so you shouldn’t worry about it too much. When you can’t think of an original idea on your own, just rip off someone else’s successful idea and change it a little bit. For example, maybe Harry Potter has a brother named Larry Potter who goes on an adventure to find his own sorcerer’s stone with the half-blood Prince of Azkaban, or whatever. Perhaps that girl from Twilight and that pale wussy-looking kid with the jacked-up hair don’t live happily ever after, so they do a bunch of other shit, and then live happily ever after when that’s done.
Maybe Pablo Picasso also helped cover up a religious conspiracy with his “code.”
Maybe a bunch of people get stuck in a theme park with dinosaurs from the cretaceous period.
Maybe men are from Jupiter, and women are from Uranus.
Maybe you want to tell the story of the 2^nd greatest generation.
You get the picture here. It’s even okay if more than one of you decide to use same idea. I’ve even used some of them already. Like I said, people hate original stuff. It scares and confuses them. But people love the same old thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. It’s your job as the writer to give it to them.

There you have it, Future Writers of Tomorrow, a few of the secrets known only to us pros. I hope this helped you “find your creative muse.” Now all you have to do is “make love to her” with your “mind penis” using the “lubrication” of your words. It couldn’t be simpler! And if this didn’t help, well then as I said before, there is something wrong with you mentally.

HOMEWORK
Freewriting exercise: Take a pad and a pencil to a nice quiet spot and set a timer for 10 minutes. Begin writing. Do not lift your pencil off the paper. Do not stop, even if the only thing you can think to write is “I don’t know what to write” over and over again. Write nonsense. Write anything. Just keep going until the timer dings. When the 10 minutes is up, reread what you’ve just written. Then crumble it into a ball and throw it in the garbage. What a waste of time.

~ Danger_Slater