Punctuation Drunk

Small rant here if I may. I love to read as much as I love to write, and normally, I subscribe to the old adage, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Mostly because “people in glass houses…” and all that.

Anyway, I’m not going to name names, but there is a punctuation trend that drives me nuts. Every. Single. Time.

Yep! That’s the one. Dividing a three-word sentence up using a period between each word. If you ask me, it's worse than peppering your manuscripts with exclamation points! (But not much!)

I get it. It’s for emphasis. It’s how people think. It’s fresh. Well, scratch that last one. It used to be fresh. I think every contemporary writer—and a few historical novelists—I’ve read recently is using it. One author used it almost once a chapter. Made me wonder if her protagonist had a bit of a speech impediment. 

I even saw it used on a store display earlier this week! When the marketers pick up on a trend, you know things can only get worse. Luckily for the marketers, they can change their ad campaign. No one will remember. Unfortunately for authors, this trend will date your writing to that time back in the mid-twenty-teens when authors were a bit punctuation drunk.

MJ