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Commas, Semicolons, and Novice Writers

English writers from earlier centuries sprinkled commas in their prose as if they shook them with elegant poise from a pepper shaker. They did not believe in short snappy sentences and prolonged them by whatever means necessary to write as desired. It’s symbolic of their time, a mark of higher learning from elite schools that divulged the lavish use of the comma, secrets of the semicolon, and elements of style for any era. They remain geniuses of their time and ours.

William Faulkner, an esteemed American from Oxford, Mississippi, didn’t mind long sentences and could hold the reader’s attention with his intricate and extensive prose. And then again, perhaps the readers weren’t limited in time or attention span back then and were willing to meet the writer halfway; this is not symbolic of our time and a troubling one at that. Distractions compete for attention in the 21st Century and demand that the writer find and meet the reader on their turf.

As a new writer, it’s work enough to get solid footing on my turf, let alone meet or play with someone on theirs. So, what’s changed since then; readers, writers, publishers, markets, technology, or the passage of time?

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