Despite my misgivings
(and obviously overblown ego) Stanbrough's dialogue book
(see above) successfully convinced me there was more than
met the eye when it came to dialogue. I didn't think
there was much to learn but I'd been wrong. Could I be as
mistaken about punctuation?
Punctuation for Writers
begins with a simple,
ten-question quiz in order to help discover your greatest
area of need when it comes to adding emphasis to your
written work through the use of periods, dashes and
parenthesis. It's possible that after the quiz (answers
included), you might choose to focus in on the area you
most need help with. At just 71 pages, though, you'll
find the book an easy and interesting read.
Stanbrough delineates between long-pause,
medium-pause, short-pause and spelling punctuation in the
beginning of the book to present most of the major
punctuation marks and through examples, shows precisely
how to pace the reader, reveal important information and
join thoughts in creative prose. The book wraps up with a
painless primer on the parts of speech and how they too
impact the reader and your story as a whole.
While The Revised and Expanded Punctuation for
Writers was written before Writing Realistic
Dialogue, they both complement each other to form a
complete package guaranteed to help writers--regardless
of level and ability--think about not only how they tell
their story but how they present the story as well. Since
Punctuation for Writers certainly helped
me—an old English teacher—see commas, question
marks and hyphens in a whole new way, imagine what it can
do for your writing…
Read Beth's review of the
companion book:
