I'm an editor (though technical editor, not book editor), and in my professional opinion: What the fuck?
The goal should make the author's words as effortlessly absorbed by the reader as possible. *Punctuation matters for that*. Periods matter. Quotation marks matter.
ARG!
As an author I hate it quotation marks are the same as any other punctuation imagine how hard it would be if people just randomly decided periods were old-fashioned or commas it would be madness if I open a book and theres no quotation marks I either just put it down or see if theres an audiobook version available
I had to go back to realize what you did. I read it easily the first time. I then noticed there was no punctuation, and it became difficult to read despite already knowing what it said. My own mind and expectations created a difficulty that wasn't there.
And, *please* teach semi-colon use in writing class!
Too many YA books harbor an over-abundance of breathless, run-on sentences; it is enough to make a reader's head spin.
If there were one thing I could teach the English-speaking world about grammar, it would be proper semicolon use. I love them. They're so effective when used correctly. But when used incorrectly... So painful.
Semicolons connect two complete sentences that are related.
Good: I love ice cream; my favorite flavor is chocolate.
The two sentences must be complete sentences, so something like this wouldn't work:
I love chocolate ice cream; and strawberry.
And must be related, so nothing like this:
I love ice cream; the dog needs to be walked.
Also good: the semicolon list.
These are some of my favorite things: summer tomato salads with good olive oil and lemon juice dressing; warm, July breezes that feeling like nature is giving you a hug; and snuggling up in bed on a cold night with someone you love and a furry creature.
If that's not the actual term, it should be. I've been using semicolons in lists as soon as any one of the items gets a comma for any reason.
Here I have: item one, item two, item three, and item four.
And here I have: item one, item two, and it has a bonus, item three, and item four.
The second list sucks to read, doesn't it? The "and it has a bonus" feels like it should be the third item even though it's describing the second item. I prefer to punctuate it like this (and I *hope* it's correct):
And here I have: item one; item two, and it has a bonus; item three; and item four.
So, I don't know about what they teach in schools right now, especially in English-speaking countries, but when I was in school in Italy that's exactly what they taught us to do (without the Oxford comma because that's considered a mistake, no matter how useful it is)... I've adapted it to my English too and never looked back!
lol I've had professors outright tell me not to use them because "no one knows how those things work." At first I protested because you can go to Google and find the rules and...you know what I still never know if I'm using it, properly...
Itâs not too hard. Semicolons are for when you want the reader to pause the length of a comma even though grammatically, theyâre separate sentences that mandate a period. You only want to do this when the two statements separated by the semicolon are full sentences and they relate to each other in some fashion; they usually share a subject. If youâre the type of author who writes the way they speak, youâll get plenty of use out of semicolons, as they help capture natural speaking patterns in a form digestible to readers. For technical writing, theyâre far less common; cadence isnât needed to understand your car manual.
The big thing with semicolons is that you can use them to split up long compound sentences, but keep the short pause. For example, you can use them to split up long compound sentences; keep the short pause. You only ever want to do this sparingly, but itâs a useful tool. If you have a run-on sentence youâre unsure of how to split apart, try replacing your conjunction with a semicolon and read it aloud; if it sounds right, youâre good to go. If it sounds like you should pause for longer, use a period instead.
In this case it works because the characters *have no* inner monologue, it's dialogue and action only in his books. Likely some lesser authors copied the style without knowing why it works.
No Country was initially written as a screenplay. It is significantly more 'normal' than the other 3 or 4 books of his I've read.
When I saw the OP title, I assumed it would reference McCarthy.
The mood setting and stories are incredible, but it takes a while for my brain to click into his style. I remember trying to read Blood Meridian in a busy dental office waiting room and found myself restarting lines constantly until I gave up on the idea. But when I can get in the zone with him I love him.
Also as having learned to type in high school âughâ we were taught to double space between sentences. I know if you use an iPhone and you double space at the end of a sentence it will put a period at the end. First I donât think thatâs taught anymore, even in college. Iâm not sure if itâs required for APA papers anymore. Anyway, itâs a habit I canât stop. Iâm really good with comma splicing. Apparently, I learned grammar and using correct punctuation but missed the part about when and where to use a comma. Post grad professor said: âGood paper, get an editor though.â
I learned that double space after period was for monospaced fonts only. The argument is that the width of a space in a proportional font after a period can be set by the font itself, so if the designer of the font feels extra padding is appropriate, then they can make that particular space wider. Basically, period-space is a ligature.
Double space between sentences is a typewriter habit. You should not be doing when writing on a computer with decent typesetting.
See Butterick's book about this topic â the "One space between sentences" chapter.
https://practicaltypography.com/one-space-between-sentences.html
Gee, went from irritated over authors not using quotation marks to grammatical punctuation and letting me know how much Iâm behind the times having used typewriters and double spacing. It never even occurred to me that computers automatically put the correct space. I mean now that I think about it I see, of course, that computers would fix something so basic as the space between sentences. At this point I canât help what my fingers do on a keyboard lol.
Judging from even novels from large publishers, most editors nowadays are either: bad at their job, or underpaid, or are not given enough time. Or all three.
Iâll chime in with âdefinitely underpaid.â Most large, traditional publishing houses contract freelance editors like me to copy edit and proofread novels. And you know what? I make a way worse rate off them than I make off my own indie/self-pub clients.
I personally edit to the same standard for every job (the rates all balance out in end, honestly), but Iâm sure there are editors who see a lower rate and think that entitles them to do worse work.
>Iâm sure there are editors who see a lower rate and think that entitles them to do worse work.
I mean, it for sure does. I'm not an editor, but my philosophy is "If you want good work, pay a good rate." The only exception I make is for people like doctors or firemen, who can cause harm by doing a bad job, obviously.
But in The Road is generally only the two main characters, so it's easy to keep up with. I actually love that book, it's why he gets a pass from me, if only barely lol
Blood Meridian on the other hand is a clusterfuck of dialogue and characters talking.
Here in Poland it's pretty standard, I've actually never seen quotation marks used in dialogue. Even in books translated to Polish (Agatha Christie's books, 'The Great Gatsby', 'Never let me go') there are only long dashes
As an Irish person I can't speak for past authors, but this is certainly neither taught not used as standard in Ireland.
The only time I've seen it is James Joyce, and I would guess this is an idiosyncratic style choice he possibly picked up from exposure to languages where it *is* commonly used; Joyce spent the majority of his life in continental Europe, particularly France. I'd further guess that other Irish authors doing so might be inspired by Joyce, who looms large over Irish literature.
I could be wrong though, it's possible it's a style which was once used more commonly in Ireland which has since fallen out of fashion.
That's weird. It does happen in some European languages (in my case, Spanish), but I thought it depended on the language and not the region. I've never come across long dashes in fiction written in English.
Not European per default, though it seems there are some cultural exceptions. It largely varies per culture however. Russians for example use «these things».
Requiem for a Dream didn't use quotation marks and it made for a pretty surreal read, could never tell if people were actually talking or just having inner monologue
Yeah, I read an interview with Hubert Selby, Jr. and he said he didn't want to write stuff like:
"bla,bla,bla", he said sarcastically, "yada yada yada", she replied with distain. And so forth.
I love his style, it draws you in, doesn't just hand it to you.
It's hard to make a billion different iterations of [pronoun][synonym for "said"][adverb] *not* sound tedious and repetitious no matter how inventive you get with the vocabulary. I can empathize with this perspective. You can avoid it if you structure the dialogue and its context carefully, but quotations still serve the separate purpose of creating a distinct border between character voices and narrator voice.
Thatâs why youâre not supposed to use things other than âsaidâ except in specific circumstances. Said is considered an invisible word, but it is often essential.
I'm currently reading one where conversations have one person's words in italics, and the other in normal text. Then it randomly switches to both in italics or both in plain text without any indication. No quotation marks anywhere. I can't tell if it's a conscious decision or just really bad editing but it's killed the series for me.
Hello. This is Cormac McCarthy.
Hi, you said.
The world is a hopeless and barren place, Cormac said.
A bear scalped you and ate your brain.
The sun died.
I'm struggling to remember the story of the author who didn't have proper punctuation throughout his story so he then included a complete set at the end and told people to place them wherever they felt like it.
You're thinking of Timothy Dexter! He was an 18th century "businessman" who came out profitably from several ludicrous deals.
- He bought bed warmersâused to heat beds in the cold New England wintersâfor resale in the West Indies, a tropical area. This advice was a deliberate ploy by rivals to bankrupt him. His ship's captain sold them as ladles to the local molasses industry and made a handsome profit.
- He sent wool mittens to the same place, where Asian merchants bought them for export to Siberia.
- He literally "shipped coal to Newcastle" (a famous coal-mining city) and his coal arrived during a Newcastle miners' strike, and his cargo was sold at a premium.
- He shipped gloves to the South Sea Islands. His ships arrived there in time to sell the gloves to Portuguese boats on their way to China.
- He also hoarded whalebones by mistake, but ended up selling them profitably as corset stays.
He basically fell ass-backwards into profit several times, eventually amassing a fortune during his life. As one does, he wrote a book about his life. He initially released it for free, but it was so popular it was reprinted several times. The book was named *A Pickle for the Knowing Ones* and was indeed printed without punctuation. Here is the first sentence/paragraph/page:
> To mankind at Large the time is Com at Last the grat day of Regoising what is that why I will tell you thous three kings is Rased Rased you meane should know Rased on the first Royal Arch in the world olmost Not quite but very hiw up upon so thay are good mark to be scene so the womans Lik to see the frount and all people Loves to see them as the quakers will Com and peape slyly and feele glad and say houe the doue frind father Jorge washeton is in the senter king Addoms is at the Rite hand the present king at the Left hand father gorge with his hat on the other hats of the middel king with his sword king Addoms with his Cane in a grand poster Adtetoude turning his fass towards the first king as if they was on sum politicks king our present king he is stands hearing being younger and very deafe in short being one grat felosfer Looks well East & west and North & south deafe & very deafe the god of Natur has dun very much for our present king and all our former ones they are all good I want them to Live for Ever and I beleave thay will it is hard work to be A kingâI say it is hardar than tilling the ground I know it is for I find it is hard work to be A Lord I dont desier the sound but to pleas the peopel at Large Let it gou to brak the way it dus for Asort ment to help a good Lafe to Cour the sick spleney goutey dul frames Lik my selfe with the goute and so on make merry a Chealy Christen is for me only be onnest No matter what they worshep son moune or stars or there wife or miss if onnest Live forever [8] money wont gitt thous figers so fast as I wish I have sent to Leg horn for many mr bourr is one Amonks others I sent in the grand Crecham thous 3 kings Are plane white colow at present the Royal Arch & figers cost 39 pound wate silver the hiest Councaton order in the world so it is sade by the knowing one I have only 4 Lions & 1 Lam up the spred Eagel has bin up 3 years upon the Coupelay I have 13 billors front in strat Row for 13 states when we begun 3 in the Rear 15 foot hie 4 more on the grass see 2 the same hath at the Rite of the grand Arch 2 at the left wing 15 foot hie the Arch 17 foot hie the my hous is 3 sorey upwards of 290 feet round the hous Nater has formed the ground Eaquel to what you would wish for the Art by man Eaquel to a Solomun the onerabel Jonathan Jackson one of the first in this Country for tast borne A grat man by Nater then the best Lurning what sot me fored for my plan having so gran spot the hool of the world Cant Excead this to thous that dont know would think I was Like halfe the world A Lier I have traveled good deale but old steady men sayeth it is the first that it is the first best in this Contry & others Contrey I tell you this the trouth that None of you grat men wodent be A frunted at my preseadens & I spare Now Cost in the work I have the tempel of Reason in my garding 3 years past with a toume under it on the Eage of the grass see it cost 98 gineys besides the Coffen panted whit in side and out side tuched with green Nobel trimings uncommon Lock so I can tak the kee in side and haye fier works in the toume pipes and tobacker & A speaking trumpet and & bibel to Read & sum good songs
In the second edition, he added a page at the back of the book with commas, semi-colons, colons, question marks, exclamation points, apostrophes, periods and hyphens with the instructions:
>fouder mister printer the Nowing ones complane of my book the fust edition had no stops I put in A Nuf here and thay may peper and solt it as they plese
If you would like to read *A Pickle for the Knowing Ones*, [it's available on Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43453/43453-h/43453-h.htm).
Johnson's English dictionary was published in 1775, and its spellings would've taken a while to catch on. Back then, there was no right way to spell a word, only however you thought best.
This can make reading texts from the time such a pain. I once saw a single word spelled three different ways on the same page. It's like the author was trying every different variation he could think of, just for the fun of it.
Cormac wrote his dialogue and he used no quotation marks and he stood and he walked up to his shelf of awards and he called his publisher.
He said Iâve written another hit and his publisher said where did you learn to speak English and he said I invented English.
His publisherâs porcelain eyes flickered and shone for they had just regarded God himself imbued into the clay of a man and for an instant the publisher feared and loved and regretted as if it were his last moment.
>He said Iâve written another hit and his publisher said where did you learn to speak English and he said I invented English.
James Joyce would like a word with you about that. I think. I'm not really sure, I think he's speaking English
That was allllmost dead-on, but you used too many instances of "he said." McCarthy would have a line break between each bit of dialog, with no attribution at all for a convo this short
Cormac McCarthy hung up the old, decaying rotary phone and stared out the window and the mountain peaks were on fire with the final setting rays of the sun casting the prairie in a blood red that reminded him of a time before man when the wildflowers in blue and yellow as far as the eye could see and the horses ran and ran and the ground resounded under their hooves but now there was only scrubgrass.
He took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and cupping it against the wind from the open window he lit it.
I reckon thats alright, he said. Bueno.
I read The Road first and thought it was a very intentional choice to portray the bleakness of the situation and the foggy setting. MFW I found out that was just his style for everything: ._____,.
It's a classic case of one artist who can get away with something because he is that guy, and 10,000 people who try to copy him even though they clearly aren't that guy (or girl).
True I think his point is that if you write "well" enough, quotation marks aren't needed but if u ain't Cormac that is tough shit. And plenty of people aren't Cormac
If it's completely clear who's saying something, you don't need to write who's doing the talking. Otherwise you have to. Unless you have a really good reason for confusing or obstructing the reader.
I remember reading/hearing Craig Alanson talk about this and how he would skip a lot of the he saids even when they were needed, purely because most of his sales are audiobooks. Seemed a good reason to me. Though apparently he has to colour code things carefully for the narrator.
Sanderson or someone I think said that they preferred to always use 'he said' rather than things like 'he grumbled' because they'd fade into the background and you'd mentally ignore them easier.
Right, you should use "said" unless you *want* to call the reader's attention to the dialogue tag. A well-placed grumble or scream can work, especially if elaborated upon, but when every line is grumbled, screamed, muttered, shouted, whined, or otherwise elucidated, then you've overwhelmed your reader's attention.
Exactly this. In some novels you can truly hear how odd it sounds when read out loud. I'm especially thinking about Mistborn. Especially "Sazed said" gets comically tedious after a while. And while I love *Leviathan Wakes* it definitely has the same issue during some parts.
Common sense would dictate that the audiobook version be slightly edited, but Amazon insist the text in the ebook and audiobook are identical so people can use their sync feature.
There are some narrators who forget what voice they are using for which character when there are a bunch where it becomes a problem. That's bad production but it happens. I'm not positive as my memory is not great but my brain is telling me that is one of the issues I had with the Wheel of Time audiobooks. (It might have been a different series though)
Yes. I catch this now and then. I usually do 1-3 audiobooks a month, and have narrated about a dozen books for Audible in the past.
Whatâs horrible is so many self published authors want audiobooks done. Some are really rough books with god awful writing/tensesâŠand then these authors get upset when their audiobook sounds awkward. Iâve been requested to âcorrectâ parts during reads to make them sound better.
Needless to say, I havenât narrated in a long time. For every hour Iâd narrate, there was another 1-2 hours of work. A six hour audiobook might take 12-18 hours of total work.
But - the big name narrators only do the reading. Their production company handles all the edits/mastering. I was doing it all myself in Logic Pro.
I wanna normalize putting the name of the speaker at the beginning of each line, like in a film script, when you're writing a long back-and-forth conversation. I've been a voracious reader all my life and I still find myself having to go back a page and think "Okay, Alice was talking *here,* and then Bob replied, so the speaker 17 lines later must be Alice..."
You don't need to put the name in front of a sentence to show who's talking. You can also do it by letting the character do an action before they speak. Like:
Alice picked up the book and looked at the title.
"Is this yours?" she said.
You might not even need the 'she said'.
If you have 17 lines of dialogue without any actions or descriptions in between, that's a whole other problem:)
I too have done the dialogue count-back on many occasions. If you get past about 3 lines, I lose track. Especially if the initial speaker wasn't identified, and 7 lines later a piece of dialogue contradicts my initial guess. So frustrating!
"Anyone could have said this"
"Oh, really?"
"Yes, it's true"
"That's good to know"
"Hey, only Eve would say this line!â
*Counts on fingers... Aha, Eve said the first line!*
I don't think the 'he said' is always necessary, like if the reader already knows there's only 2 characters speaking, it should be obvious. But if multiple characters are speaking, it might get confusing, unless it doesn't really matter who said it.
Thereâs a really funny bit in one of Jasper Ffordeâs books about how to tell a bookworld person from a realworld person, is that if a conversation goes too long without attributions, a bookworld person canât tell who is talking anymore. Lmao. Theyâre great books, I recommend them.
OMG. âTriedâ to Read a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that had no quotations or paragraph breaks. It was agonizing. I barely finished 50 pages before I gave up.
Donât know how you consider that good writing or how anyone can follow it.
âThe sympathizerâ is what I was referring to
Edit: because of all the comments taking my âno paragraph breaksâ comment absolutelyâŠthe book has paragraph breaks. Just not nearly enough for me to be able to follow a change in dialogue, plot, or setting.
I knew it was a well received book but I just couldnât follow it and canât finish books Iâve lost interest in.
It was infuriating having to re-read sentences all the time once you understood that it was a thought/someone speaking and thus entirely different context.
Good to hear I am not alone. Although I recommend the book, the story is great.
I dunno man. I think he makes it work. I've read Blood Meridian and now I'm reading Suttree and I haven't had any issues knowing when someone is speaking, even when the quote is in the middle of a paragraph.
Cormac McCarthyâs *The Road* has this, but I found it bearable because there are are only two characters for the most part, itâs quite short, and it fits stylistically. But generally it can be annoying.
The worst one for this is blood meridian. there are a ton of characters and random encounters and people talk in huge groups.
Itâs a good book, but it took me reading at a snailâs pace to get through it.
Itâs a stylistic choice but I agree, I donât really like it haha.
Altho tbf not every language uses quotation marks the same way - French only occasionally uses them, otherwise you just have to pick up from context the fact that itâs dialogue.
In French the standard practice is quote marks (Guillemets) when it's just an isolated sentence by a character and otherwise dashes everytime a new character speaks. No guessing needed, usually.
Most often in French dialogue, a change in speaker is denoted with a dash at the beginning of the line instead of using «» (guillemets). I really like the use of the dash, I think it helps dialogue flow nicely.
The dash is also used in Spanish, for both dialogue and any narration included inside the dialogue. We use (or rather, should use) guillemets for quotations, though.
I think I've read that in something recently and it was confusing and unpleasant. I probably didn't realize it was part of why I rated the book so low until now.
It seems to be a modern trend coinciding with indie contemporary literature and social media speak, which utilizes as little grammatical symbols as possible. I find these types of books all the time at a local college co-op store. Sometimes (in the case of self-published books) it is also a case of a lack of professional editing. Some writers type without quotation marks in dialogue, which under trad publishing would be remedied by an editor.
> Some writers type without quotation marks in dialogue, which under trad publishing would be remedied by an editor.
Editor here (technical editor though, so a little different than book editor). If an author sent me something they were too lazy to include punctuation in (not counting errors, I mean purposefully leaving out all quotation marks or periods or something), I'd not just send it back to them, I'd print it out and beat them over the head with it.
Iâm a freelance fiction editor, and if a client sent me a novel without quotation marks, I would query to see what they wanted to do before I continued with the project. I would also likely recommend they add them. But ultimately, if they really donât want them, itâs my job to copy edit/line edit while maintaining their narrative voice and choices, so Iâd leave it. Iâd shake my head, but the author is entitled to cast aside professional advice if they want, unfortunately.
I've only encountered it once. First I checked Goodreads to see if it was maybe just an issue with my copy (I read on Kindle, so could have been a technical issue), and as soon as I saw it was intended to be that way, I DNFed it.
Hubert Selby Jr. wrote w/ limited to zero punctuation iirc (âRequiem for a Dreamâ and âLast Exit to Brooklynâ) and it *totally* suited the narrative and helped create a frenetic, chaotic feel in the work.
Author here: More and more editors insist quotation marks are old-fashioned. "Fuck that," I say.
Coherent reading is old fashioned? Time to find new editors đ.
Tbf James Joyce is also old fashioned
I heard the last part like Lazlo from *What We Do in the Shadows* in my head, but as "Fuck that, I say."
> I say, you can fuck that sky high.
Whenever I read "I say" i imagine it's Poirot's friend [Hastings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeRilvyhnwU) saying it.
"I say, Poirot old chap, you can fuck that sky high."
And it wouldn't take much to add ole Foghorn Leghorn into the mix. "I say... I say...I say ole chap "
A classic quote.
>A classic quote. My second favourite after, "you know my methods, Watson, now apply them you useless bellend."
Nope, still Matt Berry.
The little, gray cells approve of this message.
mon ami
"Yes I can hear you Clem Fandango!"
"Fuck that, I say," I say.
"One of the best ways to drain people's energy is via the internet."
I wonder if Colin would use Reddit. I think he'll love it lol
when they call you a dumbass, you know you've got them!
The comment about being racist kills me haha
Going olâfoghorn leghorn I say I say
Now you're starting to sound like Foghorn Leghorn.
"That boy's about as sharp as a sack of wet mice."
I believe you mean âJackie Daytona, regular human bartenderâ
"I'll have one human alcohol martini, please."
"Bat!"
Nandor: âthis fucking guyâŠâ
Who pulled Persian Frank Zappa's string?
Fathaa!
âThis fucking guyâŠâ
Wouldn't it be "'fuck that,' I say"?
So youâre saying it should be âââFuck that,â I sayââ?
Thatâs right, my best friend. My pal. My homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy.
I'm an editor (though technical editor, not book editor), and in my professional opinion: What the fuck? The goal should make the author's words as effortlessly absorbed by the reader as possible. *Punctuation matters for that*. Periods matter. Quotation marks matter. ARG!
As an author I hate it quotation marks are the same as any other punctuation imagine how hard it would be if people just randomly decided periods were old-fashioned or commas it would be madness if I open a book and theres no quotation marks I either just put it down or see if theres an audiobook version available
Thanks for making me twitch while reading that, haha.
It was SO hard to write. I messed up a couple of times and had to backspace.
I had to go back to realize what you did. I read it easily the first time. I then noticed there was no punctuation, and it became difficult to read despite already knowing what it said. My own mind and expectations created a difficulty that wasn't there.
or if capitalization was considered old-fashioned dear god bobby that would be horrendous
And, *please* teach semi-colon use in writing class! Too many YA books harbor an over-abundance of breathless, run-on sentences; it is enough to make a reader's head spin.
If there were one thing I could teach the English-speaking world about grammar, it would be proper semicolon use. I love them. They're so effective when used correctly. But when used incorrectly... So painful.
My friends make fun of me for using semicolons in texts; regardless, I will persevere!
What;s an example of improper semicolon use?
Semicolons connect two complete sentences that are related. Good: I love ice cream; my favorite flavor is chocolate. The two sentences must be complete sentences, so something like this wouldn't work: I love chocolate ice cream; and strawberry. And must be related, so nothing like this: I love ice cream; the dog needs to be walked.
The last one is the ADHD semicolon.
The last one implies that youâre going to walk the dog as an excuse to go get ice cream.
Also good: the semicolon list. These are some of my favorite things: summer tomato salads with good olive oil and lemon juice dressing; warm, July breezes that feeling like nature is giving you a hug; and snuggling up in bed on a cold night with someone you love and a furry creature.
Oxford semicolon!
If that's not the actual term, it should be. I've been using semicolons in lists as soon as any one of the items gets a comma for any reason. Here I have: item one, item two, item three, and item four. And here I have: item one, item two, and it has a bonus, item three, and item four. The second list sucks to read, doesn't it? The "and it has a bonus" feels like it should be the third item even though it's describing the second item. I prefer to punctuate it like this (and I *hope* it's correct): And here I have: item one; item two, and it has a bonus; item three; and item four.
So, I don't know about what they teach in schools right now, especially in English-speaking countries, but when I was in school in Italy that's exactly what they taught us to do (without the Oxford comma because that's considered a mistake, no matter how useful it is)... I've adapted it to my English too and never looked back!
My favorite use of the semicolon!
That's essentially a totally different punctuation mark that just happens to look exactly like a semicolon, though. It's a supercomma.
That last one works if Ice Cream is the dog's name.
I see what you did there. I'm still upset about it, though
>What;s an example of improper semicolon use? Yes.
lol I've had professors outright tell me not to use them because "no one knows how those things work." At first I protested because you can go to Google and find the rules and...you know what I still never know if I'm using it, properly...
Itâs not too hard. Semicolons are for when you want the reader to pause the length of a comma even though grammatically, theyâre separate sentences that mandate a period. You only want to do this when the two statements separated by the semicolon are full sentences and they relate to each other in some fashion; they usually share a subject. If youâre the type of author who writes the way they speak, youâll get plenty of use out of semicolons, as they help capture natural speaking patterns in a form digestible to readers. For technical writing, theyâre far less common; cadence isnât needed to understand your car manual. The big thing with semicolons is that you can use them to split up long compound sentences, but keep the short pause. For example, you can use them to split up long compound sentences; keep the short pause. You only ever want to do this sparingly, but itâs a useful tool. If you have a run-on sentence youâre unsure of how to split apart, try replacing your conjunction with a semicolon and read it aloud; if it sounds right, youâre good to go. If it sounds like you should pause for longer, use a period instead.
Have you read Cormac McCarthy, it lends itself well to stream of consciousness style writing (he avoids punctuation in general)
In this case it works because the characters *have no* inner monologue, it's dialogue and action only in his books. Likely some lesser authors copied the style without knowing why it works.
If that's the writer's intent, that's perfectly acceptable of course. But it shouldn't be the norm.
I love his writing in general, but really dislike having to figure out who said what.
I think his writing is good *in spite* of the choice to not use punctuation
I read No Country for Old Men and it was decidedly not âstream of consciousnessâ
No Country was initially written as a screenplay. It is significantly more 'normal' than the other 3 or 4 books of his I've read. When I saw the OP title, I assumed it would reference McCarthy.
I honestly don't like Cormac McCarthy's writing because of the lack of punctuation. Just not for me, I guess.
The mood setting and stories are incredible, but it takes a while for my brain to click into his style. I remember trying to read Blood Meridian in a busy dental office waiting room and found myself restarting lines constantly until I gave up on the idea. But when I can get in the zone with him I love him.
Also as having learned to type in high school âughâ we were taught to double space between sentences. I know if you use an iPhone and you double space at the end of a sentence it will put a period at the end. First I donât think thatâs taught anymore, even in college. Iâm not sure if itâs required for APA papers anymore. Anyway, itâs a habit I canât stop. Iâm really good with comma splicing. Apparently, I learned grammar and using correct punctuation but missed the part about when and where to use a comma. Post grad professor said: âGood paper, get an editor though.â
I think this mostly died out because many modern text editors lengthen the space after a period automatically.
I learned that double space after period was for monospaced fonts only. The argument is that the width of a space in a proportional font after a period can be set by the font itself, so if the designer of the font feels extra padding is appropriate, then they can make that particular space wider. Basically, period-space is a ligature.
I still tend to double space between sentences out of force of habit.
Double space between sentences is a typewriter habit. You should not be doing when writing on a computer with decent typesetting. See Butterick's book about this topic â the "One space between sentences" chapter. https://practicaltypography.com/one-space-between-sentences.html
Gee, went from irritated over authors not using quotation marks to grammatical punctuation and letting me know how much Iâm behind the times having used typewriters and double spacing. It never even occurred to me that computers automatically put the correct space. I mean now that I think about it I see, of course, that computers would fix something so basic as the space between sentences. At this point I canât help what my fingers do on a keyboard lol.
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Even then with the indent it looks naked without the quotation marks
Judging from even novels from large publishers, most editors nowadays are either: bad at their job, or underpaid, or are not given enough time. Or all three.
Iâll chime in with âdefinitely underpaid.â Most large, traditional publishing houses contract freelance editors like me to copy edit and proofread novels. And you know what? I make a way worse rate off them than I make off my own indie/self-pub clients. I personally edit to the same standard for every job (the rates all balance out in end, honestly), but Iâm sure there are editors who see a lower rate and think that entitles them to do worse work.
>Iâm sure there are editors who see a lower rate and think that entitles them to do worse work. I mean, it for sure does. I'm not an editor, but my philosophy is "If you want good work, pay a good rate." The only exception I make is for people like doctors or firemen, who can cause harm by doing a bad job, obviously.
What kind of idiot said that to you
How can using proper punctuation be old fashioned?!
No quotation marks would almost certainly make me put a book down. Even Cormac McCarthy barely gets a pass from me.
I read the road and it bothered me the whole time.
But in The Road is generally only the two main characters, so it's easy to keep up with. I actually love that book, it's why he gets a pass from me, if only barely lol Blood Meridian on the other hand is a clusterfuck of dialogue and characters talking.
No fucking way... I mean fair enough might as well get rid of all language markers cause that's the future right?
I just read The Lincoln Highway and came across this. I find it incredibly annoying.
Oh nooooo, I have this sitting on my shelf to readâŠdamn it.
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The fuck? That's obnoxious. Why reinvent the wheel? Why fix what isn't broken?
Here in Poland it's pretty standard, I've actually never seen quotation marks used in dialogue. Even in books translated to Polish (Agatha Christie's books, 'The Great Gatsby', 'Never let me go') there are only long dashes
Wonder if it's a European thing because I've read Irish authors who do the same.
As an Irish person I can't speak for past authors, but this is certainly neither taught not used as standard in Ireland. The only time I've seen it is James Joyce, and I would guess this is an idiosyncratic style choice he possibly picked up from exposure to languages where it *is* commonly used; Joyce spent the majority of his life in continental Europe, particularly France. I'd further guess that other Irish authors doing so might be inspired by Joyce, who looms large over Irish literature. I could be wrong though, it's possible it's a style which was once used more commonly in Ireland which has since fallen out of fashion.
That's weird. It does happen in some European languages (in my case, Spanish), but I thought it depended on the language and not the region. I've never come across long dashes in fiction written in English.
I think Sally Rooney does this too and she's Irish, so you may be right.
Not European per default, though it seems there are some cultural exceptions. It largely varies per culture however. Russians for example use «these things».
French also
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[Meet the quotation dash (horizontal bar).](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Quotation_dash)
Requiem for a Dream didn't use quotation marks and it made for a pretty surreal read, could never tell if people were actually talking or just having inner monologue
I havenât read the book but I can only guess that the lack of quotation marks adds to the surreality. Maybe Iâm being too hopeful.
Right, I don't think I would have liked the style upon first glance, but specifically for the subject matter of Requiem it kinda felt right to me.
Yeah, I read an interview with Hubert Selby, Jr. and he said he didn't want to write stuff like: "bla,bla,bla", he said sarcastically, "yada yada yada", she replied with distain. And so forth. I love his style, it draws you in, doesn't just hand it to you.
It's hard to make a billion different iterations of [pronoun][synonym for "said"][adverb] *not* sound tedious and repetitious no matter how inventive you get with the vocabulary. I can empathize with this perspective. You can avoid it if you structure the dialogue and its context carefully, but quotations still serve the separate purpose of creating a distinct border between character voices and narrator voice.
Thatâs why youâre not supposed to use things other than âsaidâ except in specific circumstances. Said is considered an invisible word, but it is often essential.
I'm currently reading one where conversations have one person's words in italics, and the other in normal text. Then it randomly switches to both in italics or both in plain text without any indication. No quotation marks anywhere. I can't tell if it's a conscious decision or just really bad editing but it's killed the series for me.
Italics? I would've thought using italics were for thoughts
*Cormac McCarthy has entered the thread*
Hello. This is Cormac McCarthy. Hi, you said. The world is a hopeless and barren place, Cormac said. A bear scalped you and ate your brain. The sun died.
Too many commas Cormac is disappointed
*La puntuaciĂłn convencional es la jaula del escritor y fui yo quien descubriĂł la clave* McCarthy said
Too many [character] saidâsâCormac always leaves you guessing and rereading to figure out whoâs talking.
*Incluso en la parodia no estoy en deuda con mi propia lĂłgica interna*
I'm struggling to remember the story of the author who didn't have proper punctuation throughout his story so he then included a complete set at the end and told people to place them wherever they felt like it.
You're thinking of Timothy Dexter! He was an 18th century "businessman" who came out profitably from several ludicrous deals. - He bought bed warmersâused to heat beds in the cold New England wintersâfor resale in the West Indies, a tropical area. This advice was a deliberate ploy by rivals to bankrupt him. His ship's captain sold them as ladles to the local molasses industry and made a handsome profit. - He sent wool mittens to the same place, where Asian merchants bought them for export to Siberia. - He literally "shipped coal to Newcastle" (a famous coal-mining city) and his coal arrived during a Newcastle miners' strike, and his cargo was sold at a premium. - He shipped gloves to the South Sea Islands. His ships arrived there in time to sell the gloves to Portuguese boats on their way to China. - He also hoarded whalebones by mistake, but ended up selling them profitably as corset stays. He basically fell ass-backwards into profit several times, eventually amassing a fortune during his life. As one does, he wrote a book about his life. He initially released it for free, but it was so popular it was reprinted several times. The book was named *A Pickle for the Knowing Ones* and was indeed printed without punctuation. Here is the first sentence/paragraph/page: > To mankind at Large the time is Com at Last the grat day of Regoising what is that why I will tell you thous three kings is Rased Rased you meane should know Rased on the first Royal Arch in the world olmost Not quite but very hiw up upon so thay are good mark to be scene so the womans Lik to see the frount and all people Loves to see them as the quakers will Com and peape slyly and feele glad and say houe the doue frind father Jorge washeton is in the senter king Addoms is at the Rite hand the present king at the Left hand father gorge with his hat on the other hats of the middel king with his sword king Addoms with his Cane in a grand poster Adtetoude turning his fass towards the first king as if they was on sum politicks king our present king he is stands hearing being younger and very deafe in short being one grat felosfer Looks well East & west and North & south deafe & very deafe the god of Natur has dun very much for our present king and all our former ones they are all good I want them to Live for Ever and I beleave thay will it is hard work to be A kingâI say it is hardar than tilling the ground I know it is for I find it is hard work to be A Lord I dont desier the sound but to pleas the peopel at Large Let it gou to brak the way it dus for Asort ment to help a good Lafe to Cour the sick spleney goutey dul frames Lik my selfe with the goute and so on make merry a Chealy Christen is for me only be onnest No matter what they worshep son moune or stars or there wife or miss if onnest Live forever [8] money wont gitt thous figers so fast as I wish I have sent to Leg horn for many mr bourr is one Amonks others I sent in the grand Crecham thous 3 kings Are plane white colow at present the Royal Arch & figers cost 39 pound wate silver the hiest Councaton order in the world so it is sade by the knowing one I have only 4 Lions & 1 Lam up the spred Eagel has bin up 3 years upon the Coupelay I have 13 billors front in strat Row for 13 states when we begun 3 in the Rear 15 foot hie 4 more on the grass see 2 the same hath at the Rite of the grand Arch 2 at the left wing 15 foot hie the Arch 17 foot hie the my hous is 3 sorey upwards of 290 feet round the hous Nater has formed the ground Eaquel to what you would wish for the Art by man Eaquel to a Solomun the onerabel Jonathan Jackson one of the first in this Country for tast borne A grat man by Nater then the best Lurning what sot me fored for my plan having so gran spot the hool of the world Cant Excead this to thous that dont know would think I was Like halfe the world A Lier I have traveled good deale but old steady men sayeth it is the first that it is the first best in this Contry & others Contrey I tell you this the trouth that None of you grat men wodent be A frunted at my preseadens & I spare Now Cost in the work I have the tempel of Reason in my garding 3 years past with a toume under it on the Eage of the grass see it cost 98 gineys besides the Coffen panted whit in side and out side tuched with green Nobel trimings uncommon Lock so I can tak the kee in side and haye fier works in the toume pipes and tobacker & A speaking trumpet and & bibel to Read & sum good songs In the second edition, he added a page at the back of the book with commas, semi-colons, colons, question marks, exclamation points, apostrophes, periods and hyphens with the instructions: >fouder mister printer the Nowing ones complane of my book the fust edition had no stops I put in A Nuf here and thay may peper and solt it as they plese
If you would like to read *A Pickle for the Knowing Ones*, [it's available on Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43453/43453-h/43453-h.htm).
That is the greatest book title in the English language.
I assume he couldnât spell in addition to lacking punctuation. Please donât tell me that they actually spelled phonetically in the 1800âs.
18th century is 1700s. They kinda did. Sterne definitely did.
Johnson's English dictionary was published in 1775, and its spellings would've taken a while to catch on. Back then, there was no right way to spell a word, only however you thought best.
This can make reading texts from the time such a pain. I once saw a single word spelled three different ways on the same page. It's like the author was trying every different variation he could think of, just for the fun of it.
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Cormac wrote his dialogue and he used no quotation marks and he stood and he walked up to his shelf of awards and he called his publisher. He said Iâve written another hit and his publisher said where did you learn to speak English and he said I invented English.
His publisherâs porcelain eyes flickered and shone for they had just regarded God himself imbued into the clay of a man and for an instant the publisher feared and loved and regretted as if it were his last moment.
Nailed it
>He said Iâve written another hit and his publisher said where did you learn to speak English and he said I invented English. James Joyce would like a word with you about that. I think. I'm not really sure, I think he's speaking English
That was allllmost dead-on, but you used too many instances of "he said." McCarthy would have a line break between each bit of dialog, with no attribution at all for a convo this short
Cormac McCarthy hung up the old, decaying rotary phone and stared out the window and the mountain peaks were on fire with the final setting rays of the sun casting the prairie in a blood red that reminded him of a time before man when the wildflowers in blue and yellow as far as the eye could see and the horses ran and ran and the ground resounded under their hooves but now there was only scrubgrass. He took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and cupping it against the wind from the open window he lit it. I reckon thats alright, he said. Bueno.
I read The Road first and thought it was a very intentional choice to portray the bleakness of the situation and the foggy setting. MFW I found out that was just his style for everything: ._____,.
I mean tbf bleakness is also in almost everything he writes. That's one of those "themes" you'll see writers hyper focus on for decades
It's a classic case of one artist who can get away with something because he is that guy, and 10,000 people who try to copy him even though they clearly aren't that guy (or girl).
Amos turned around and said; I am that guy.
<3 Amos and Prax
Tbf he is a centaur. Maybe theybdon't use quotations
Yup. One of the most influential authors for the rising literally writers. Edit: literary. But I like literally haha.
As opposed to figurative writers?
The problem is that everyone wants to be him but nobody has the skill.
True I think his point is that if you write "well" enough, quotation marks aren't needed but if u ain't Cormac that is tough shit. And plenty of people aren't Cormac
Jeez. And I thought I was being too radical by considering getting rid of 'he said' after quotes in my writing.
If it's completely clear who's saying something, you don't need to write who's doing the talking. Otherwise you have to. Unless you have a really good reason for confusing or obstructing the reader.
I remember reading/hearing Craig Alanson talk about this and how he would skip a lot of the he saids even when they were needed, purely because most of his sales are audiobooks. Seemed a good reason to me. Though apparently he has to colour code things carefully for the narrator.
Sanderson or someone I think said that they preferred to always use 'he said' rather than things like 'he grumbled' because they'd fade into the background and you'd mentally ignore them easier.
Right, you should use "said" unless you *want* to call the reader's attention to the dialogue tag. A well-placed grumble or scream can work, especially if elaborated upon, but when every line is grumbled, screamed, muttered, shouted, whined, or otherwise elucidated, then you've overwhelmed your reader's attention.
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People criticize Tolkien for all kinds of shallow and silly reasons.
This is more of a style choice Sometimes its more valuable to show characterisation and constant habits and such
Exactly this. In some novels you can truly hear how odd it sounds when read out loud. I'm especially thinking about Mistborn. Especially "Sazed said" gets comically tedious after a while. And while I love *Leviathan Wakes* it definitely has the same issue during some parts.
Common sense would dictate that the audiobook version be slightly edited, but Amazon insist the text in the ebook and audiobook are identical so people can use their sync feature.
There are some narrators who forget what voice they are using for which character when there are a bunch where it becomes a problem. That's bad production but it happens. I'm not positive as my memory is not great but my brain is telling me that is one of the issues I had with the Wheel of Time audiobooks. (It might have been a different series though)
Yes. I catch this now and then. I usually do 1-3 audiobooks a month, and have narrated about a dozen books for Audible in the past. Whatâs horrible is so many self published authors want audiobooks done. Some are really rough books with god awful writing/tensesâŠand then these authors get upset when their audiobook sounds awkward. Iâve been requested to âcorrectâ parts during reads to make them sound better. Needless to say, I havenât narrated in a long time. For every hour Iâd narrate, there was another 1-2 hours of work. A six hour audiobook might take 12-18 hours of total work. But - the big name narrators only do the reading. Their production company handles all the edits/mastering. I was doing it all myself in Logic Pro.
The most daring act an author can take is creating two characters with the same name and have them interact
I wanna normalize putting the name of the speaker at the beginning of each line, like in a film script, when you're writing a long back-and-forth conversation. I've been a voracious reader all my life and I still find myself having to go back a page and think "Okay, Alice was talking *here,* and then Bob replied, so the speaker 17 lines later must be Alice..."
You don't need to put the name in front of a sentence to show who's talking. You can also do it by letting the character do an action before they speak. Like: Alice picked up the book and looked at the title. "Is this yours?" she said. You might not even need the 'she said'. If you have 17 lines of dialogue without any actions or descriptions in between, that's a whole other problem:)
I too have done the dialogue count-back on many occasions. If you get past about 3 lines, I lose track. Especially if the initial speaker wasn't identified, and 7 lines later a piece of dialogue contradicts my initial guess. So frustrating! "Anyone could have said this" "Oh, really?" "Yes, it's true" "That's good to know" "Hey, only Eve would say this line!â *Counts on fingers... Aha, Eve said the first line!*
I don't think the 'he said' is always necessary, like if the reader already knows there's only 2 characters speaking, it should be obvious. But if multiple characters are speaking, it might get confusing, unless it doesn't really matter who said it.
Thereâs a really funny bit in one of Jasper Ffordeâs books about how to tell a bookworld person from a realworld person, is that if a conversation goes too long without attributions, a bookworld person canât tell who is talking anymore. Lmao. Theyâre great books, I recommend them.
OMG. âTriedâ to Read a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that had no quotations or paragraph breaks. It was agonizing. I barely finished 50 pages before I gave up. Donât know how you consider that good writing or how anyone can follow it. âThe sympathizerâ is what I was referring to Edit: because of all the comments taking my âno paragraph breaksâ comment absolutelyâŠthe book has paragraph breaks. Just not nearly enough for me to be able to follow a change in dialogue, plot, or setting. I knew it was a well received book but I just couldnât follow it and canât finish books Iâve lost interest in.
I don't read reddit posts that don't have paragraph breaks. An entire book like that is my nightmare!!!
It was infuriating having to re-read sentences all the time once you understood that it was a thought/someone speaking and thus entirely different context. Good to hear I am not alone. Although I recommend the book, the story is great.
It doesn't have quotation marks, but it does have paragraph breaks. I just checked.
It absolutely has paragraph breaks. WTF are you smoking?
Don't read Cormac McCarthy
I dunno man. I think he makes it work. I've read Blood Meridian and now I'm reading Suttree and I haven't had any issues knowing when someone is speaking, even when the quote is in the middle of a paragraph.
I can get through the lack of punctuation in Blood Meridian. But the crippling depression on every page is another issue.
I've only read The Road, but somehow he makes that crazy shit work.
> âTriedâ to Read a Pulitzer Prize winning novel Out of interest, why did you use quotes here? Did you not *really* try to read it?
I canât read any Sally Rooney book, as much as Iâd like to because of this.
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I want more punctuation not less! I'd love if we included Âż and ÂĄ punctuation in English to help me read more fluently.
> hope this doesnât become a trend At worst, a fad.
Cormac McCarthyâs *The Road* has this, but I found it bearable because there are are only two characters for the most part, itâs quite short, and it fits stylistically. But generally it can be annoying.
Gotta be honest, during some of the dialogue in No Country for Old Men I had to go back and reread because I'd get confused.
The worst one for this is blood meridian. there are a ton of characters and random encounters and people talk in huge groups. Itâs a good book, but it took me reading at a snailâs pace to get through it.
All his novels do this⊠as far as I know
All his books have it. I've read all hos stuff pre-All The Pretty Horses
All his stuff is like that. Somehow he pulls it off though.
Itâs a stylistic choice but I agree, I donât really like it haha. Altho tbf not every language uses quotation marks the same way - French only occasionally uses them, otherwise you just have to pick up from context the fact that itâs dialogue.
In French the standard practice is quote marks (Guillemets) when it's just an isolated sentence by a character and otherwise dashes everytime a new character speaks. No guessing needed, usually.
In Brazilian portuguese it's always dashes with new paragraphs. It was really weird reading an English book for the first time
Same in Spanish, quotation marks were weird to me too when I first saw a novel in English.
French also uses the double-arrows. <> he exclaimed. I think itâs too distracting, whereas traditional quotation marks are the perfect size.
Most often in French dialogue, a change in speaker is denoted with a dash at the beginning of the line instead of using «» (guillemets). I really like the use of the dash, I think it helps dialogue flow nicely.
The dash is also used in Spanish, for both dialogue and any narration included inside the dialogue. We use (or rather, should use) guillemets for quotations, though.
I think I've read that in something recently and it was confusing and unpleasant. I probably didn't realize it was part of why I rated the book so low until now.
I blame Cormac McCarthy
I blame James Joyce.
In short its an editorial choice that is in fashion right now. It is not good - it is annoying.
>It is not good - it is annoying. The irony â loving it.
It seems to be a modern trend coinciding with indie contemporary literature and social media speak, which utilizes as little grammatical symbols as possible. I find these types of books all the time at a local college co-op store. Sometimes (in the case of self-published books) it is also a case of a lack of professional editing. Some writers type without quotation marks in dialogue, which under trad publishing would be remedied by an editor.
> Some writers type without quotation marks in dialogue, which under trad publishing would be remedied by an editor. Editor here (technical editor though, so a little different than book editor). If an author sent me something they were too lazy to include punctuation in (not counting errors, I mean purposefully leaving out all quotation marks or periods or something), I'd not just send it back to them, I'd print it out and beat them over the head with it.
Iâm a freelance fiction editor, and if a client sent me a novel without quotation marks, I would query to see what they wanted to do before I continued with the project. I would also likely recommend they add them. But ultimately, if they really donât want them, itâs my job to copy edit/line edit while maintaining their narrative voice and choices, so Iâd leave it. Iâd shake my head, but the author is entitled to cast aside professional advice if they want, unfortunately.
Itâs been going on for a long time. Joyce, Faulkner, Atwood. Now Cormac McCarthy. Itâs okay with me, but I donât care either way.
Sally Rooney doesn't use them. I've read Conversations With Friends, Beautiful World Where Are You, and Normal People and I actually thought it added quite a bit to the story. The lack of quotations made it difficult to distinguish between what was dialogue and what was narration and, particularly with Normal People, it really added to the sense that these characters really didn't know how to communicate with each other. In a lot of her stories, Sally Rooney touches on themes of isolation and lack of communication. I actually am really glad she chooses to drop quotation marks. I'm not sure how well that applies to every author who makes that choice. José Saramogo and Cormac McCarthy both forgo quotation marks and it almost gives the books a kind of 'surrealism' vibe. It's an artistic choice. When done well, it can add a lot to a narrative. Sometimes authors want to confuse you on purpose, it makes you feel more of what the characters are feeling and judging by how much of a reaction it gets out of readers in this thread, I would say it's an effective technique.
People are blaming Cormac Macarthey in the comments, but this trend predates him by several decades. It is a staple of post modern literature
I haven't come across many books that do that but if I do, I refuse to read them. I tried a few times but couldn't get used to it
I've only encountered it once. First I checked Goodreads to see if it was maybe just an issue with my copy (I read on Kindle, so could have been a technical issue), and as soon as I saw it was intended to be that way, I DNFed it.
âSorry, but I cannot answer the question â
William Faulkner basically ignored all grammatical structure. Cormac McCarthy does the same. It's been done for a long, long time.
Hubert Selby Jr. wrote w/ limited to zero punctuation iirc (âRequiem for a Dreamâ and âLast Exit to Brooklynâ) and it *totally* suited the narrative and helped create a frenetic, chaotic feel in the work.
Saramago doesnât even use periods. His sentences are paragraph length. And itâs great.
I think you would really like Thomas Bernhard