That's why poets and novelists have been given a "certain" freedom of expression when it comes to FRAGMENTS and PUNCTUATION. As indie authors, we don't have a house style to follow for edits...but we should try to stick closely to the universal standards. I use the Chicago Manual of Style, but even then there are discrepancies. As long as the sentences aren't confusing to the reader I'm good with less punctuation not more. Semi-colons freak me out. I use too many ellipsis and em-dashes...but not as many as I've seen used by others, and at least I use them correctly.Commas are a PITA -- at least in mine. Nowadays either no one knows how to use them correctly, or they ignore the rules. British use them one way, and Americans use them another. Actually, you can say that for most punctuation and language. Even if you know the rules and follow them, someone will disagree. If you follow the rules exactly...the book is riddled with pauses you may feel interfere with the sentence flow.
What about you? Does this sound reasonable? What are your pet peeves with grammar and punctuation? British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand terms and spelling versus American? Any thoughts?
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The one editor I work with is always changing my sentences to use semi-colons. I never use them in my writing and find them disruptive when I read. I always feels like we have a battle about them.
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