Augh! It's a perfectly cromulant punctuation mark!

[valarltd]

Ellora's Cave does not take colons in their work.

But how the flaming Sea am I supposed to punctuate this sentence WITHOUT one?
“At the end, let only this be said: that all Ruvane Delkroy did, he did for love of Etarin.”

Comments

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

The really fun part is that at one point in the story, I have a complex list. It has a colon and several semi-colons. I try to avoid the latter, but there are times when one needs them.

I don't understand colon avoidance.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

And what of cases where you're trying to covey a sense of officiousness and buracracy? I have a scene where they're dealing with the equivalent of the DMV.


“Property named Etarin: human, nulled male; age twenty-four; current owner, Ruvane Delkroy; permanent residence, small hauler Grania, in transit, no home port,” he read. “Is all that correct?”

“Yes,” Ruvane said, unhappy with the bluntness of it.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

They're from the same story. And they are the only two, out of ten, that I think need to stay.

I'm discovering I use a lot of colons.

[lordindra.livejournal.com]

Just rip out all the punctuation.

It worked for Malory.

Seriously, I tried reading L'Morte D'Arthur in high school. I think there were maybe a half dozen punctuation marks in the first 20 pages.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

"At the end, let only this be said--that all Ruvane Delkroy did, he did for love of Etarin."

[synamontwist.livejournal.com]

Make it two sentences.

At the end, let only this be said. That all Ruvane Delkroy did, he did for love of Etarin.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Sorry, love, that doesn't work at all.

[megleigh.livejournal.com]

The only other option is an emdash and I know it sucks, but the publisher gets to call the shots here.

[samcdermott65.livejournal.com]

No colons?! I had heard they limit commas but not other forms of punctuation.

Emdash would be the only alternative that would make at least a bit of sense.

shari

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

No colons. No word on semi-colons.

Thing is, we'll be editing a novel soon and it has about 40 colons, or two per chapter.

I write in lists.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize a publisher could opt out entirely of some punctuation marks -- that's rather ridiculous and arbitrary. I'm not a big colon user per se, but there are times when that is the correct mark to use. What in the world is the point of not using it?

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

To quote the Style manual:

Colon
A colon is rarely used in informal fiction. In most cases, an em dash or a comma will ensure clarity.

See, that to me doesn't say "No colons EVER!" It says "avoid where possible."

[reannon.livejournal.com]

They despise commas, too. As in, "She nearly shoved the tin at Ryan then skittered back over to her perch on the arm of the couch." To me, it rather needs a comma after "Ryan." To them, "It slows down the eye of an ebook reader." To me, an ebook reader should be treated with the same intelligence as a print reader and the grammar should be the same. ah well.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

This ebook reader would be bitching at you for not knowing how to punctuate, and wondering why your editor didn't catch it.

I...am beginning to suspect there's a reason I haven't bought one of their books in ever so long.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

But you'll make an exception for ABADDON, right? :)

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

Only because I have faith in you despite the mental deficiencies shown by EC's editors.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I haven't had any trouble with my commas. That may be an editor thing.

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

You're kidding me. Why not, for heaven's sake? ::baffled:;

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

They think it's too formal.
(which is a step up from my ungenerous midnight assessment that they think their readers are too dumb)

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

It's not something I use a lot; practically never, in fact, but as a writer it's part of my toolkit and I wouldn't like to be deprived of it and have to make do with a hammer when I need a screwdriver.

It's too early to come up with a better analogy than that :-)

[sailorcelestial.livejournal.com]

That's quite the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's proper grammar, they should learn to live with it; grammar doesn't change just because they want it to change.

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

That's stupid of them. Your example is a perfect use of a colon. If they don't like it, it seems to me that they ought to be the ones to come up with an alternate solution.

But I'm sure it doesn't really work like that. Still. How stupid.

[the-willow.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Girl.....

Everything I hear about them from authors (often times you but also more than just you) has me knowing EC be the last place, last, right after printing stories out at Kinko's and putting them up in a nudie bar, that I want to take my work to.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I'm just bitching because the rules seem so arbitrary sometimes. And I worked to get into EC, because of the huge potential client base.

I can't live on $70/mo from my writing.


(At least we haven't had a demand for more cowbell.)

[the-willow.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

I think what I can't ever forget is an editor from them telling you to sex up your story more. (Yes it sucks that it's my fav and I can't remember the title. But the Jewish lawyer and her miracle child)

I know that they're wanting sexy stories. But that made me feel like they don't care about flow and characterization, they just want print out the wank material.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

They said Etarin needs more sex too, about 4-5 more pages. Of course, beefing up the existing scenes will be fine.

What got me on "Burning for Eight Days" was the "Sex it up/ooops, it's all sex, give us plot" two-step.

But they took it, and I'm hoping for good money. (It's what I call whoring anyway, writing for the money and not for desperate need to tell the story)

The D-Man checks in

[(Anonymous)]

Well, there's always my favorite... The ellipsis (...)

“At the end, let only this be said... all that Ruvane Delkroy did, he did for love of Etarin.”

Works for me, and according to the dictionary, there ain't nothin' wrong with it. A colon pretty much just signifies a leading pause anyway in speech, before whatever the previous sentence is leading up to follows.