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It’s a little squiggle, a dot with a tail, a tadpole
in the realm of punctuation marks, and as a writer, its usage can sometimes
provoke controversy.
In the above statement I have placed a comma before and. And placing a comma before or after
and is enough to send some pedantic
grammarians into a hysterical fit of outrage. It can also earn a red mark from
some copy editor’s pen, but this depends on the opinion of the copy editor
because some don’t mind.
This is because and
is a conjunction (and) serves to link two participle phrases in a sentence.
Adding a comma breaks that link, or does it.
This is where I would argue and, in the process, hope
to avoid being labelled as a pedantic grammarian for writing this article.
Creative writing is an art form serving the same
purpose as an artist painting a picture. The only difference is the medium in
which the concept, whether real or imaginary, is displayed using words instead
of pigments and colours. As with painting, there are principles for the artist
to follow, but those that become famous and are praised for their radical and
original use of colour, are the ones that bend and sometimes break the rules.
I don’t like rules
of grammar, but I’ll fight through hell and high water for the principles
of grammar. In court, a crafty solicitor can use the letter, or rule of the law
to excuse the guilty, thus defeating the principle for which that law was
created. Jesus Christ taught with parables urging his followers to ignore the
rules and laws of Judaism, but instead apply the principle on which those laws
were based. No intention to get all religious about this subject intended.
But I believe that the creative writer needs to
understand that those who make rules and pass laws always think they know best.
They love passing rules and laws following the rule that the more rules there
are the more they can enforce. These rules evolve and expand often becoming
disconnected from their original purpose leading to the creation of further
rules defining the purpose of those made before. Thus some editors will throw
an apoplectic fit and daub your manuscript with red pen marks simply because
you dared to place a comma after and.
Consider that in every document personally signed by
William Shakespeare, he spells his name differently. An examination of
contemporary documents increases the number of variations to the spelling of
his name, – Shakspere, Shaksper, Shaxpere to give just a few. This didn’t do
Shakespeare any harm, but I won’t go so far as to deny the value of correct
spelling!
The point is that just as in all other forms of art,
the use of language is an evolving process. Whether you agree with modern or
conceptual art in their various forms, they cannot be denied as a valid form of
expression.
Creative writing has therefore to be just that,
creative, even conceptual, pushing the boundaries of rules and laws that only
serve to enforce boundaries. The principle in writing anything is to enable the
reader to understand the message the writer wishes to convey. It matters not
whether this is totally fictional and imaginary or whether containing some fact
of knowledge. If the reader cannot understand the message then there is no
point in it being written.
The question to be asked is whether putting a comma after
and, or any deviation from
grammatical norm, increases or decreases the creative writer’s ability to get
their message across.
As for the comma, it and that of all early punctuation,
is linked to the spoken word. For example, an apostrophe is used to indicate
possession, or as in the following, to indicate a missing letter. It’s a simple principle and here it
stands in for the missing i from it is. But it could be argued that it
indicates possession, something belonging to It. Or could it? You work it out. There are whole books written to
argue over the rules surrounding this subject, but what is the principle?
Within the rules of grammar, a comma can be used to
indicate a pause where, in dialogue, a breath would be taken, or a pause to
allow the listener/reader that finite moment of thinking time before
continuing. Therefore, if the writer using dialogue wants to indicate that
their character pauses for breath before or after speaking the word and, the use of a comma is perfectly
valid. Alternatively, if the writer
wants to force the reader to pause for a momentary thought before continuing,
then the use of a comma after the word and
is also perfectly valid.
The use of a comma next to and is also justified when applied to bracket a weak interruptive
element to a sentence. Note the first sentence in this article:
It’s a little squiggle, a dot with a tail, a tadpole
in the realm of punctuation marks, and as a writer, its usage can sometimes
provoke controversy.
The phrase, and
as a writer, could be omitted without loosing any meaning.
It’s a little squiggle, a dot with a tail, a tadpole
in the realm of punctuation marks and its usage can sometimes provoke
controversy.
Of course, if I’d put the comma where it should be, after
and, thus limiting the weak element
to the words, as a writer, a colon
would be required after writer instead
of a comma. But that is another story.
This is the fun of creative writing. Punctuation
serves a purpose, but it should be the purpose that the writer wants it to
serve. That purpose is to enable the writer to tell a story that the reader can
understand in the context that the writer desires it to be understood.