Em dash vs Parentheses vs Commas

SVenus

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When inserting a clause, which do you use? Em dash, parentheses, or commas? Are they in this situation as interchangable as they seem?

An example of the top of my head:

"When I entered the room—and I cannot believe I'm about to say this—I saw an orange goat."

OR

"When I entered the room (and I cannot believe I'm about to say this) I saw an orange goat."

OR

"When I entered the room, and I cannot believe I'm about to say this, I saw an orange goat."

I like the em dash the most. Parentheses in prose always struck me as odd, since I associate them more with numbers and academic writing than prose, and commas are already used in many other situations. And since I'm already asking, if you use the em dash as above, would it be better to be consistent and substitute semicolons with it, or to keep using semicolons precisiely to keep it different?

For example:

"Bed, desk, wardrobe; I saw nothing more."

OR

"Bed, desk, wardrobe—I saw nothing more."
 

rgroberts

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I also love em dashes because they're a great visual cue. I find parentheses make me feel like the author/character is whispering to me, while an em dash makes something stand out as different.

However, I liberally mix semi-colons in when the second half of the sentence is something I don't want emphasized; it's just a sentence and it's here to tell you bits of the story.
 

Introversion

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Not sure there’s any hard & fast rule here?

I will use em-dashes to signal a change in tone or an aside, whereas commas just read like a pause.

The inner snark of this:

She rolled her eyes at his promise — as if that was ever going to happen — but held her tongue.

versus the more distant version with commas:

She rolled her eyes at his promise, thinking it unlikely, but held her tongue.

I tend not to use parentheses for either, but that’s probably just me.
 
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angeliz2k

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Ah, the subtle art of punctuation.

In dialogue and exposition in fiction, I find parentheses unnatural. They aren't wrong though. They serve essentially the same purpose as the em-dash, setting aside a phrase. Commas can do similar things. However, em-dashes do more to separate the words within them than commas do. Like you say, there might be many commas in a sentence, and so the words you really want set apart might get lost.

Semicolons are perfectly fine as well, but they need to be used carefully because they do not work at all like parentheses or em-dashes.

"Bed, desk, wardrobe; I saw nothing more."

OR

"Bed, desk, wardrobe—I saw nothing more."

Both are fine, but I see a subtle gradation of meaning. To me, the first indicates more separation between these two thoughts. The em-dash, to me, indicates more of a relationship between the two thoughts. That is, in the first I see the narrator listing these things, and then he/she shrugs and notes he/she saw nothing more at all in the room. In the second, I see the character looking from object to object and concluding from that list of things that he/she saw nothing more than those objects. This is hard to explain, but that's how I interpret it. It's probably so subtle it doesn't matter much.
 

SVenus

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I agree with rgroberts regarding the em dashes.

I don't think you're using the semicolon properly there though.

You may be right, I was just trying to think of an example of the top of my head and couldn't think of anything :D
 

mccardey

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I have no idea but I think it's a brave question. If you write a brilliant book and it gets picked up by a top level publisher and they assign you their fave editor you'll come back and let us know, right?