"The horses, the young man, and the soldier; they all burned with rich life energy." Prowritingaid says the semicolon is incorrect. Specifically it says the semicolon is redundant and recommends that I simply remove it. That makes no sense to me. "The horses, the young man, and the soldier all burned with rich life energy." is the only version of this sentence Prowritingaid will accept as grammatically correct. I will probably change it to this because it works, but I would like to understand what I'm doing wrong with the semicolon. (I'm aware the first half is technically a fragment. We're inside the character's thoughts at this point and he's under pressure, so he WOULD think in fragments.)
Since you recognize that the first half of your sentence is a fragment, with no verb and no predicate, you already know why it's grammatically incorrect. That said, I'm sure I have either read or heard similar constructions. What I can't remember is if it should be punctuated with a semi-colon or a colon. After re-reading your post a couple of times I think the corrected version is stronger, but since you're not writing this as an essay for an English class (I hope), I think you are free to break a rule once in a while for effect.
I agree. Thank you! I will be using the corrected version. This is part of a character's thoughts in a scene in a fantasy novel.
Prowritingaid aside, there is a problem with your sentence. The relevant usage of a semicolon in this example is to link independent clauses. What you have--"The horses, the young man, and the soldier"--is a series of noun phrases, not clauses. A colon or an em dash would work. If you'd written "The horses, the young man, and the soldier were very excited; they burned with life energy," that would have been right.
It's a nonessential appositive. When those are compound (really compound, with a comma, I mean) like yours, they get set off with big punctuation. Colons, em dashes. In the middle, use em dashes. They all—the horses, the young man, and the soldier—burned with rich life energy. At the end, you have choices. They all burned with rich life energy—the horses, the young man, and the soldier. They all burned with rich life energy: the horses, the young man, and the soldier. Yours is at the beginning and you have the same two options. The horses, the young man, and the soldier—they all burned with rich life energy. The horses, the young man, and the soldier: they all burned with rich life energy. That first example would be better as "All of them . . .", but I left it as is. The construction wants to shift, even in the second set that need is there, though not as much. There's a reason for that shift. It's a cohesive trick. I guess it doesn't matter. You're in the third case.
Personally I'd remove the 'and', and replace the semicolon with an em dash. So I'd do: "The horses, the young man, the soldier—they all burned with rich life energy." For some reason, if I were to swap the order, I'd prefer to keep the 'and': "They all burned with rich life energy— the horses, the young man, and the soldier" Also, you know that the semicolon is wrong because the first part is a fragment (there's no verb) but want to justify it because the character is thinking in fragments. Personally, if that's the case I think a hard stop with a period is better despite also being grammatically incorrect, maybe something like: "Through the rifle scope, he tracked every figure that crossed the bridge. The horses, the young man, the soldier. They all burned with rich life energy."
Actually, taking the approach I suggested, I just realized if that's the intent, more periods would be better: "Through the rifle scope, he tracked every figure that crossed the bridge. The horses. The young man. The soldier. They all burned with rich life energy." Not sure if it works for your scene.
I'd be tempted to remove the word "all", although it changes the emphasis of the sentence slightly (from the subject to the object). The horses, the young man and the soldier burned with rich life energy.
I will try all the suggestions in context and see which one produces the right effect, pace, and subtext. Thanks everyone!
Here's the WIP. A veteran soldier is bearing down on them. Rat is a mage, desperately seeking a source of power for his magic. ***** Rat held his breath and Fenrir tensed beside him. There’s no getting past this man. We fight, we lose. We run, we get caught. If I just had a potent source of energy… The horses, the young man, and the soldier all burned with rich life energy. One hard pull would drain them into unconsciousness. He could cover his tracks and disappear. He nearly threw up at the idea. I’m no Life-Stealer! His heart sank, and he prepared to surrender. *****
The semicolon should be a colon. "The horses, the young man, and the soldier: they all burned with rich life energy." Normally colons are preceded by what's general and followed by what's specific - but that can be inverted. "Saussure, Sapir, Bloomfield, Chomsky: all these have revolutionized linguistics in one way or another."
Omg why didn't I think of that? It's so good! I love it. Thank you for this. I'll definitely use it in the future
There is a school of thought that colons don't belong in narrative writing, and are best saved for academic texts.
I’d be wary of pwa and all the similar applications. They have their place but don’t accept all their suggestions as they are hidebound by rules that don’t always apply case in point fragments and such can be fine in limited third, it depends on how the character thinks and speaks which doesn’t have to be completely in line with the rules of style
That's the cult of mediocrity again trying to vandalize our ability to communicate Lord of the Rings has about 700 of them (more than 1 per page). It has outsold all those ignoramuses, whilst also standing as proof that ordinary people do quite like a bit of academic text in their narrative
I just don’t see how arbitrarily eliminating colons serves that. Creativity has nothing to do with whether you use colons or not.
It's funny how fired up we get about punctuation marks. I want to see us all square off into rival gangs, the Colons, the Em-Dashes, the Semicolons. On second thought, I'm not sure anybody would want to say "You don't mess with the Colons!" Lol, I just had a Warriors flashback. You definitely wouldn't want to say "The Colons are going to rain all over you!!"
