Colonoscopies, on the other hand…
Colons are surprisingly useful—unlike
parentheses. However, you should still be careful in how often you use colons.
By definition, a colon is a punctuation
mark that introduces text. Remember that word: introduces. That’s what
makes it different from other punctuation and can even allow a colon to replace
a comma, an em dash, or even a period. Separate from replacing other forms of
punctuations, colons have the unique ability to introduce written text within a
manuscript.
Detective Bowers stared at the
blood-stained note left by the killer:
Hello, detective. Miss me? I’ve
missed you. I spent years locked in that prison, but you gave me a precious
gift. An unlimited time to think, plan, and stew. Speaking of stew, are you
hungry? I still think that there’s a few bites of Angelica left in the fridge.
Instead of a comma, a colon can
introduce a question in narrative, a piece of dialogue, a series/list, or even
a summary.
Introducing questions in narrative:
Elise wasn’t sure what she should do:
run or hide? The killer was close, and if she didn’t decide soon, he’d surely
catch her.
Introducing dialogue:
Sarah explained the house’s features: “There
is one bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor with three additional bedrooms
and two bathrooms on the second story—including the master bedroom.”
The important thing to note here is that
a colon also replaces the dialogue tag. If you decide to use a colon, don’t
include phrases like he said or she shouted. If you don’t like
the aesthetics of the paragraph above, the example can be correctly rewritten
without a colon:
Explaining the house’s features, Sarah
said, “There is one bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor with three
additional bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second story—including the master
bedroom.”
See? Easy. What is more difficult is
including multiple, simultaneous conversation between speakers that you don’t
want to or need to introduce. What then? This is a great place to use a colon.
For a real-world example, let’s examine an excerpt from Scott Lynch’s Red
Seas Under Red Skies:
[Ravelle] was uncomfortably aware that
the survivors all seemed to be staring at him. He caught snatches of their
conversation:
“…laughing, he was…”
“Saw it as I came up the side. Charged
them all by himself…”
“Never seen the like.” That was Streva,
whose left arm looked broken. “Laughed and laughed. Fucking fearless.”
“… ‘the gods send your doom,
motherfuckers.’ That’s what he told them. I heard it…”
Here, it is far easier to use the colon
and avoid describing most speakers, because most of the speakers don’t matter.
Rather than slow down the pacing of the story while trying to introduce each
speaker, the colon allows the author to maintain a fast pace of the story.
Otherwise, the scene would need to be written approximately as follows:
[Ravelle] was uncomfortably aware that
the survivors all seemed to be staring at him. He caught snatches of their
conversation.
One said, “…laughing, he was…”
Another whispered, “Saw it as I came up
the side. Charged them all by himself…”
“Never seen the like.” That was Streva,
whose left arm looked broken. “Laughed and laughed. Fucking fearless.”
A fourth added, “… ‘the gods send your
doom, motherfuckers.’ That’s what he told them. I heard it…”
Despite being an acceptable way of
rewriting the paragraph, the use of words like one, another, and fourth
are unnecessary words that slow down the momentum of the story.
Introducing lists:
Hailey’s morning routine included the
following actions: taking a shower, brushing her teeth, and combing her hair.
It should be noted that a colon is not
always necessary before a series/list. A colon is only necessary when the
preceding phrase is grammatically complete on its own. Again, the example above
can be correctly rewritten without a colon:
Hailey’s morning routine included
taking a shower, brushing her teeth, and combing her hair.
Not,
Hailey’s morning routine included:
taking a shower, brushing her teeth, and combing her hair.
An exception to the rules of lists is
when introducing summaries:
Pros: all of Emily’s friends had come
to the party, the music was great, and nothing had been broken. Cons: Emily’s
little brother had also joined the party.
Note: see page 8 for details.
This type of summarizing is acceptable
because the audience is familiar with these types of phrases. See how that
works? Punctuation rules often shift overtime to keep up with the mainstream
style of speaking and writing, which is often incorrect according to
traditional grammar guidelines. This is why language and grammar rules change
across the centuries. Again, we posit that punctuation rules dictated by
various style guides—who disagree with one another—don’t actually matter as
long as the author is effectively communicating ideas to the audience.
Moving on, a colon can replace an em
dash and provide emphasis to text:
Fake blood was spattered on the siding
outside the Smiths’ home. Forks had been staked into the lawn. Eggs were still
dripping down from the windows. Even the trees and shrubs were covered in
toilet paper, which had been sprayed with a hose so it couldn’t be pulled down.
Only one word could describe Justin’s Halloween
prank: overkill.
Here, using a colon to emphasize a
single word is very useful, but the longer an emphasized phrase becomes, the
more likely it is to distract the reader.
Justin’s Halloween prank could only be
described as overkill: fake blood was spattered on the siding outside the
Smiths’ home, forks had been staked into the lawn, and eggs were still dripping
down from the windows. Even the trees and shrubs were covered in toilet paper,
which had been sprayed with a hose so it couldn’t be pulled down.
In place of a period, a colon can
connect two independent clauses that are similar in though—much like a
semicolon. However, the important note here is that, unlike a semicolon,
punctuation rules dictate that a capital letter be used after the sentence. Review
the three examples below:
Henry had a problem. His house was on
fire.
Henry had a problem; his house was on
fire.
Henry had a problem: His house was on
fire.
Here, we don’t like the use of a colon
to connect two sentences together, because the colon and the proceeding
capitalization of the second sentence is distracting. So is using a
semicolon—if you want to know why, review the article entitled, Semicolons; More Like
Semi-Stupid! As a period is simpler and more easily understood by
the audience, we use that. The more invisible our punctuation, the better.
Despite describing each of the various
ways that colons can be used, we only use them to introduce written texts,
lists, and multiple simultaneous conversations because the audience is familiar
with the use of colons in these cases. In other cases, we either use a comma,
period, or em dash which allows the reader to pay more attention to the actual
story than to be bogged down by colons or semicolons that are superfluous and
unnecessary in writing. That being said, you can use colons for all the
situations explained above. Just be sure to be consistent in how frequently
this punctuation mark is used.
