Writer's Fallout Shelter

I love that sentence. If I had to stick with that sentence's wording, I would leave it alone if it was dedicated to three separate and distinct entities. If my parents were Ayn Rand and God, I would use a colon instead of the comma.

Here is one example sentence from my story that reviewers cannot agree upon with regards to comma usage:

"When you were born I knew there was a higher power."

I look at that sentence and it looks like a coin flip to me as to whether or not to use a comma. My first impulse was to punctuate it, but authors I admire, such as Mario Puzo, wouldn't use a comma there. They only use punctuation when absolutely necessary. (Or maybe it comes down to their editors.) I can think of several authors offhand who wouldn't use it there (Thomas Perry comes immediately to mind). But I also understand the argument as to why it shouldn't. In the end, I decided against it because I thought the sentence flowed better without it. But I guess the sentence contains two clauses, one dependent and one independent.

"When" should have perhaps been used as a subordinating conjunction in the following manner:

"I knew there was a higher power <i>when</i> you were born." Then I wouldn't have to worry about a comma at all.

I think I kind of solved my own dilemma on that one sentence with this post.

Thanks,

Ed