Punctuation as Breath

As a playwright, I place a lot of importance on punctuation. Plays are written specifically to be voiced and embodied, so they need to align with the internal rhythm of the reader/speaker — heartbeat, breath. Punctuation is a very useful, nearly universal way to do that. I say nearly universal because each mark means something different to each playwright. But despite these variations, every mark contributes to the pacing of the story. Often, a playwright note at the beginning of the script explains what the punctuation marks mean for that particular script. For me, the marks stand for the following rhythms:

An en dash ( – ) indicates an interruption. It comes at the end of a line, meaning the next line begins at the dash even though the speaker isn’t finished their thought.

For example (from While We’re Young by Don Hannah):

RANDY: (beat) Debbi’s been distant ever since, since that thing with the baby.
JOANNA: “That thing with the baby”?!
RANDY: Ever since –
JOANNA: “That thing with the baby”!

A slash ( / ) indicates overlapping lines. It may come in the middle of the line and means that the next speaker begins at the slash whether or not Speaker 1 is finished. One fun thing about slashes is that the playwright can choose which words are spoken over so that there are layers of meaning — what goes unsaid, what goes unheard, what is given priority through volume or repetition.

For example (from Relatively Harmless by Jenny Munday):

BEN: Hello?
ZOE: Ben? What are you doing there again?
BEN: I just dropped in after /
ZOE: I’m coming home for a visit, okay?

We also often use words in stage directions to indicate a pause or moment of quiet within the dialogue, which allows space for the actor to embody the story through what is left unsaid: beat, pause, silence. Some playwrights like to identify the length of each of these in their script (again, all in the service of building pace and breath into the format). For myself, a beat is quick, like two to three heartbeats; a pause is two to three beats; and a silence is longer than that. That said, I’ll go and write long beat sometimes … so if in doubt, I want the actor to pay attention to how they feel when they read the lines. If they need a longer break before the next line to get to the emotion it needs, they should take it. This is the beauty of writing for an inherently collaborative art form — the script is only part of what the story becomes and how it’s told.

As in all writing, the usual punctuation marks within a sentence (comma, period) indicate breath and give the sentence a rhythm. Here’s a bit from Bone Cage by Catherine Banks, showing how the simple period imbues the sentence with emotion and pacing:

The intentional lack of punctuation is another tool playwrights use to give scripts their own particular rhythm. I’ll run a sentence on with no punctuation if the character is overly excited, scared or nervous. I’ll drop punctuation entirely at the end of a sentence if the character isn’t quite trailing off but also doesn’t have a firm end to their thought. The lack of punctuation also gives room for expression and interpretation from the actors.

All of which to say, if you’re editing a play, it’s important to pay attention to the use of punctuation — and to communicate with your client about which choices are intentional and which require your editorial eye to fix.

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Previous post from Sarah Higgins: More Than Seven Letters

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