BSV Forum - Writing - General Tips

Commas! (with a side order of capitalization)

Feb 04 2007 05:55 pm   #1slaymesoftly

This one is copied directly from the RRU entry, and only covers one use of commas.  I will add to this thread with other entries as time goes by, so if you have questions, please hold them until the whole thread is up (I'll let you know when I've posted the last entry) and then you can ask questions about whatever hasn't been covered.

Riters_R_Us 10/18/06

Just a short doozy for today. Commas are tricky little critters - they don't go where you think they should, and they do go where you see no damn reason for them sometimes. But, there are some hard and fast rules about them, and the following is one of them:

Anytime you (or your characters) are addressing someone by name, the name must be set off by a comma or commas.

"Come on, Spike. Let's go."
"I love you, Slayer, but I'm not going to take that treatment any longer."
"Dawn, where are you?"
"Sorry, Peaches, the Slayer is with me."
"Shut up, Fangface."

I think that covers it - the comma comes before and/or after the name to set it off from rest of the sentence. The rule also applies when it is a nickname or a "pet" name. whelp, bit, pet, luv, Slayer - all need to be set off with commas if the person they are referring to is being addressed by your character.

"I see the whelp is joining us." (no comma)
"Hello, luv." (comma)
"I see you are joining us, Whelp." (comma)


- and I've added an upper case W as Spike is treating it as a name. Just as I usually capitalize Niblet or Bit when he is addressing Dawn. I don't normally do that for "pet" or "luv".

The concensus on RRU, after all our English professors had chimed in, is that endearments are never capitalized, but a nickname may be if it is used often enough to constitute an actual name and not just a not-so-endearment.  Makes sense?

note: I've already covered comma use with speech tags, so I'm not going into that in this section.
I am not a minion of Evil...
I am upper management.
Feb 05 2007 07:13 am   #2Caro Mio

I think it's easy to remember putting the comma before the name, if you can say the sentence just as well without the name: You can say "Hello." just as easily as you can say "Hello, Spike." One of those tricks that made it easy to remember the rule before it became automatic.

The name isn't technically necessary, but it helps to clarify whom the statement is aimed at for the reader.

What If I'm Not the Slayer? now updated with chapters 22 and 23.

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