Punctuation and Style
A writer’s style is a brand. A voice. A unique signature. The copy-editor and proofreader when they are learning their craft are shown that the author’s style is sacrosanct. It is not their job to interfere with the personal note of the author’s work. This may aggravate people who have a mission to rewrite rather than to copy-edit. But the aggravation must be bravely borne if they want repeat work; authors and publishers don’t re-employ editors who are unable to understand the sensitivity of their role.
Writing style is a complex subject, but I want to focus on one small element of it today. The full stop.
Punctuation is an integral part of an author’s style. The way punctuation is used is an essential element of the overall voice of the writer. Punctuation is not simply a set of conventions which make reading easier. The way you use punctuation to convey meaning and feeling is a stamp, a mark of your maturity as an author, whether of fiction or non-fiction. A company report has a style just as an Updike novel does, or a Carver short story.
Full Stops
Full stops (including question marks and exclamation marks) end sentences. Another day I shall ramble extensively about the meaning of the word sentence. Enough here to say that it’s not easy and there is no satisfactory answer to the question: “What is a sentence?”
Sentences may be of any length, one word (e.g. What? Why? Here? Now! Stay!) or many. Sometimes far too many!
The style of some authors is to use lots of short sentences:
Night. Palpable, soft, enveloping. The time of troubles. The hours of forgetfulness. Or remembrance. For Maurice, that night was for memories. Stark and stabbing. His moral crimes. The stains which clung. One way to stop this.
The merit of this style may be to grab attention. It may make the reader’s job easier. It may punch home a message which could be lost in longer sentences. It may intend poetry or hard staccato prose, spare and (as they used to say) muscular.
Whatever its purpose it can become wearing: it may be too arresting, too jolting. After a paragraph or two the reader may be suffering from stop fatigue. What works over a short distance may pall over a longer course.
But these are personal opinions and I admire many writers who are exponents of the short sentence. The point is that they are opinions. If I am copy-editing (let alone proofreading) I have no right to wade in and link the author’s sentences with colons or semicolons or the odd, well-chosen conjunction. When we learn to copy-edit or proofread the first lesson is to respect the author. We don’t have to like a book or the author’s style to edit it professionally.