Odd punctuation

[Hex]

I think there's something off about this... it may be the semi... Any thoughts?



We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my own shampoo in his hair; lavender and tea tree, smell my lemony soap on his skin.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my own shampoo in his hair; lavender and tea tree, smell my lemony soap on his skin.

I don't think it's the semicolon, although in general this is a device which should be used sparingly. Where it reads awkwardly is with the phrase after "tea tree." I might do something like this:

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my shampoo in his hair; lavender and tea tree. I inhale the lemon scent of my soap on his skin.

Here's why:

1. I don't think you need "own."

2. I think you need a new sentence when you talk about the soap, and I think you should reword it to avoid "smell" again.

Otherwise, it's a beautiful sensory image.

 

[chrispenycate]

For me, the semicolon is definitely wrong; the lump after the mark isn't a full sentence, and the semicolon detaches the subordinate descriptive phrase, the tea tree fragrance block, from the shampoo and sticks it onto the soap. So, no semicolon. But the 'tea tree and lavender' block is essentially a parenthetical intervention - the sentence works fine without it - which is frequently handled with a pair of commas, except that there are so many sequential commas already. Perhaps even brackets?

 

[prizzley]

I think there's something off about this... it may be the semi... Any thoughts?

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my own shampoo in his hair; lavender and tea tree, smell my lemony soap on his skin.

I didn't notice the ; until the second read. It was the 'lavender and tea tree' after 'hair' that threw me. I'd prefer that before 'shampoo' (and drop 'own') so it doesn't read as lavender and tea tree hair!

 

[Ursa major]

I think there's something off about this... it may be the semi... Any thoughts?

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my own shampoo in his hair; lavender and tea tree, smell my lemony soap on his skin.

You might try:

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my shampoo in his hair -- lavender and tea tree -- smell my lemony soap on his skin.
​

or

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my shampoo in his hair (lavender and tea tree), smell my lemony soap on his skin.​

 

[Hex]

Thank you so much, you guys!

I am now thinking I might go with:

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my own shampoo in his hair, lavender and tea tree. I can smell my lemony soap on his skin.

But I will no doubt change it five or six times before I send it in

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Ursa's first is what I was going to say, so that's me out of it.

 

[Hex]

That was my immediate reaction too, but when I saw it written out (by Ursa), it doesn't have the pause I want (for some reason) before "smell my lemony soap...".

 

[Ursa major]

Another couple of goes:

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell the lavender and tea tree from my shampoo in his hair, and my lemony soap on his skin.
​

or

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell lavender and tea tree in his hair, and lemon on his skin. He's used my shampoo and soap.
​

I prefer the first: the second's way of mentioning the shampoo and soap sounds rather prosaic. (But do these have to be mentioned here, or at all? And if they do, is there a better place in the text for it?)

EDIT: Note that these both put the sensations before the deduction/description of how they come to be where they are. Yes, that he's used her shampoo and soap suggests -- to the PoV character at least -- that it's helping to create, or reinforce -- the bind between them. But perhaps he needed to wash and no other cleansing agents were available....

 

[Hex]

None of it matters at all, really. I think the lemony smell of his skin comes back, but apart from that it's just one of these mini-details. It was the punctuation that bothered me. Not sure how it got past me the first (few) time(s).

 

[J5V]

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my own shampoo in his hair; lavender and tea tree, smell my lemony soap on his skin.

Minimal change would be as follows, but it's a bit awkward:

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my own shampoo in his hair: lavender and tea tree; smell my lemony soap on his skin.

The colon indicates that what follows is more detail or clarification. The semicolon indicates that the following is being reiterated in a different way than the preceding clause. However, it's not entirely fixed, and could do with a little re-arrangement to disambiguate (yes, that's a word) the "smell..." clause. It's also too clunky as I've written it, being technically correct but distracting to read the rare punctuation. Best to break the last clause into a sentence of its own.

 

[Kylara]

I would mix up the second bit a bit - something like this:

We lie in the dark, our hands touching. I can smell my lavender and tea tree shampoo in his hair, (smell) my lemony soap on his skin.

Although bits can be cut/shifted to create the sense you want. The lavender bit is the problem in conjunction with the soap as they are both additions.

 

[tinkerdan]

Perhaps you are missing an opportunity.

We lie in the dark, smelling my lavender and tea tree shampoo in his hair, my lemony soap on his skin, as our hands touch.

Ah but maybe you are right for now I'm tempted to add::

We lie in the dark, smelling my lavender and tea tree shampoo in his hair, my lemony soap on his skin, feeling the rhythm of our heartbeats as our hands touch.