I have been experimenting with writing screenplays. And I have been wondering how the rules of punctuation change during dialogue, if at all. Can I get rid of semicolons and colons and just use commas and periods to punctuate dialogue? And can I place a comma where I feel there is a pause in the dialogue? And not be so rigid about the rules concerning clauses etc.
I would think the pause would require a beat or a line that would say ... Stoic pause, Happy pause..or just Pause Although an ellipsis still works. As far as comma breaks, I think you can't go wrong with the correct way. Unless you have an experimental reader that can interpret your style. There is a reason you would use a comma if you wrote... Let's go eat Mother... Or ... Lets go eat, Mother. The vocative comma is absolutely necessary.
The advice I usually hear is not to try to micromanage. trust the actors to put emphasis and pauses where necessary.
I try to be grammatically correct in narration but less grammatically correct in dialog because most people tend to use contractions and so forth when they speak. And like some have noted, I avoid semi-colons in narration and dialog because they can't make up their mind whether they're a comma or a colon!
Best practice for a long pause is either a double em dash in the line where the pause is or putting (beat) on a separate line. BOB So, you ready yet to -- hey, where the hell did you go? (Beat) Susan?
