Common writing mistakes #14

#14 — Misusing commas

I’ve done one of these on commas before. I had talked about using commas to continuously add information to a sentence. But I haven’t talked about when to use a comma and when not to.

Commas are complicated. What tends to get overlooked with them though is independent clauses and dependent clauses.

An independent clause can stand on its own. I walked into the house.

A dependent clause cannot stand on its own because some information is missing. After I came home from the store.

When joining an independent clause and dependent clause, no comma is needed. But when joining two independent clauses, a comma is needed to separate the two ideas.

Here are some examples:

• I wanted to help him, but he wasn’t listening to me.
• She moved closer but stopped short.
• As they cast a spell toward me, I ducked behind a table and hoped that they couldn’t reach me.
• I wanted a snack after my hour-long class.
• Going from one side of the house to another sucked, so I moved my fridge into my bedroom.

A good trick is to see if the subject at the beginning of the sentence has changed or repeated by the end. If it has, it probably needs a comma.

I hope this helps!

DARE TO CONTINUE?

#1 — USING MULTIPLE ADJECTIVES
#2 — VAGUENESS FOR TENSION
#3 — REPEATING WORDS FOR EMPHASIS
#4 — COMMON MISUSED WORDS
#5 — MISUSING HYPHENS

#6 — UNNECESSARY DETAILS
#7 — NOT DEVELOPING CHARACTERS
#8 — THE WORDS FEEL AND FELT
#9 — OVERUSING CHARACTER NAMES
#10 — ADDING TOO MANY DETAILS WITH COMMAS

#11 — DIFFERENT TYPES OF DASHES
#12 — NOT USING PLAIN LANGUAGE
#13 — DIALOGUE TAG VS. ACTION Beats
#15 — NO SENTENCE VARIATION

#16 — MISPLACED MODIFIERS
#17 — CHARACTERS WITH SIMILAR NAMES
#18 — WHEN TO START NEW PARAGRAPHS
#19 — STARTING SECTIONS WITH PRONOUNS
#20 — SMALL, REPEATING PHRASES