Quote:
Originally Posted by JwkOKC
In any creative effort, only the creator determines the applicable rules. Many so-called rules of grammar are nothing more than one person's preferences, petrified like so much wood with the passage of time.
The best reference for such questions that I have yet located anywhere is at http://www.grammarbook.com/ which is a great site with many examples for almost any question one might pose. Note that I have no connection at all with it -- I'm just passing along a discovery.
When it comes to punctuation, I personally follow a musician's approach and use it to phrase the flow of the text. A period means a full rest, a semi-colon is a half rest, and a comma is a quarter rest. Em and En dashes provide ties and other fractional rests. And if it sounds right to my ear when I read it aloud (or do so mentally) then it's right to me -- and the grammar police can pound sand.
I suspect my attitude is a minority viewpoint. However very few editors have mangled my efforts in the years since my first national publication in 1949... |
Yeah, I'm with you. I'll break the rules for flow. And yeah, I like that site too. It depends what you're writing. But for fiction perfect grammar can kill flow. (Not often, mind you, but it can and when it does it gets the boot in favor of flow. Every time.)