Dash away, all!

Back when I wrote twenty-page letters on lilac-scented stationery—yes, I’m that old—a friend pointed out that I used more dashes than periods. Dashes still pepper my informal writing—see the previous sentence—oops, I can’t stop!--because they enable us to capture the irregular ebb and flow of ordinary conversation with all its starts and stops and interruptions and about-faces.

Dickens knew this when he gave Esther Summerson her voice in Bleak House: “It was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other birthdays—none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other birthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one another—there were none on mine.” If Dickens were writing today, he’d probably use but’s or periods instead, but I like the dashes—they highlight the contrast between the other girls’ lives and Esther’s. She continues to define herself by what she is not, set off by dashes: “I was brought up, from my earliest remembrances—like some of the princesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming—by my godmother.”