: Possible interactions of punctuation marks with the word "however" in a novel When using the word "however" in my story, I feel like using a semicolon before it disrupts the flow of words in

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Firstly, there should not be a semicolon after that first clause. Semicolons are typically used when separating two clauses of equivalent weight in meaning. To borrow some of your sentence, this would be an appropriate use of a semicolon:

The school was public; it cost nothing to enter.

That's assuming that the school's being public meant that it cost nothing to enter. Public schools in England though cost a lot to enter, so check that this is what you mean.

Speaking of which and more to the point, you mention that you want your narrator to speak in 'normal everyday dialogue'. But you don't say where the narrator is from, so it's not clear what you mean by 'normal'. Some speakers would not even use the word 'however'; they might say 'but' instead for example:

But, contrary to first opinions, the school was public and cost
nothing to enter.

While some would raise a grammatical objection to starting a sentence with 'but', bending or breaking the rules to convey a voice in fiction is common practice. If your narrator is speaking more formally, you could go with an initial-position 'however':

However, contrary to first opinions, the school was public and cost
nothing to enter.

Strunk and White in Elements of Style insist on a second-position 'however' but some believe this to be a fossilised prejudice. If the narrator is in fact writing his/her account as opposed to speaking it, or if they are reading it out, then you might go with Strunk and White's advice.

So correct the semi-colon as that's an important punctuation issue and doesn't make sense the way you have it currently. But do what you need to do with word placement to get it sounding as authentic as possible. I hope this helps.

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The use of the semicolon is incorrect. The sentence should read

Contrary to first opinions, however, the school was public and cost nothing to enter.

No, you cannot omit the first comma in the sentence as constructed. The sentence also doesn't sound like one that most people would use in everyday dialogue, due to structure and word choice.

You might consider just getting rid of the first clause and starting with "However". Advice would be easier to render if the preceding text were given as well.

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