[caption id=“attachment_905” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] CC Paul de los Reyes[/caption]

When I’m editing prose, my main concern is readability. Normally the entire process is mostly made up of adding subheadings, breaking up long sentences, and removing parentheses.

Language is a very crude way of expressing yourself. As a writer, you can only say one thing at a time. Film directors have full use of a two-dimensional image plane and sound, and can pack in lots of carriers of meaning at the same time. Lighting, music, script, acting, body language, mise en scene, setting… all of these things and more are actively communicating to the viewer all the time. Game designers have all that, plus haptic response and input, range of movement, rules systems, and space design. Multiple things can be communicated at different levels of explicitness at the same time.

Written language has to struggle with putting three-dimensional ideas into one-dimensional form. Readers have to be able to walk in a straight line, looking straight ahead with blinkers on, and still see everything they came to see and understand why they should keep on walking.

This is why I hate the em-dash.

Going 'by the way'

I'm including under the umbrella of em-dash any smaller dash used as a substitute in the same situation. The em-dash is often used to add an aside to the middle of a sentence. It's not only used for this — it can be used to signpost an example or explanation. I don't have much of a problem with that.

My problem is that we all have a habit of leading the reader down one path, then abruptly dragging them onto a parallel path, promising them that we’ll put them back on the main path in just a moment. Remember, the reader is wearing blinkers. They can’t see what’s to the right or left of them. They’re trusting that you’ll keep them on the straight and narrow. By using the em-dash, you’re abusing their trust.

I’m not saying that only ‘bad writers’ do this. We all do it. But we would all write better prose if we banned ourselves from using em-dashes, just like any self-aware writer limits their use of parentheses to special occasions, such as translations of foreign words.

The worst excesses of em-dash use occur when the writer forgets to come back onto the first path, and instead drags the reader onto yet another parallel path. Imagine being dragged around like that. It’s rude, and a little abusive. Any reader with self-respect ought to wrench free of your grasp and stop paying you any attention when you do that to them. They came to your writing for a pleasant stroll, not an assault course.

When writing, try to ban yourself from using the em-dash and do the following instead:

  • If your em-dash points to a list, use a colon.
  • Use the semicolon; it balances two full clauses together without closing the sentence.
  • Put the content between the em-dashes into a new sentence.
These options allow you to keep the reader on the same path, rather than dragging them into bewildering side-paths. Sometimes you will feel tempted to put the content between the em-dashes into parentheses; this is a sure sign that the content is not important enough to make the cut. If you can't be bothered to integrate that clause into your main train of thought, why should I be bothered to read it?

Stepping into a ditch

Along the same lines, there is another thing that really irritates me about unedited prose. It bothers me in spoken language too, even though I don't believe that spoken language should be subject to the same rules as written language. I hate it when a text opens a comparative structure and fails to close it.

The most common offender seems to be ‘as many’ or ‘as much’. These phrases need to be finished with ‘as possible’ or something similar, but people are always forgetting to do so. Often it’s because they get ahead of themselves, prematurely launching into an explanation of why they need, ‘as many skilled people on board’, or ‘as much money’ as possible.

When you open a phrase like that, you are again dragging the reader into a parallel path of thought, but this time the path has very little meaning of its own. It only serves to help give the original path meaning. Rather than pulling them into a nice, stable road just parallel to the road you started on — which is forgivable — you are pulling them into a little ditch that runs alongside the road. When you fail to close that construction, you are leaving them in the ditch. They are left to stand there, watching from an ever-increasing distance as you run on up the road excitedly babbling.

At least, that’s how I feel when I run into that mistake. I’m not a brilliant writer or an experienced editor. We all make mistakes. I’m just saying that the grammatical ditch is a lonely and smelly place. Please don’t leave me there.