: Am I correctly punctuating this pause? I want to convey the pause between the "then" and the rest of the sentence. But I'm not sure a comma is the correct punctuation to use. Then, when

I want to convey the pause between the "then" and the rest of the sentence. But I'm not sure a comma is the correct punctuation to use.

Then, when the smoke had cleared Jane

Or is an ellipsis better? I tend to reserve it for when someone trails off or is interupted in the middle of speech.

Then... when the smoke had cleared Jane

Are either of these correct or is there a better way to express this pause?

Load Full (1)

: Use past or present tense for lasting fact I'm writing a story in present tense. One sentence is a little tricky for me, and I don't know if I should use past or present tense: Present

@Angie602

Load Full 2 Comments

: Writing and Formatting and Tips on Poetry As a person trying to write poetry, I always have a problem trying to get subject material(especially for the past six months) and formatting it, or

@Angie602

Load Full 1 Comments

: Technical Documentation Voice Preference : "Active Voice" - "Passive Voice" - A Mixture of both We are working on a technical documentation project which includes the rewriting, modernization, restructuring,

@Angie602

Load Full 3 Comments

: ClichÃ©d Actions I sometimes catch myself writing excessively clichÃ©d descriptions - not in the words, but in what the characters do. For example, they always seems to end up pacing up and

@Angie602

Load Full 4 Comments

Login to post a comment!

1 Comments

Sorted by latest first Latest Oldest Best

@Debbie451

Your first comma isn't the problem. It's that you have an interrupter and didn't put the second comma in.

Then, when the smoke had cleared, Jane rushed over to her.

An interrupter is a few words or a whole clause which interrupts the flow of the original framing sentence, and can be safely removed from the original sentence without making it grammatically uncorrect.
An interrupter must have bracketing punctuation. You can use commas, M-dashes, or parentheses, or in rare instances ellipses if you're careful.
If you take out the interrupter clause here, it just reads:

Then Jane rushed over to her.

Other examples:

Jane flung open the door, and â€” once the smoke had cleared and she wasn't in danger of choking â€” rushed over to her.
Jane felt (now that it had been a few years) like she could go back to the city.

Load Full (0)

Feed

: Am I correctly punctuating this pause? I want to convey the pause between the "then" and the rest of the sentence. But I'm not sure a comma is the correct punctuation to use. Then, when

More posts by @Angie602

: Use past or present tense for lasting fact I'm writing a story in present tense. One sentence is a little tricky for me, and I don't know if I should use past or present tense: Present

: Writing and Formatting and Tips on Poetry As a person trying to write poetry, I always have a problem trying to get subject material(especially for the past six months) and formatting it, or

: Technical Documentation Voice Preference : "Active Voice" - "Passive Voice" - A Mixture of both We are working on a technical documentation project which includes the rewriting, modernization, restructuring,

: ClichÃ©d Actions I sometimes catch myself writing excessively clichÃ©d descriptions - not in the words, but in what the characters do. For example, they always seems to end up pacing up and

Login to post a comment!

1 Comments

Back to top