Would a period be better before the last sentence? When Kim had booked her trip, she’d thought she was returning to a country that captured her heart the first time. She now realized that it wasn’t an affinity for Belgium that drew her back; it was the special bond with the Belgian who lived there.
I think the period would be better than a semi-colon. Seems to me a comma might be even better. I'd also get rid of the word "had" after "Kim."
I prefer a semicolon or possibly a comma. A period is too final; it separates the thoughts too much. (See what I did there?)
I originally had a comma, but would that not create a comma splice? This is the last line of a story, so I wanted to make sure the punctuation was correct. Thanks for your thoughts.
I don't think it is a comma splice, but I'm not a grammar guru so someone else can chime in. I don't see "it was the special bond with the Belgian who lived there" as an independent clause. Is it one?
Hmm, I consider it an independent clause only because it could stand alone as a sentence, although you wouldn't know what it means without the first part of it.
True. I guess the unclear meaning without the first part was influencing my view of it. You could say something like: "She now realized that it wasn’t an affinity for Belgium that drew her back but the special bond with the Belgian who lived there." And avoid the issue, I suppose. But stylistically it changes things.
She now realised that it was not the affinity for the Belgium that drew her back, but the special bond with the Belgium who lived there. If we know the Belgium lived there, you could take off 'who lived there'. She now realised *that* it was not the affinity for the Belgium that drew her back, but the special bond with the Belgium. You could also leave out *that*.
A colon would be grammatically valid and I think it would work well stylistically. And I would keep the word "had" after "Kim": it places it in the past relative to the narrative, not in the past of the narrative itself.
I am a self-confessed semi colon junkie, I think it's an extremely powerful, under-used little dot. I think the sentence looks just fine with it in
