[identity profile] mab-browne.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] fandom_grammar
Today’s article is about punctuating dialogue.

With dialogue punctuation, the important point, as with any aspect of writing, is to be clearly understood. You’re going to blunt the emotional impact of your fanfic epic if your reader can’t figure out what’s going on, and there are agreed-upon conventions to make sure that your reader is paying attention to your story rather than going, “Say what?” Jim and Blair from “The Sentinel” will assist with examples.

When you write, dialogue should be enclosed with double quotation marks, thus:

“If you expect conversation this early in the morning, there’d better be coffee,” Blair said.


Note that the dialogue tag, the part of the sentence that tells you who’s talking, is part of the sentence, and that a comma helps to separate Blair’s speech from the tag. Don’t use a period/full stop.

Incorrect:
“The line at the bank was hell.” Jim said.

Correct:
“The line at the bank was hell,” Jim said.



Other punctuation that directly relates to the dialogue in question should also be within quotation marks:

“How much will it cost to fix your truck?” Blair asked.

Jim fixed the hostage-taker with a glare. “Let go of the child!” he shouted.



Sometimes, dialogue punctuation follows a different format. For example:

Blair did a double-take. Did Jim really just say, “Chief, I like doing your tests”?

In this case, the question mark is outside the quotation marks because Jim’s remark was not itself a question.

Sometimes the tag is placed in the middle of the dialogue, or perhaps the writer wants to insert some action rather than a tag:

“The line at the bank,” Jim said, “was hell.”

“Are you telling me,” Blair’s eyebrows rose, “that you like doing tests?”


Where you've interrupted speech with action, some authorities suggest the following:

"Are you telling me" - Blair's eyebrows rose - "that you like doing tests?"



If a character is reporting somebody else’s words inside their speech, then single quotes are used to enclose the reported speech:

The prosecuting attorney gave Blair an encouraging look. ”And what happened then, Mr Sandburg?”

“I heard Jim shout ‘let go of the child!’” Blair said.


The above also illustrates an accepted convention where there are two or more speakers; in brief, give each speaker their own paragraph.

What if you have a wordy speaker whose speech should ideally be broken up into paragraphs? If there’s a lengthy speech, don’t close your quotation marks until the end of it. Also, the Chicago Manual of Style suggests that each new paragraph should have quotation marks at the beginning:

Don Haas stared sternly into the camera. “My investigations have raised troubling questions as to the ethics and performance of Cascade Police Department staff, and this in-depth report offers no easy answers. We can only make you, the viewer, aware of these issues.

“First, there is the question of why an acknowledged fraud, Blair Sandburg, was put on a fast-track to a privileged position in the division of Major Crimes-”

Jim turned the tv off.


This quote also illustrates using a dash to show that a speaker has been interrupted. If a speaker is trailing off in thought or uncertainty, then ellipses are the way to show that:

”Oh my God... ,” Blair murmured, staring at the vandalised living room.


It came as a surprise to me to learn that there are differences between US and UK usage. To quote this site, About.Com:

In the U.S., periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks. In the U.K., periods and commas go inside the quotation marks only for a complete quoted sentence; otherwise, they go outside. In all varieties of English, semicolons and colons go outside the quotation marks.


I've never met this before, I must admit. To add to this New Zealand reader’s confusion, the US and UK can operate under different conventions with quotation marks. Books printed in the UK have single quotation marks to open and close dialogue, with double quotation marks used to denote speech that’s been reported.

Sticking with the accepted dialogue punctuation basics will ensure that your readers are paying attention to the intent of your characters' words, rather than getting confused by dodgy formatting. Happy punctuating!

27/1/12 18:43 (UTC)
[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com
You fail to speak to the question of colons and semicolons which, at least in the United States, always go outside the quotation marks. I am unsure of the British convention on that point of punctuation, though when considered, outside seems most logical.

27/1/12 19:21 (UTC)
theemdash: (Daniel Bandana)
[personal profile] theemdash
To be fair, I can't think of a single instance in which you would end dialogue with a colon or semi-colon. But that is a topic that should be addressed at some point.

27/1/12 19:32 (UTC)
[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com
My Grandma Hamersmith always told me, "A stitch in time saves nine"; however, I find it easier to donate that blasted thing to Good Will.

27/1/12 19:33 (UTC)
[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com
Okay -- not dialogue, but it's a point of punctuation with quotation marks, and yes, there was a Grandma Hamersmith.

27/1/12 19:35 (UTC)
[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com
Rewrite:

Susan said, "My Grandma Hamersmith always said, 'A stitch in time saves nine'; however, I always found it easier to . . ."

27/1/12 19:40 (UTC)
theemdash: (M Grammar)
[personal profile] theemdash
Excellent example of it! Want to be a Fandom Grammarian? ;)

27/1/12 20:12 (UTC)
[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com
Maybe. I have no talent for plot construction, but I beta. I'm word perfect on grammar, diction, parallel structure, punctuation, elevated vocabulary, and so on. I'm also grind my teeth over word misuse, no matter how many folks are doing it the same way. It doesn't make me "mad," but "angry." I'm not insane yet, near thing, but not yet. The majority is not always right. Plodding stuff to most, but we all have our own niché. I see such wretched mistakes, but my favorite was "poultry" for "paltry." Not kiddin' here!

[email protected]
aka FGoVU
The Fairy Godmother of Verbal Usage

27/1/12 20:19 (UTC)
theemdash: (M Grammar)
[personal profile] theemdash
Quite seriously, if you're interested, pop over here where we have open recruiting. We need more grammar mavens such as yourself.

28/1/12 01:48 (UTC)
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher
.
my favorite was "poultry" for "paltry."

Hee! Good one; I'll have to remember it.

My favorite is "palatable" for "palpable", as in, "The tension in the air was positively palatable." I've seen it misused that way at least 6 or 8 times.
.

28/1/12 02:23 (UTC)
[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com
I also saw "withered" for "writhed." If that were going on during sex, the "withering" I mean, it would be quite off-putting.

28/1/12 07:03 (UTC)
[identity profile] bluewolf458.livejournal.com
I have a fairly lengthy list of these incorrect near-homophones. I think my favourite is diffuse for defuse. If you diffused a bomb you'd really be in trouble!

28/1/12 04:03 (UTC)
[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com
Clarification. To what exactly was the "OH HEAVENS YES" a response? Withering sex? Palatable tension? Inquiring minds want to know. :-)

28/1/12 04:04 (UTC)
[identity profile] lady-ganesh.livejournal.com
All of that may have been all right, but I was blinded by the grammar skills. ;-)

28/1/12 04:08 (UTC)
[identity profile] diebirchen.livejournal.com
Well, I may never write Moby Dick or Othello, but every red owl to his/her/its own pear tree.

27/1/12 19:03 (UTC)
[identity profile] dark-weezing.livejournal.com
I found this to be most helpful. Thank you.

27/1/12 20:11 (UTC)
china_shop: Fraser talking into a walkie talkie. "Penguin to Stallion -- come in, Stallion." (Fraser penguin to stallion)
[personal profile] china_shop
This is great, Mab. \o/

"Are you telling me" - Blair's eyebrows rose - "that you like doing tests?"

Huh. I've always put the dash inside the quotations marks for this (and added a full-stop):

"Are you telling me--" Blair's eyebrows rose. "--that you like doing tests?"

It's like his actions are interrupting his dialogue, so that makes sense to me. And here:

”Oh my God... ,” Blair murmured, staring at the vandalised living room.

I wouldn't put a comma after the ellipsis. (In fact, I don't use ellipses at all; I got into the probably terrible habit of using em dashes for trailing off as well as interruptions, because I read somewhere way back where that filling your dialogue with dots and dashes was a fashion crime akin to wearing spots and stripes, and maybe unnecessarily, I took that to heart. /o\)

/random points

27/1/12 20:26 (UTC)
theemdash: (M Grammar)
[personal profile] theemdash
I also knee-jerked that the dash should be inside the quotation mark, however, in the example shown here wherein there is an interjection, the em dash outside is correct. (When the em dash ends the thought though? INSIDE!)

Though, I agree; I don't think there should be a comma after the ellipsis. I'll look into that and have the article updated if necessary.

We have an article all about Speech that Trails Off that might interest you.

27/1/12 20:29 (UTC)
china_shop: Fraser's not so sure about that (Fraser Oh-I'm-not-so-sure-about-that)
[personal profile] china_shop
however, in the example shown here wherein there is an interjection, the em dash outside is correct.

Yeeah. But the close-quotes without any other punctuation makes me really twitchy. (I think this is an area where, for me, style trumps correctness.)

Thanks for the link. :-)

28/1/12 16:19 (UTC)
[identity profile] michelel72.livejournal.com
I use the same form as you, because the dialogue is being interrupted by the action, so I cut off the dialogue with the emdash within the quotation mark. That said, I haven't seen the method [livejournal.com profile] bluewolf458 mentions below ... but there's a logic to it that appeals to me.

I wouldn't agree that commas could be used with interrupting action (ref. the first Blair's eyebrows rose example); most sources I've read criticize that harshly, since it's using a dialogue-tag formation but the action is not a speaking action. (It's more exaggerated in this example, since the speaker is Blair, not his eyebrows, so the two elements have conflicting active agents.) Which is not to say I don't like and appreciate this article!

27/1/12 21:10 (UTC)
[identity profile] bluewolf458.livejournal.com
"Are you telling me--" Blair's eyebrows rose. "--that you like doing tests?"

This is something I checked on long ago, using professionally published books as my source, and found that they usually made it

"Are you telling me--" Blair's eyebrows rose--"that you like doing tests?"

28/1/12 18:33 (UTC)
theemdash: (M Grammar)
[personal profile] theemdash
Grammarian [livejournal.com profile] chomijidutifully checked Chicago (13th ed.) and came up with the following:

    5.12 Faltering Speech

    ...

      "But . . . but . . . ," said Tom.


    Notice that in the last example a comma is used after the closing series of dots to separate the speech from the words identifying the speaker. For ... .


AND

    10.36 Ellipses
    Any omission of a word or phrase, line or paragraph, from within a quoted passage must be indicated by ellipsis points (dots) ... They are usually separated from each other and from the text and any contiguous punctuation by 3-to-em spaces ... .


Going by all this, though, I think it's time we took a second and perhaps even more in-depth look at the ellipsis and how other punctuation is used with it.
Edited 28/1/12 18:34 (UTC)

27/1/12 20:18 (UTC)
ext_21627: (Default)
[identity profile] starry-diadem.livejournal.com
Can I suggest you cover another form, where the dialogue tag comes *before* the actual speech? I've seen all too much of this:

Looking up from the screen, Jim said, "can Blair be trusted to get me the right coffee?" - which is, of course, incorrect.

It should be:

Looking up from the screen, Jim said, "Can Blair be trusted to get me the right coffee?"

Edited 27/1/12 20:19 (UTC)

27/1/12 20:32 (UTC)
theemdash: (M Grammar)
[personal profile] theemdash
I flipped through our articles and haven't found that question addressed before, would you mind submitting it to our queue>, so our question mod can grab it? Thanks!

27/1/12 21:15 (UTC)
[identity profile] bluewolf458.livejournal.com
We (UK) were always taught that each new paragraph inside one speech should begin with the speech marks.

Re the single quote marks around speech in the UK - this is relatively recent, it always used to be the double. I'm not sure just when it changed or why, and I personally don't like it.

28/1/12 01:25 (UTC)
[identity profile] green-grrl.livejournal.com
That is the same as above. In the UK, do the multiple paragraphs also have closing quotation marks? In the US it's only the end of the person's dialogue that gets the closing mark.

28/1/12 06:54 (UTC)
[identity profile] bluewolf458.livejournal.com
No, only the closing paragraph gets the speech mark. But I've seen stories where every paragraph in the speech gets opening and closing marks.

I got the impression from Mab's explanation that the speech marks at the beginning of every paragraph in a long speech isn't automatic, but that one source says they should.

Just don't get me started on aberrant apostrophes!

28/1/12 15:08 (UTC)
[identity profile] green-grrl.livejournal.com
Okay, yes, US rules are the same--quotes at every paragraph start but only closing at the end. The Chicago Manual of Style is the major authority for American typesetting.

27/1/12 22:35 (UTC)
[identity profile] haldoor.livejournal.com
Wow, lots to think about. I don't care for the comma after the elipses either, so I'm not sure I can change that in my writing!

I'm intrigued by the punctuation for pauses filled with action though. Although come to it, I think I most often do those at the end of an actual sentence, which would be slightly different, I think?

Like this: “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Steve had reached the bottom of the stairs by now, and he ran a hand over his hair and glanced from where he’d just come before looking back at Danny. “Did you want me for something?”

And I would assume that because Steve didn't actually 'say' anything, that I'm right to add full-stops rather than commas in between?

28/1/12 06:55 (UTC)
[identity profile] bluewolf458.livejournal.com
I'd say yes to that.

28/1/12 12:20 (UTC)
theemdash: (Buffy/Angel Willow)
[personal profile] theemdash
I have sources that show no comma after an ellipsis, so we're looking into that and will update if needed.

If the middle action is a complete sentence, as shown in your example, yes, full stops are the way to go. If the interruption includes a dialogue tag, you have to show what was said/uttered/muttered/asked/etc.

30/1/12 12:17 (UTC)
theemdash: (M Grammar)
[personal profile] theemdash
There seems to be some conflict on the comma, though Chicago Manual of Style lists that a comma is correct. We're likely to investigate even further and make a post on punctuating with ellipses, so look for that in the future!

27/1/12 23:38 (UTC)
[identity profile] ash48.livejournal.com
Thank you for this.

Can I please ask a question? I need some advice on how to beta this style of dialogue.

The writer signifies thought projection by italicizing the dialogue.

We don't know, I answered him, smiling back. But we'll talk about that later, huh?

I'm unsure how the following should be punctuated:

Are you ok? he asked when I didn't reply.

Should the "he" be "He" - as it follows a question mark?

Thank you.
Edited 27/1/12 23:39 (UTC)

28/1/12 06:58 (UTC)
[identity profile] bluewolf458.livejournal.com
Lower case. 'He asked when I didn't reply' isn't a sentence; you need to include whaat he asked.

28/1/12 07:29 (UTC)
[identity profile] ash48.livejournal.com
Oh course. Thank you.

28/1/12 12:15 (UTC)
theemdash: (M Grammar)
[personal profile] theemdash
*ahem* You also might consider applying to be a Fandom Grammarian.

27/1/12 23:53 (UTC)
[identity profile] zebra363.livejournal.com
"Are you telling me" - Blair's eyebrows rose - "that you like doing tests?"

“First, there is the question of why an acknowledged fraud, Blair Sandburg, was put on a fast-track to a privileged position in the division of Major Crimes-”


Those should be em dashes, not hyphens, right?

28/1/12 12:22 (UTC)
theemdash: (M Grammar)
[personal profile] theemdash
They should indeed be em dashes. If anyone knows, I do! ;)

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