Lesson One-Discussion

Well, I’m not sure how to stretch this out to 300+ words because it’s simple.  I want to improve my writing skills.  I had thought about taking this, in conjunction with the ‘Commas’ class.  But there was other classes calling to me—so ‘Commas’ will have to wait for the fall. 

I think I have a pretty good grasp of the basics of punctuation.  My real problem is ‘semi-colons’ vs. ‘em’ dashes.  For some reason I hate ‘semi-colons’.  The sounds silly, but it’s true.  Somehow, they just never seem ‘right’.  On the flip side, I use way too many ‘em’ dashes.  Because the feel so ‘right’.  I’ve said for years that I think in pauses, and the ‘em’ dash expresses that ‘pause’.  ‘Semi-colons’ just don’t give me the same pacing when I reread my writing. 

I’ve tried to break the ‘em’ dash habit.  The last edit of my novel I went through and deleted nearly every ‘em’ dash and replaced them with ‘semi-colons’.  But it was not good.  The next time that I read through it I changed them all back. 

Do others have this problem?  I happen to like the rhythm of my writing.  Others have told me that they like my voice and rhythm.  However, others have complained about too many ‘em’ dashes, AND too many sentences beginning with ‘And’ and ‘But’.  So, I’m trying to cleanse myself of some of this. And in the interim I worry I’m losing the ‘voice’ that reviewers liked—that made published writers recommend me to join the ‘Novel Workshop’.  I certainly hope you can help break me of at least some of my bad habits.

I have a feeling that one thing will bring out another.  So that by the end of the class, all of us will have learned much more than just punctuation.  We will have learned about other problems in our writing and realize that we all share similar hopes and fears.