: Re: Punctuation help needed -- first-time novelist I am a first-time novelist and have finished my first novel that I hope to self-publish at the end of the year. My book is finished apart from

@Bryan361

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Punctuation is a fluid thing in dialogue. There are rules you have to abide by just so readers have a basic understanding, but it can also be used in a variety of ways to communicate the sound of the dialogue that you want to get across.

A semi-colon combines two related but effectively separate sentences. In dialogue, people don't do this--they either turn it into one sentence or naturally break it into two. (A colon there works to flow the two sentences together. You could even use an ellipsis or an em-dash.)
An em-dash is a longer pause, with more emphasis; a comma is a shorter pause. Either one works. (In this situation: I'd go with an em-dash, since the sentence obviously has some weight to it--in an argument--and the dash helps with that.)
"I mean" is a filler thing that people say to balance out the rhythm of their speech, and almost never part of the actual sentence's meaning. So you need a comma after it.
Italics or quotation marks can indicate a phrase that is used as a term with special meaning. It's your choice.
The ellipsis takes the place of a period when it's used at the end of an incomplete sentence ("It's been...") to indicate a flow into another sentence. No full stop after the ellipsis. Em-dashes are also an option, or mixing em-dashes and ellipses.
No.
Semi-colons are a little more formal and it's up to you whether you want to use them here or use something else. See point 1.
Yes.
Quotations go in quotation marks. It should be "...to 'throw up' every time...".
Em-dashes. Em-dashes are used, like parentheses, to enclose phrases that aren't necessary but are related to the sentence. Ellipses aren't used for that purpose.

I hope that helps, but if you have many more questions about punctuation throughout your book, I strongly suggest investing in a copy-editor. If you really plan on self-publishing it, and want it to be successful, an editor will help give your work more polish.

Self-publishing companies often offer editing packages, and there are freelance editors (but be careful, of course).

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