Could've, Would've, Should've,
Contractions - a punctuation/grammar post
Or is it coulda, woulda, shoulda?
It’s been awhile since I posted a punctuation/grammar post. (At the close here are links to some other Unschool posts on punctuation.)
I often don’t use contractions when I’m feeling emotional about something, or trying to drive some point. I do this unconsciously, and often won’t realize it until a re-write.
At which point it’s just annoying. It is.
A quick reminder of how contractions work before moving on to how we might further use them.
We create contractions by conjoining pronouns or question words—he, she, it, who, what, where, when, how…
Paired with auxiliary verbs, forms of “have” and “to be.” So “am/are/is” and others.
These words are paired, with apostrophes replacing missing letters.
I am becomes I’m, where is becomes where’s, they are becomes they’re…
At times it’s not the first letter of the second word. Or not only the first letter.
So do not becomes don’t and—as in the title here—should have becomes should’ve
Note: at times there may be more than one way to understand the contraction.
I had = I’d
But I’d can also be understood as I would.
Read your work aloud for rhythm and clarity, and to verify if I would or had will be obvious for the reader.
The general thinking for the use of contractions is that they’re not to be used for academic or more formal work. Their use is considered informal.
But that’s only guideline. More and more, contractions are accepted. I’ll leave that choice to you if you’re writing academic work. Here, we’re talking about the creating of believable fiction, the flow of memoir.
And because I publish work for all ages, I’ll include a brief note that for writing early readers—works for young people ages 5-7—contractions are avoided. It’s usually in grade 2 that children learn about them, though they’ll be exposed to them before then. But for early reading, words are not contracted. (Look at the words in these two sentences. In one contracted, and in the other not.)
Beyond basics
In writing to evoke story, whether fiction or nonfiction, guidelines are never lines.
To use or not use contractions becomes an intuitive thing. Can we say intuition “becomes”? Or is intuition inborn and emerges? We have and do both. As artists we work from our “within” and we learn how to listen and evolve. Conscious work and subconscious.
So in this post, we’re taking a look at something we’ve been doing since age seven, and bringing a more conscious approach to it.
Contractions might serve in strengthening tone between the dialogue and the narrative in our work. It might be a way to distinguish the narrator’s voice, even. Or to differentiate one character’s dialogue from another’s. Or to create pitch in the emotional spectrum within the speech of one character.
Consider your own use of contractions as you speak. When do you speak with full words? Someone once pointed out to me that when I speak to my brothers, I drop my ‘g’s’ on words ending with -ing. I’d never realized this.
In creative work, there’s the abbreviating of words beyond established usages. This is when it gets interesting, with forms of contractions you won’t find examples of if you search the topic!
At times we’ll see something that uses an apostrophe even though it’s not a contraction. One that comes to mind is the very colloquial you’s. The apostrophe is not replacing anything. Really, the word that is being created here is an attempt at the badly needed—in English—second person plural. My old Australian room-mate always addressed us as “youse guys” (or you-s? yous?) “Youse” might be pronounced to rhyme with mouse, and misleading. So how, in fiction, in the mouth of a character, to evoke a tone, are you going to write “yous”?
Does an apostrophe ever create a plural?
One exception—which we expect in English! That of “dotting your i’s.” Here, the apostrophe is being used not to cause a misreading. Plural letter i. Not the word is.
Creating Character
To capture ‘character’ in dialogue is a significant challenge. But a little goes a long way.
The woulda, coulda… or is it should’ve? What does your character say? Or does he say woulda with his room-mate, and should’ve at his place of employment?
And beyond the generally-accepted contractions, might you begin to write your own?
For example, so’m as in so am I? And the contractions that aren’t written as contractions such as gonna or dunno? If you write YA or even MG fiction, these are questions you work with.
Again, a little of this goes a long way. And can easily slip into ‘too far.’ How can you know when it’s too much?
Listen to those around you, in a restaurant, on the bus, all those folks walking around talking loudly into their phones.
We are visually-oriented—but have we stopped listening closely?
In our contemporary world, in grade school, children are taught visual literacy. But in our work, literacy in all senses is useful.
In an urban world, “smell” has changed and lessened. (That was one of the scraps of silver lining in covid days, surely; those dinnertime smells all over the city as people actually cooked. I remember going outdoors at that time of day, just for the wafting scents. Like taking a walk on Thanksgiving afternoon…)
The next time you are somewhere (or you’re somewhere) in a place where you might overhear a conversation, close your eyes and listen. Listen hard. Listen to the speed at which individuals talk—some so quickly that all their words connect. Others, with deliberate enunciation. When do they slow, and when do they speed up? How do contractions evoke this on the page? When do they shave beginnings and endings off of words? With some conversation, you can hear the contractions, the run-ons, the cut offs…
How would you replicate this on the page? Can you?
And a P.S. because we have to —
It’s is ALWAYS the contraction of it is.
Its is always the possessive form, the one of “belonging to…” Yet another English exception…
Just for the record!
~~~
From the Archives — more punctuation posts
Dialogue punctuation:
You can find other posts on the homepage in the indexes (lower righthand corner).
A useful post, Alison. Thank you. I believe you are (you're?) right...a little goes a long way, and they're for informal writing. Like here. But as always in fiction, know your character and the situation. Sometimes a contraction is the perfect choice.
Interesting thoughts on contractions and how far to go in emulating the contractions of spoken language in direct speech and in narration where there’s a strong and personal narratorial voice. These are aspects of the craft of fiction writing I think about a lot, not necessarily coming to firm conclusions.
I tend to think that a little goes a long way in emulating individual or dialectal speech quirks in writing, even though they’re a source of fascination and joy to me as a linguist. At times I’ve definitely overdone it, but that only becomes clear during the revision process. It’s a fine yet fuzzy line between individualised and irritating, and different readers may draw it in different places.
As far as narration goes, I tend to think it has to be a matter of feeling for the rhythm and voice of the particular passage, but then the editor in me screams ’Aargh! Inconsistency!’
Telling my inner editor to shut up, I find that in third person direct / limited narration, using all the elements of register, including contraction, to hint at the manner of speech of the person from whose perspective the action is experienced creates the sort of intimacy I’m aiming for. Does that make sense?