A lot of what I do when I edit stories is remove semicolons. 🤣

I mean, sure they have their place and can serve a useful function. But often (in actual practice) they just make for needlessly long or complex sentences.

Of course, writing or liking long, complex sentences is a matter of personal taste, so I'm not a member of the "never use semicolons" club. I'm just cautious about them.

By the way, did you know that novelists writing in French and German don't use quotation marks? (Probably other European languages are similar, but I'm only commenting on what I know from personal experience.)

French and German novelists do have access to certain marks and conventions to indicate dialogue, but often, for short bits, there's no mark at all. And you know what? Once you get used to it, it's not at all confusing.