Guest Blogger: Sarah McCarty: In Love With Commas

In love with commas

I can’t help it. I love my commas. Such ordinary yet wonderful little curves nestled on the page at critical points between the flow of words. My little markers to the catches of breath an author layers into the scene, the highlighters of anger, the harbingers of poignant hesitations … So small a keystroke and yet so powerful. I follow them blindly as I read, taking my cues from their placement, my tension from their rhythm. They are my friends, my guides, my maestros of reading pleasure. And their disappearance from books is driving me nuts.

There is more than one layer to storytelling. There’s the comprehension that goes on when we read the words written and also the visual processing of how those words are to be read. The former is created by the choice of words, the latter by the punctuation. Lately, there’s been a trend, (among smaller houses more than larger ones) to do away with commas. As if they’re somehow extraneous and detrimental. As if they aren’t one of the most vital elements in the creation of the reading experience. (Please bear with me while I shudder in horror at the thought.)

The philosophy, I’ve been told, is that commas slow the reading experience. The belief is that readers will read faster if all these visual clues to the rhythm of the story are just done away with, and therefore, readers will consider whatever they have just read a “fast read” regardless of actual story quality. As publishers also believe readers elevate a fast read automatically into a great read, the school of thought is that manipulating the commas can bring a poorly constructed book “up” in readers’ opinion. IOW, the elimination of commas makes up for poor pacing and will translate into increased sales.

To me this is very flawed reasoning if you look at the mechanics of what makes up pacing. Pacing is a function of the construction of the story, the way scenes come together and the way the words are combined within those scenes. Commas are the underlying beat that balances the scenes and tell the reader the rhythm of the story. Not the speed of the story but the rhythm. That’s a huge and very significant difference. Removing commas willy-nilly does more to mess with an author’s voice than deleting words. Entire meanings of sentences often rest on comma placement. Removing commas in a fast past scene can turn it from gripping to chaos and taking them out of a deliberately slowed scene can take it from heart-wrenching to “meh”.

I recently went over to check out an excerpt on a book recommended by a reader. Honestly, the author’s technique was not the greatest and heavily interfered with the story delivery, but I might have bought the book and given the author a chance anyway except for the fact that there were no commas. There was no breath, no rhythm, no sense to the arrangement of words. Everything just charged forward in a hyperactive rush that rather than drawing me in, threw me out. I couldn’t connect with the author’s voice or the characters’ emotions, because the visual clues that would tell me when to pause and linger, where to brace myself, where to rush on just weren’t there. I kept reading back over what I’d read, inserting the clues, decoding the chaos, and by the time I got to the end of the excerpt, my brain rebelled with a big “Heck no!” Reading the excerpt wasn’t fun, it was annoying and exhausting work. The book remained on the shelf, and I moved on to another recommendation.

The bottom line is, I’m too experienced a reader to be fooled into thinking a book with bad technique is a great read because the publisher took out the commas. And I’m too clued into what I’m reading not to miss the rhythm that’s removed along with the commas, even in a could-have-been great book. When I read, I want the total package. I don’t want to labor to decode what I’m supposed to be doing as I’m reading. I want the knowledge to flow naturally out of the symbiotic relationship that has always existed between the written word and punctuation. I want it, and I can’t settle for less.

Lack of proper punctuation, for me, takes a book from potential keeper shelf to definite wall banger in less than five pages. My reading time is precious, carved from the hours committed to my own writing and my responsibilities. I simply don’t have the time or inclination to put back into a story as I read the essentials the house or author decided to take out. And honestly, I consider correct grammar and punctuation two of the basic components I pay for when I buy a book written by a professional author and published by a professional house. Essential ones, to the point I just returned a book to the store because it didn’t have them. In the 40 years I’ve been buying books, this was a first. I actually wasn’t even sure I could, but after I pointed out examples of my reason, there were no more suspicious looks or disapproving glances from the two clerks.