Things wot I rediscovered in 2008 #1

Punctuation and paragaphing can make or break a story. Also, some writers develop their own secret code for explaining punctuation and it doesn't always match what the reader reads. So many of the short stories I've read this year (for Masques and for other things) needed a magic punctuation wand or a paragraphing thingamijiggy.

Personally, I don't think readers should have to decode stories unless they're stories about code (Red Shift is the only novel I can think of off the top of my dead where decoding would give a couple of pages of extra joy: if anyone wants to decode those pages, I can help).

One of my resolutions for next year is to polish my own punctuation and paragraphing until it's lustrous and leads readers to their doom. I'm assuming my own fiction is doomful. What else could it be?

My punctuation and paragraphing will continue to be random in this blog. That is quite intentional.