The Importance of Commas, Meter, and Reading Aloud for the Fiction Writer

By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello 

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: How your writing sounds is just as important as how it reads. Dario Ciriello discusses how rhythm and meter work to create memorable writing.

I recently completed an edit for a client, Cordia Pearson¹, whom I’d gently persuaded to let me introduce Oxford commas into her list phrases. The reasoning for this is that using the Oxford (aka serial) comma never does any harm, and can prevent serious confusion. Consider the sentence,

My parents, Jesus, and Lady Gaga taught me all I know.

If you remove the serial comma after Jesus, the meaning changes, and not for the better.
 
After I’d delivered the completed edit, Cordia—who was going through my every edit with admirable diligence, reading each chapter aloud as she went—emailed me to ask why I’d not introduced an Oxford comma in the last clause of the sentence,

Wish I could wail and rend my clothing as so many others do, families who have lost sons and daughters, brothers and sisters or lovers.

When I read her email, I actually remembered thinking through that sentence as I was editing, and the reason for my decision to omit the worthy Oxford comma. Stay with me as we get nerdy, friends, because this will be hugely useful in making your prose sing.

(Here’s more with Three Fun Literary Devices to Make Your Prose Sing)

Here's the thing: comma use in English is sometimes as much art as science.

Now, if we're using the Oxford comma, every item in a list except the last gets one.

In the above example there's no comma between sons and daughters as they're a natural pairing, and so with brothers and sisters: each of these pairs counts as a list item. So there's a strong grammatical case for a comma after sisters, making the sentence read as,

Wish I could wail and rend my clothing as so many others do, families who have lost sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, or lovers.

But if you read this version aloud with a momentary pause after each comma, putting one after sisters breaks the rhythm, leaching energy out at the end; this would be different if we had a third paired item instead of lovers—then I'd insert an Oxford comma).

(Here’s more with Feel the Rhythm of the Words)

Meter isn’t only for poetry; it can power your prose.

So if you omit the comma, as in the first example and the way Cordia had written it, you change the meter of brothers and sisters or to dactylic² and get a slightly breathless effect, almost a galloping, hypnotic rhythm:

BROthers and SISters or LOVers³

which IMO suits the despairing tone of the passage far better⁴. Placing a comma after sisters breaks the second dactylic “foot” and ruins the effect. That galloping dactylic rhythm is one reason why the phrase. Lions and tigers and bears is so memorable. Dactylic meter also drives the saying, Live long and prosper. And it's absolutely no accident that Tennyson used dactylic in his poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”—the meter is a major factor in the poem’s hypnotic effect.

Finally, I suggested she might also change the “or” to “and” for even more power—reading each of these variations out loud makes the effects obvious.

(Here’s more with Give Me a Beat: Rhythm in Dialogue)

In conclusion, reading your work aloud reveals subtleties and nuances of rhythm which can make your prose stronger or weaker. The best writers often use meter subconsciously, but a working understanding of poetic meter is a very useful tool for the writer wanting to tweak their prose for maximum power and effect. And although your reader may not have a clue about poetic meter, they—and their appreciation of your story—will be affected by it to no small degree.

Do you read your work aloud during revision? Do you consider prose rhythms?

Notes
1 Name and example used with permission. Cordia’s book (forthcoming) is titled Iridesce.
2 One stressed or long syllable followed by two unstressed, or short: DUH-duh-duh
3 More properly written as

/ — — / — — / —

Brothers and | sisters or | lovers

(where / = stressed syllable and — = unstressed)

4 You could probably find a curmudgeonly grammarian to disagree, but I think the poets would all be cheering.

Further Reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(poetry)
https://literarydevices.net/meter/
https://medium.com/swlh/an-introduction-to-poetic-meter-31b45dde7ea2

Dario Ciriello is a professional author and freelance editor as well as the founder of Panverse Publishing.

Dario’s fiction includes Sutherland's Rules, a crime caper/thriller with a shimmer of the fantastic; Black Easter, a supernatural suspense novel which pits love against black magic and demonic possession on a remote, idyllic Greek island; and Free Verse and Other Stories, a collection of Dario's short science fiction work.

Dario’s 2011 nonfiction book, Aegean Dream, the bittersweet memoir of a year spent on the small Greek island of Skópelos (the real Mamma Mia! island), was an Amazon UK travel bestseller. The Fiction Writing Handbook: The Professional Author’s Guide to Writing Beyond the Rules (Panverse, 2017) is his second nonfiction work.

In addition to writing, Dario, who lives in the Los Angeles Area, offers professional editing, copyediting, and mentoring services to indie authors.

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About The Fiction Writing Handbook

A Unique Approach to the Craft of Writing Fiction

The Fiction Writing Handbook is a complete guide for the fiction writer who wants to develop an individual voice and understand the reasons underlying the so-called rules of writing. Although a few rules really are necessary, the vast majority are either dogma or passing fads. Worse, so much advice like “show don’t tell” and “open with action” is often poorly explained and entirely misunderstood, causing writers no end of problems. Similarly, the importance of both character and narrative voice, as well as tone, cannot be overstated.

Drawing on twenty years of writing, critiquing, editing and mentoring experience, Dario Ciriello explodes writing myths, shreds conventional wisdom, and dissects the often misleading advice and diktats shouted at writers by books and blogs, agents and publishers. The Fiction Writing Handbook gives authors the necessary tools and insights to retake control of their story and make it unique.

Other topics covered in The Fiction Writing Handbook include external and internal dialog, writers' block, traditional vs. indie publishing, PoV (point of view), creating suspense, and much more.

Whether your interest lies in short stories, novels or screenwriting, The Fiction Writing Handbook shows you how to tell your story in your voice and place it before your audience, eschewing novel plotting formulas and cookie-cutter fiction to remain true to your own, exceptional vision while adhering to the few rules that actually matter. Because writing isn’t about prose wonks and industry insiders: it’s about the reader, and most of all it’s about telling a story. Your story.

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