Why do teachers spend half their life terrifying us? I’ll tell you. They are inordinately proud of their narrow, intellectual patch and want to reserve it for themselves. Punctuation does matter, especially for new writers trying to impress publishers, and the following steps should ensure you master this aspect of the writing craft in double-quick time. There are no examples below of correct and incorrect usage; why frighten the horses before the race starts?

Lesson One. Pick up any book written by a craftsman or woman and published by a reputable publisher (Graham Greene and Dick Francis are certainly authors to study) and see how their work is punctuated. Examine the dialogue and see how they meticulously indicate meaning by careful punctuation.

Note. The more you write, the more rewarding the above exercise becomes. You will soon recognise how punctuation ‘marks’ make crystal-clear what might otherwise be hazy or poorly focused ideas.

Lesson Two. There are no commercial prizes for using every mark that punctuation offers. Neither are gongs handed out for the number you use. If ideas are clear in your head before you start writing, and you resist the temptation to use too many long sentences with one or multiple clauses, you shouldn’t need to split up or highlight your ideas excessively to communicate.

Lesson Three. If you master the use of the humble comma before dabbling with colons and semi-colons you will be on a winner. I’ll go further and say that if you can use commas correctly you’ll be 90% of the way towards good communication.

Lesson Four. Don’t spend too much time ‘exclaiming’. Exclamation marks should be used sparingly otherwise your writing will suffer from the ‘cry wolf’ syndrome; when you really need to highlight a word or phrase nobody will take a bit of notice.

Lesson Five. Read your work out loud - slowly – and try to read it so that your message cannot be misunderstood. And remember, you know what comes next, but your reader doesn’t. If you do this properly, with poor or no punctuation present, you will soon be able to spot absurdities or confusion or ambiguity that can be eradicated by a comma here, or a semi-colon there.

Lesson Six. Most writers need a number of drafts under their belt before they attain a facility for first-time-correct punctuation. So don’t despair if some usage is hard to understand when you begin. Write ‘long’. By this I mean write down the story in your head without worrying about getting every mark in the right place. And keep writing until you’ve finished the piece, or perhaps, chapter. Only then should you return and correct the obvious errors. The job is not complete, however. Writing, like bread, needs to prove before being baked. With writing, it’s critical you put some distance between yourself and your creation for a while. Personally, I find a week the minimum period. When you return to your draft you will be astounded at the number of errors that still exist which your excited and tired brain refused to register.

Lesson Seven. Don’t let a soul see your work until after the ‘proving’ period and re-editing has been completed. If you rush your work to readers you will be doing yourself a disservice and giving them headaches.

Lesson Eight. Publishing houses are busy places, and submissions that are poorly punctuated won’t find favour. That’s putting it mildly! It’s unlikely they’ll even be read. Established authors with bestsellers under their belt might get away with sloppy punctuation, but experience says even here, publishers take a dim view. If you want to be published, only offer pristine copy, well punctuated and laid out as directed by the publishing house in question.

Lesson Nine. A disinterested, third party editor can often spot in seconds the errors and omissions that need correcting in a draft. Professional book editors can help those who are prepared to help themselves. If you have a facility with words to begin with then their job is simply to take their writing over the final hurdles with a top-up of punctuation advice. We all acquire bad habits over the years, and have difficulty in recognising them ourselves. Assessments help you understand how each punctuation mark is used – using your work as the perfect example. If you are serious about seeing your work in print, get it right and you might just impress the right publisher with beautifully punctuated manuscripts.