Commas in Adverbial Phrases and Clauses

When the main clause of a sentence is preceded by a phrase or a subordinate clause, you may use a comma to separate the phrase. (Sitting in the back, the group cheered wildly.) or (During the performance, the group cheered wildly.)

If the interruption to the flow of the sentence is slight, however, the comma may be omitted. The comma is usually omitted after short, introductory, adverbial phrases. (On Tuesday Bill was absent from class.)

An adverbial phrase or clause located between the subject and the verb should usually be set off by commas. (Bill, after picking up his assignment, went home.)

Commas should be used to set off interjections, transitional adverbs, and similar elements that affect a distinct break in the continuity of thought. (On the other hand, Bill may be right.) (Yes, Bill was right after all.)

Using Commas in Dialogue

There seems to be some confusion when using commas in dialogue. The commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks, whether single or double. Example: “I want to go with you,” he said. Or: He said, “I want to go with you.” I constantly see errors regarding this rule in print. The Chicago Manual of Style says this is the traditional style, and use well before the first edition of the manual in 1906.

Question marks and exclamation points go inside if they are part of the dialogue and outside if they are part of the entire sentence. Example: Why did I keep hearing over and over in my head the words, “I’ll never forget you” ? Before he said good-bye, he asked, “Will I ever forget you?”

Now let’s look at some basic rules regarding commas:

Independent Clauses

Always place a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clause. In other words, place a comma between two independent clauses separated by a conjunction. Independent clauses have a subject and a verb, and they can stand alone. (The situation looked hopeless, but there was one remaining chance for success.) or (The situation looked hopeless, but I didn’t believe it.)

However, do not join independent clauses with a comma if they are lacking a conjunction. They need to be joined with a semi-colon, or they can be cut into two separate sentences. (The situation looked hopeless; there was one remaining chance for success.) or (The situation looked hopeless. There was one remaining chance for success.)

A common mistake made with the comma is to separate a dependent clause from an independent clause when they are joined with a conjunction. (I was told the situation looked hopeless but didn’t believe it.) Each clause must have a subject in order to need a comma before the conjunction.

“The comma, which seems to cup the sense of the preceding phrase and hold it out to us, timidly and respectfully, is one of our greatest breakthroughs. The civilizing influence of this punctuation aid derives partly from its odd shape, the shape of mosquito larvae and sea horses: close inspection reveals the implied high culture of its asymmetrical tapering swerve, so distinctly an advantage over the more rustic period.” –Nicholson Baker

The punctuation error that seems to occur most often in the hundreds of manuscripts crossing my desk each year is misuse of the comma. It is important to learn when to use and when not to use commas. To make matters worse, The Chicago Manual of Style, The Associated Press Handbook, and most grammar books list different rules. Most Christian publishers have their own style sheets, but they basically follow The Chicago Manual of Style, which is the standard in the book publishing industry. Since it is costly, I suggest you buy Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style to help you with grammar, punctuation, and word usage. First copyrighted in 1935, this little 92-page book is packed with all the basics. It can be purchased inexpensively at any secular or on-line bookstore.

As has been mentioned, the best way to move a story along is through dialogue. Here is an example of a devotional that is almost entirely dialogue. It is taken from my book, Rest Stops for Single Mothers.

The Fire

“Mom, I had to abandon my car,” my son’s voice sounded breathless on the other end of the telephone line. “Flames were jumping across the highway. Burning branches fell into the back of my convertible.”
“Are you OK?” I asked, concern filling my voice.
“Oh, Mom, I’m fine, but I’m worried about my car.”
“Tell me what happened. Maybe I can help,” I offered.
“I was on my way home from class, and I could see the fire burning out of control in the Santa Barbara hills, but it seemed far away. The freeway was blocked, so I took the old highway towards town. About half-way there, people on either side of the road had been told to evacuate their homes. Everyone was trying to leave. There was a huge traffic jam. Suddenly, flames jumped across the highway, and that’s when it happened.”
Rich was talking so fast that I didn’t understand everything. “That’s when what happened?” I asked.
“My clutch cable snapped, and I couldn’t shift gears. I pulled over to the side as far as I could and had to abandon my car.”
“What did you do then?”
“I called my girlfriend to come and get me. Mom, I can’t afford to lose my car. I don’t have comprehensive insurance on it, and I’ll have to drop out for a semester if I can’t get to school.”
I knew Rich was right. Rich’s finances for his college education were extremely tight. Without his car, he’d have to leave school and obtain a full time job to earn money for a new one. I saw no alternative.
“Let’s pray about it, Rich. God knows the situation.”
I rarely pray for material possessions, and I’ve never prayed for a car before, but this time I did. “Lord, You know Rich needs that beat-up Volvo convertible to get to his college classes. Please spare it in this fire. We pray that the fire will soon be contained.”
Three days later, I received another call from Rich. “Mom, they finally let me check on my car. I caught a ride back to where I left it. The fire burned to within a hundred feet, and it’s full of ashes, but it runs. It’s in the shop now getting a new clutch cable.”
God has taught us to pray specifically. In this case, He knew how important that car was to Rich’s education. He spared the car, and I learned an important lesson. When things look bleak, when money is tight, God is there, showing His presence in the smallest details of our lives.

Conversational Speech: Dialogue should be kept simple, natural, and conversational. However, don’t use the exact words a person would actually speak because, in normal conversation, a person uses far more words than are needed. Actual speech needs to be whittled down, so it is crisp and clear. Never let your characters ramble.

Once you have a detailed character sketch of your main character, you will know how he will react in certain instances. You will be aware of his feelings, ideas, and beliefs. His personality will come through in his speech. He will help you write the dialogue, because, if you know him, you will know what he will say. As your reader gets to know your main character, he knows what the character will say, too. If your main person acts out of character, the reader will know and will feel something is wrong. Also, be careful not to contrive your character’s speech or have him preach. The reader doesn’t want to be talked down to—either by you or the main character. We teach the reader lessons by what the main character learns, not by lecturing.

These suggestions also apply to the minor characters to a lesser degree. When you write a novel, the minor characters are more developed, and these points become more relevant to them. In a short story, however, you don’t have much room to develop more than one or two characters with any depth. Usually the reader will identify with the main character, so he becomes your vehicle for getting your message across. The most powerful way to accomplish that is through his actual spoken words.

Good Dialogue is essential to your story. Dialogue moves the action along better than any other medium. Dialogue can be used effectively in fictional stories, personal experience stories, devotionals, and anecdotes within articles and nonfiction books. Here are some tips for using authentic dialogue in your manuscripts.

Multiple Characters: When possible, have two people in your story, so they can talk to each other. If this is not possible and only one person is involved in a happening, perhaps you could relay that incident after it occurred through a telephone conversation or a chat over coffee. Staying in someone’s mind and listening to his thoughts is a boring place for the reader to be.

Tags: Be careful of the tags you use for dialogue. “He said” is better than “he articulated” or “he uttered.” After all, what is important is the information between the quotation marks, not the word used for “said.” An exception would be if you needed to show strong emotion or a certain voice tone that the words by themselves didn’t express. Examples: He shouted, he whispered.

A word of warning: you can’t smile, sigh, or laugh words. Instead of writing, “You’re cute,” he smiled, use: “You’re cute,” he said with a boyish grin.

Good writers weave exposition subtly into the action so that it doesn’t interrupt the narrative flow. Proper exposition appears to derive directly from the viewpoint character’s thoughts or memories.

In the proper blending of narrative and exposition, the author communicates information to the reader through:
1. What the characters say,
2. What the characters do,
3. What the main character thinks, and
4. What the main character remembers.

This blending is achieved by using detail, dialogue, and description—the components of the Three-D Technique.

Detail: Use the specific rather than the general.

Dialogue: Direct conversations between the characters, especially characters in conflict, reveal their personalities. Dialogue moves the story along and turns narrative into interesting conversation. Develop a different style for each character.

Description: Draw from all five senses to describe the setting and the characters. Use sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch to create a mood.

The proper use of narrative and exposition in short stories and novels is one of the keys to writing successful fiction and using fictional techniques.

Narrative: is the objective reporting of your story, that which can be pictured visually in concrete images in the reader’s imagination. It is what the characters do in the action of the story.

Exposition: is information, often interpretive and/or subjective funneled through the viewpoint character, to shed light on the action. It includes comments, opinions, reactions, explanations, and feelings (Definitions by Carole Gift Page, used with permission).

Faulty exposition interrupts the narrative flow, shatters the illusion of reality, and embarrassingly reveals the mechanics of fiction writing just like a playwright jumping on stage and interrupting a play during a performance.

After you reach the climax in your story, be brief and be gone. Wrap it up as quickly as possible, being careful not to leave any loose ends. Once you have reached the climax, the reader won’t have any reason to keep reading.

Set your story aside for a week, then go back and rewrite and rewrite more. Ask yourself, “Will it hurt the story if I leave out this word, this paragraph, this entire scene?” If not, take it out. Whittle away all the dead wood. Make sure your characters are well developed, and the main character solves his problem, averts disaster, or overcomes his opponent himself? Your scenes should move along smoothly and transition well from one to another. And also make sure you have not left any loose ends?

It doesn’t matter if you are writing fiction or nonfiction, you must use good fiction techniques. People love stories. They want to escape from real life into an imaginary adventure, but they need help with their problems too. You can meet their real needs by meeting their felt needs through the vehicle of fiction. And God can teach spiritual truths through your fictional characters.