I find myself using commas in two different ways in my writing. In the narrative paragraphs, I try to follow the grammar rules concerning commas, but in the dialogue sentences, I use the commas for ‘pause’ to make the dialogue sound/flow like spoken sentences. I don’t follow any grammar rules at all in dialogue sentences.

Is this the correct way (or normal fiction writers way) to approach comma use with narrative and dialogue?

Azel

I think I would find the use of commas simply to indicate pauses in dialogue could present a problem. In straight prose, the comma usually serves to break up a sentence according to its sense.

I was thinking about going to see her

but

I was thinking, about eight o'clock, about going to see her.

The comma tells us that I was not thinking about the time.
But, if you want to make your character pause after 'thinking' by using a comma

'I was thinking, about going to see her.'

you risk making us think initially that in a minute you're going to tell us the actual thing you were thinking about, i.e. that the 'about' phrase is going to be in parentheses. You only know it isn't after you've got to the end, which means you have to do a double-take.
I reckon that an ellipsis clearly indicates the pause without compromising the sense in any way.

'I was thinking... about going to see her.'

A dash might also be better than a comma but still risks seeming parenthetical and therefore breaking up the sense.
Others may disagree...

Chris

I've just been reading 'Self Editing for Fiction Writers' and they do seem to think it's OK in dialogue to use commas instead of full stops sometimes, to give more realism to the way people speak. So, you could write: "I went down the shop, I saw Jenna, she was eating chocolate."
I was surprised, I have to say. But actually, depending on the way the person speaks, I guess it makes some sense.
Susiex

I think you're probably right that there's no problem about substituting commas for full-stops in this situation. And the sentence

'I went down the shop, I saw Jenna, she was eating chocolate.'

is absolutely OK, but that's possibly because they're used grammatically, to divide three separate and listed clauses from one another, rather than as pause indications. It's when you want there to be a pause where there wouldn't otherwise be any punctuation that the real difficulty arises. An example would be if you wanted her to pause after 'eating' while she considered what it was she was going to say that Jenna was eating.

'I went down the shop, I saw Jenna, she was eating, chocolate.'

This is all the more problematical because two of the commas are now grammatical punctuation and one is just indicating a pause. In this particular example I still reckon that

'I went down the shop, I saw Jenna, she was eating... chocolate.'

would communicate more clearly to the reader where an actual pause is taking place.

But who's to say what's correct or incorrect? It all comes down to what works for the reader.

Chris

Yeah, I guess it really depends on who's speaking and how one can best show this. A teenager, for example, might say:
"I went down the shop, I saw Jenna, she was eating, like, chocolate."
So the 'like' would indicate the pause.
In 'The Graduate' (who the heck wrote it?)the hero uses 'uh' to punctuate his speech and that's what I most remember about him.
Susiex

I agree that ‘the pause’ in dialogue is the problem, when trying to sound like someone is speaking in the real world. There is no way to punctuate the sentence grammar correct, and make it sound correct. Often I have a problem trying to decide which to use for a pause in dialogue: comma, semicolon (stronger pause), dash, or ellipsis.

Azel

Just been talking about this very thing in my novelists group.
I tend to use a dash if there's a staccato or edgy feel to the line, and an elipsis if they're being thoughtful and searching about for the right word.
Susiex