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Craft of Writing

Carter Jefferson

The Semicolon Solution

In the misty past semicolons were workhorses, slaves of writers, tossed about with abandon. They began turning up like raisins in buns during the 16th century; Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and T.S. Eliot found them useful in ways we wouldn't.
 
But times have changed. In our modern, more puritanical society, the poor semicolon has been forced to take a narrow path it must follow without flinching, no matter how attractive the pastures on either side may seem.
 
Here's what a semicolon is for.
 
When you have two sentences that are closely related, so closely related that you don't want a cold and callous period to separate them, use a semicolon to join them in happy union. These have to be full sentences, not simple words or phrases. Each one must be an independent clause, able to stand on its own, bravely facing the world without help from anything or anybody. Like Romeo and Juliet, however, they yearn to be joined.
 
Thus we might be faced with this situation:
 
"I awoke in a cold, dark corridor. Wind whistled through, chilling me to the bone."
 
As you can see, each sentence is complete and fully formed. Under some circumstances, depending on the flow and rhythm of the piece you're writing, they would do perfectly well as they are, each one capitalized and furnished with its own personal period. But suppose the circumstances are different, and you feel a great need, usually for reasons of rhythm, to bring them more closely together? Then you may do this:
 
"I awoke in a cold, dark corridor; wind whistled through, chilling me to the bone."
 
If the sentences were these, you couldn't do it:
 
"I awoke in a cold, dark corridor. Something told me Ginny was fixing supper."
 
Those sentences just aren't that closely related; they aren't total strangers, but they aren't kissing cousins, either.
 
You can't do these things:
 
"I awoke in a corridor; cold and dark."
 
"I awoke in a corridor; frightened out of my wits."
 
"I awoke in a corridor; dark, cold stones.
 
"I used a semicolon; just because it looked so nice."
 
Join full sentences only, please. Of course, sometimes what's really a full sentence doesn't look that way on paper, because parts of it are understood. Here's one:
 
"George likes rare steak; not for me."
 
The "It's" is there; you just can't see it.
 
The rule still holds when you join clauses with a conjunctive adverb:
 
"I badly wanted to retrieve my bathing suit; however, the waves were so high I feared I'd be swept away if I tried."
 
If you're using a semicolon, that second clause has to be a sentence that could stand by itself. Starting sentences with "however" and other conjunctive adverbs is not usually a good idea, though it's done all the time in bad writing and everyday speech. There are better ways to say that, don't you think? Don't forget simple words like good old "but":
 
"I badly wanted to retrieve my bathing suit, but the waves were so high I feared I'd be swept away if I tried."
 
In two other instances you may, nay, must, use semicolons. One is this:
 
"In the corridor were pictures made of terrible images, each painted in sweeping strokes; obstacles that prevented our escape; and frightening creatures that bustled around under feet, sometimes so thick we could not avoid stepping on them."
 
Those semicolons are there for greater clarity, because parts of the series include commas—that's the only reason.
 
If, perchance, you wish to join two long, complicated sentences, each one already supplied with commas, you'll do well to use a semicolon even if you also use a co-ordinating conjunction:
 
"When the car drove away, leaving behind a cloud of dust and a load of memories, I found myself sad and alone; but not long after, my sweetheart, dressed in nothing but shorts and a halter top, came running up and clasped me in her arms."
 
The real question, of course, is whether you really want to write a sentence like that. I don't.
 
Bad writers will pull anything—you know how they are—but good writers use semicolons only to join full sentences or put together comma-ridden series. Once you imbibe this information, make it a part of your very being; you will then have joined that happy few who really, truly, know what a semicolon is for.


About the Author
Carter Jefferson, once a naval officer, journalist, history professor, and psychotherapist, now teaches writing in U. Mass./Boston's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. His stories and essays have appeared in T-Zero: The Writer's E-Zine, The Hiss Quarterly, flashquake, and other e-zines, and his book reviews in the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. He even sold one tale, hand-bound and illustrated, in an art gallery. His website: http://carterj.homestead.com/.