Full name: A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation

Author: Noah Lukeman Year: 2006 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Writing, Non Fiction Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780393329803 0393329801

The first practical and accessible guide to the art of punctuation for creative writers. Punctuation reveals the writer: haphazard commas, for example, reveal haphazard thinking; clear, lucid breaks reveal clear, lucid thinking. Punctuation can be used to teach the writer how to think and how to write. This short, practical book shows authors the benefits that can be reaped from mastering punctuation: the art of style, sentence length, meaning, and economy of words. There are full-length chapters devoted to the period, the comma, the semicolon, the colon, quotation marks, the dash and parentheses, the paragraph and section break, and a cumulative chapter on integrating them all into "The Symphony of Punctuation." Filled with exercises and examples from literary masters (Why did Poe and Melville rely on the semicolon? Why did Hemingway embrace the period?), A Dash of Style is interactive, highly engaging, and a necessity for creative writers as well as for anyone looking to make punctuation their friend instead of their mysterious foe. Similar books: The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman The Plot Thickens by Noah Lukeman Grammar Girl Presents the Ultimate Writing Guide for Students by Mignon Fogarty Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty Lapsing into a Comma by Bill Walsh The Elements of Style by William Strunk Dreyer's English by Benjamin Dreyer How to Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish How to Speak and Write Correctly by Joseph Devlin The Grammar Devotional by Mignon Fogarty Plot Versus Character by Jeff Gerke The Careful Writer by Theodore M. Bernstein Words Fail Me by Patricia T. O'Conner Hooked by Les Edgerton Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schmidt Creating Character Arcs by K. M. Weiland Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne The Essential Guide to Freelance Writing by Zachary Petit Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain