Free A Dash of Style by Noah Lukeman

much grunting and loud breathing, floundered a minute in the sea. When he had gone, beach and bay were quiet for an hour. Merchantmen crawled westward on the horizon; bus boys shouted in the hotel court; the dew dried upon the pines.
    The punctuation in each of these sentences mirrors the content. The opening, long sentence, captures the feeling of the man spending a long time at the beach. The second, short sentence captures the peace and quiet after he leaves. And the final sentence prolongs that quiet, captures what it means in particular. Note also how, in context, the semicolon balances the paragraph. If the final sentence had been broken up with periods (making three short sentences), the paragraph would have been too choppy.
    • Keep in mind that a semicolon takes the pause effect away from a nearby comma, and takes the stop effect away from a nearby period. When the semicolon connects, the comma becomes less important; when it divides, the period seems less meaningful. Commas and periods do have a power of their own. Their effect can be lost when too many (or ill-placed) semicolons come onto the scene. And there might be times when you want the impact to fall on the comma or period. Even though the semicolon can work in any given circumstance, it doesn't mean it should. Always be mindful of its stealing the limelight.
    Alternately, sometimes you can use the semicolon to actually enhance the power of a comma or period. By creating a long sentence with a semicolon, for example, you give yourself the opportunity to contrast it with a shorter sentence. Consider this example from Harold Brodkey's Profane Friendship:
    Here is the self and the hovering moment; here is the trembling, nervous, seemingly near motionlessness of the surface of the water; here is the rustling bowwave and wake; here they are in subduedly echoing canals in Murano; then here is the Lagoon again, Venice ahead obscured; here is San Michele on the left pretending that the dead are silent and are not numberless; here is the gouging and choppy passage of the white motorboat over gray fluidities, the lighted grayish rain-teased air holding a glow as of a decomposing moon, and I am enveloped in flitters of memory which I resist of the canals in Venice itself, the wrinkled water in the no behind our house, the secret hushes and whispers there, time's indescribable motion on a Venetian afternoon. I was a child here. And here is my history of love.
    He offers his observations of Italy as he flies over it, and the semicolons here allow us to absorb an (extremely) full image at once. They offer a nice parallel to the content itself, since flying over a country would, indeed, offer several images at once, yet with a bit of separation. But notice especially how Brodkey concludes this
    excerpt, the radical brevity of the final two sentences. It is a supreme example of context, of radically contrasting sentence length in order to make a point stand out.
    WHAT YOUR USE OF THE SEMICOLON REVEALS ABOUT YOU
    As the semicolon is an advanced tool, the writer who overuses it is likely to be somewhat advanced, one who takes chances with language and strives to make it the best it can be. This bodes well. However, since the semicolon is also a fairly formal, classy tool, the writer who overuses it is also likely to lean toward pretentiousness. He is more likely to write in flowery, ornate prose, and the writing is likely to be overly intricate. Simplification is needed. This writer is likely to be more prose than plot oriented, and will suffer from a slower pace and less action. His writing will more likely lack a dramatic punch.
    It is hard to underuse the semicolon, since a work can exist perfectly well without one. That said, there are cases when it is called for, and the writer who completely ignores it is likely to either be a beginner, or hesitant to take chances with language. He is less likely to have well-crafted prose, less likely to offer nuances of style and