forresti just recently returned from an almost year-long semicolon sabbatical, starting when i replaced all semicolons in a story with commas and it made just as much sense and flowed better, and now, upon my return, i'm quickly realizing why i stopped using them to begin with: they're simply confusing. the two main rules for usage being, one, separating grammatically complex lists, and two, connecting closely related clauses whose meaning might be interpreted differently without that connection.
the first usage is the most intuitive, and has some practical utility. although, it's easy to confuse a complex list of things with a series of linear actions, like "John ran to the car; he jumped into the front seat; he started the engine; &c," when you could just use conjunctions instead. so, when considering the semicolon, you have to have the stylistic judgement to determine if conjunctions are more appropriate. don't get me wrong, i like having options, but i'm kind of stupid, so.
the second usage is the catalyst for my sabbatical: joining two similar independent clauses with a semicolon because they would otherwise be confusing or misunderstood without one is very weird to me. i've not found many examples in my own writing where a semicolon works better than a comma or simply a period. you get into this trap where you think all vaguely related clauses should be joined by a semicolon, and this quickly runs wild. so i think i'm going to stick with the first usage only.
take for example, this passage:
"When he’d get really mad, his eyes would go dark red, he’d sprout feathery black wings, and he’d shoot lasers out of a third eye on his forehead. To an edgy twelve-year-old, there's nothing cooler than that."
you could easily use a semicolon after "forehead," but do you really need to? to me, it makes just as much sense with a period. one intuitively understands that that "that" (ew) at the end of the second sentence is referring to Jin Kazama.
but the problem here is that, technically, using a semicolon there wouldn't be grammatically incorrect, so you may be tempted to use one there, and that would be fine, i guess. my main problem is not so much the grammar but the fact that the semicolon exists in the first place, which adds a layer of additional complexity to my writing flow that i don't appreciate because i get hung up on it. perhaps i prefer simplicity.