NaNoWriMo - Attack of the Commas!

I think I use too many commas when I write prose. With 5 "nanos" under my belt, I figure I have enough data to see what I'm doing, comma-wise, over the last few years.

I wrote a quick python script and here's the output for my 5 nano novels:

#--------------------------------------------------
#file    :  nill_1.txt
#commas  :  3609
#words   :  50046
#commas per 100 words is : 7.2
#
#--------------------------------------------------
#file    :  icarus.txt
#commas  :  3319
#words   :  50002
#commas per 100 words is : 6.6
#
#--------------------------------------------------
#file    :  horace.txt
#commas  :  3392
#words   :  50006
#commas per 100 words is : 6.8
#
#--------------------------------------------------
#file    :  jute.txt
#commas  :  2703
#words   :  50102
#commas per 100 words is : 5.4
#
#--------------------------------------------------
#file    :  jute2.txt
#commas  :  2267
#words   :  52449
#commas per 100 words is : 4.3

Wow, that's a pretty drastic/impressive drop off in commas. The "horace.txt" story had a ton of dialog in it, which inflated the commas a bit, I think.

So yeah, a great excuse to play around in the python today. My nanowrimo script does all sorts of useless things already, and this year I'll add "commas per 100 words" and maybe a few other fun/useless features or metrics.

Oh, and I should see how my comma totals compare to other 50k fiction novels. Maybe tomorrow...