En Dash Bad: We met her parents-an affable pair-at the park.
Em Dash Good: We met her parents -- an affable pair -- at the park.

Em Dash Bad: mother--in--law
En Dash Good: mother-in-law

This is how I feel when I see a lot of them.

This is how I feel when I see a lot of them used incorrectly.

This is how I feel when I read a semicolon story that has at least some of them used correctly.

This is how I feel editing semi-colon stories.

Semicolons are hard to use correctly. The circumstances where you need them are few. But if you insist on using a plethora of them, you are

And you might get a lot more of this

A great story should simultaneously control what the reader imagines and not control imagination. Writing well is kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. One sentence is just right. In keeping with this idea I’ve created three sentences below. One is too little, one is too much and one is just right. Which one do you prefer? Why?

After the story closed, the shoe salesman plucked a pair of shoes from one of the display shelves and slipped them on his feet.

After Shoe Emporium closed, the shoe salesman plucked a pair of red pumps from the window display and slipped them on his feet.

After the Shoe Emporium, which was located next to Save-a-Buck closed, the shoe salesman plucked a pair of glitter red pumps with silver stripe across the toe from the manikin in the window display and sat down on a bench where he slipped them on his feet.

In the first sentence the reader can and will imagine the shoes and the shelf. However, the writer hasn’t given the reader quite enough information. In the third sentence the reader is overwhelmed with information and their imagination may be too controlled. In the middle sentence, red pumps readers just enough about the shoes to imagine what the writer wants, but also the freedom to draw on their experience of red pumps, perhaps even picture a pair they find amazing. Same goes with the window display. If the reader lives in an area where shoes are displayed on manikins, that’s what they’ll imagine. They might also imagine them on shelves or in a thousand other ways. The only time we have to say that shoes were on a manikin, is if the manikin is going to be important. For example, the shoe salesman steals the manikin shoes so the manikin steals them back.

Think of your reader when doing a line by line of your story or novel. On the kitchen table was a knife and the knife was on the kitchen table convey the exact same meaning. But the latter is the better choice in most cases. Moving the subject to the beginning of the sentence enables readers to understand its meaning more quickly. One might argue that the milliseconds it takes to compute the difference is negligible, but remember, how your sentences are formed, affect how readers form the movie of the book in their mind. The same goes for prepositional phrases.

In the kitchen, on the table next to the door, was a knife.

This might seem to read pretty well all by it's lonesome, but story is not a single sentence. Usually. Also keep in mind, where you place the verb or how many prepositions you use can speed up or slow down your story. If your hear feedback that your story has everything rocking but just feels slow for some odd reason, this might be why.

Challenge: Can you re-write In the kitchen, on the table next to the door, was a knife  with the subject at the beginning and subtract one prepositional phrase? Feel free to post your solution in the comments.