The “grand finale” of Loyalty Fallen Book 2 is now live. In this chapter, things come to a head as Kathryn confronts the king to try to get an antidote for Ren. Read the full chapter here.

On to the main topic of the blog post! As I’ve spent more time on Scribophile and other critique sites, I’ve noticed a lot of common mistakes that writers make. This is part one of a new series that will address issues ranging from independent clauses to passive voice, strong verb usage, and more.

So let’s talk about commas, semicolons, and periods and how they relate to independent and dependent clauses.

Understanding independent and dependent clauses

First of all, if you’ve never worked with a professional editor, you might not know what these words mean. An independent clause is just a phrase that can stand on its own. “The water is wet” is an independent clause. You can put a period on the end and it’s a complete sentence. “The water is wet, but I am dry” is a sentence made up of two independent clauses. Either could be a sentence on its own, but you’re able to put them together because of the “, but” transition.

“Even though water is wet” is not independent, because it can’t stand on its own. So “Even though water is wet, I am dry,” is a sentence made up of a dependent clause followed by an independent clause.

You may wonder, does it really matter that much? Your reader can understand you just fine either way.

The truth is that most publications and editors will expect you to have a highly polished book or article by the time you get to their doorsteps. The last thing they want is to have to correct your comma usage every few sentences, so it’s better to get a firm idea of how and when you should use them early on in your writing.

At this point, to check your understanding, read the following sentences and see if you can count how many independent and dependent clauses there are in each. The answers will be at the end of this article.

A. The cat is limping, but I don’t know why.

B. The cat is limping because of its injured foot.

C. I’m going to sleep; I think you should too.

D. Despite the cold, I will sleep outside.

Using independent clauses

Let’s talk about how to know which types of punctuation you should use to divide independent clauses.

Whenever you have a sentence with a single independent clause, of course, you end it with a period (or an ellipsis in certain cases). “The girl is tall.” Whenever you have a sentence with more than one independent clause, however, things get much more complicated.

1. Use a comma followed by a conjunction. Many people mistakenly use just a comma to separate independent clauses, such as in the example, “The cat is limping, its foot is injured,” but this is incorrect. If you want to use a comma in this context, you must follow it with a conjunction like and, but, or or. “I don’t want to do that, but I will.”
2. Use a semicolon. You can ditch the conjunction if you want to use a semicolon. However, you should know that semicolons make a bit more of a hard stop than a comma and a conjunction, and it can feel like an interruption of sorts. Some people also think it’s a bit pompous.
3. Divide it into two sentences. I’ve noticed that a lot of people use similar sentence structure across a lot of sentences. If you find yourself with three sentences in a row that are each made up of two independent clauses separated by a comma and a conjunction, your prose will get stale. Divide up some sentences and make them short and punchy instead. “I don’t want to do that. I will anyway.”

Using dependent clauses

Use a comma if the dependent clause comes before the independent clause, as in the sentence, “Even if I were to do that, it would hurt me a great deal.” If the independent clause comes first and then the dependent clause, ditch the comma. “It would hurt me a great deal even if I were to do that.”

As another example of a dependent clause, in “I am very cold and also very unhappy,” the “also very unhappy” is a dependent clause, but you could easily make it independent by adding “I am.” As in, “I am very cold, and I am also very unhappy.” Again, you can use this knowledge to vary your sentence structure if you have too many sentences with an independent clause followed by a dependent clause or vice versa.

Final thoughts

Commas and semicolons can be tricky, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments. The next post will be on passive voice, so please follow the blog if you want to make your writing more action-driven!

Until then, enjoy Loyalty Fallen!

Answers: A. Two independent clauses B. One independent clause and one dependent clause. C. Two independent clauses. D. One dependent clause and one independent clause.