(More) dialogue punctuation questions

[Abernovo]

...and now I think I've got it (the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain...)

By Jove, I think she's got it!

You're not going to do a fake cockney accent and burst into song are you?

 

[Ursa major]

I hope not. That wouldn't be loverly at all....

 

[Hex]

Oi.

In artford ereford and ampshire urricanes ardly hever appen.

There. Happy?

 

[Ursa major]

Well, 'appy, I suppose.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Oi.

In artford ereford and ampshire urricanes ardly hever appen.

There. Happy?

All wrong;

In 'arford, 'ereford and 'ampshire, 'ursines 'ardly hever 'appen.

 

[The Judge]

Just to make life complicated, although the original from the other website isn't correct, I don't actually like HB's versions, either.

"You --" I thrust a finger at him decidedly; "are the reason the world hates us."

"You --" I thrust a finger at him decidedly -- "are the reason the world hates us."

The semi-colon just doesn't look or feel right, and to me, for balance the long dash has to be repeated before the "are" inside the quotation marks to show the continuation of the thought.

"You --" I thrust a finger at him, "-- are the reason..."

but I'm undecided whether to comma or full stop after the "him" now. (I tried leaving it bare, but it looked a little forlorn like that.) I think the full stop is possible -- it's a separate sentence of its own after all. I've had dialogue from one person interrupted by someone else and punctuated that with a full stop (though I tend to use ellipses not long dashes in that case to show the interrupted speech) ie

"You..."

He yawned ostentatiously as I thrust my finger at him.

"... are the reason..."

(Though I wouldn't in fact break there in that sentence with such a long interruption in my own work as it's terribly unbalanced.)


Of all the versions so far I think AMB's is the most elegant if we have to avoid "said" and its cohorts.


And "decidedly" is decidedly odd in this context. And surely it should be "jabbed a finger" rather than "thrust"? And as for that other website, I gave up reading when I hit the second obvious error.

 

[Gary Compton]

Just joined this at the end so dont know if I'm on topic or not. Firstly John Jarrold told me you always capitalise the first letter of speech?

"You --" I thrust a finger at him decidedly -- "are the reason the world hates us."

How about:

"You --" I thrust my shaking finger at him - "Are the reason the world hates us."

or

"You --" my finger shook as I raised my hand and pointed - "Are the reason the world hates us."

or

"I have no doubt that it's you," I lifted my finger and thrust it toward him, "Are the reason the world hates us."

 

[Ursa major]

John is correct. However, the a in the word, are, is not the first letter of the dialogue; that would be the Y in the word, You.


The complete sentence of dialogue is: "You are the reason the world hates us." It is not: "Are the reason the world hates us."


Here's another example:

"What you need," he said, "is to parse your text and thus understand what the individual parts mean; then you should ensure that the reader gets those meanings.

You would not capitalise the i in is.

 

[HareBrain]

This is all personal taste, of course, but the reason I don't like the leading dash inside the second bit of speech is that to me it robs "are the reason" of urgency, especially with the comma after "him", as well; it softens it too much and lessens its force.

And to me, though AMB's solutions are neater, they either require a repetition of "you", thus altering the dialogue for the sake of neatness, or leave no pause between "you" and "are", which presumably was the reason for breaking the speech line in the first place.

Anyway, there you go. It's an art, after all, not a science.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

my understanding, limited though it is, is that you only capitalise after the break if it's a new sentence in dialogue, and this is indicated by a full stop previous;

"You," I thrust my shaking finger at him. "Are the reason the world hates us."

I don't like that; it should be one sentence

The alternative, indicates a continuation of the sentence:

"You-" I thrust my shaking finger at him, "-are the reason the world hates us."

Personally I'd have;

"You," I accused, as I thrust my shaking finger at him, "are the reason the world hates us."

Don't like the thrusting finger, either; it seems too much, like I might hurt myself, or like it might come off.

 

[Gary Compton]

How about:

"You," I pointed my finger at him, as I knew it was his fault. "Are the reason the world hates us."

 

[Ursa major]

The you should be followed by a full stop, not a comma. The second 'sentence' of dialogue makes no sense on its own, as it has no subject.


I can think of only one valid reason to capitalise the a in are:

"You. Are. The. Reason. The. World. Hates. Us."

and this sort of thing works better - works at all? - with shorter sentences.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

It means the sentence is "You. Are the reason the world hates us."

The full stop after the fault and the capital A indicate there is a sentence break.

I find when I put too much between the dialogue break it's very hard to continue without breaking the sentence, so I would try to do it with a sentence that ends anyway.

so, for instance;

"You are the reason the world hates us." I pointed my finger at him, as I knew it was his fault. "It's because of your actions."

 

[HareBrain]

I might try this:

"You," I jabbed at him, "are the reason this thread's gone on so long".

"Jabbed", in this case, could be a valid dialogue tag, as one can (metaphorically) "jab" a word -- it also suggests a physical action, in this case a thrusting finger.

Of course, I might later read through my draft and go "Euurgh!"

 

[Ursa major]

Can you really jab a word? I suggest a suitable cut.


(And will add a thread-hijacking recommendation for free: include a hook near the beginning of your story....)

 

[AMB]

Bill hook, fish hook, or peg hook?

 

[Brian G Turner]

I thrust a finger at him decidedly.

If you are thrusting a finger at someone, you are already acting assertively (if this is what decidedly is used to describe), therefore I would suggest it is redundant.

I also suspect we're touching on an adverb here, which again basic good fiction writing suggests we try to minimise, which is another reason for it to go.

The problem, really, is by trying hard to avoid writing "I said", you are instead making the text more complicated, and by that way, less easy to read.

Simple solution would be:

"You," I said, "are the reason the world hates us!"

"Said" is a verb so you can swap with a more descriptive verb, perhaps "snapped" or similar.

However, you should not worry too much about "said" being a flat way of writing, because it should be through use of internalised conflict via POV use that you bring the real action, description, and context to the scene - not through use of adverbs.

IMO.

PS - Not sure why hyphens keep coming up for dialogue use - can't think of any recent examples of seeing these used in speech. Is this a US English vs British English thing?

 

[Ursa major]

PS - Not sure why hyphens keep coming up for dialogue use - can't think of any recent examples of seeing these used in speech. Is this a US English vs British English thing?

I'm not sure.

However each en-dash ( – ) can be replaced with an ellipsis ( … ). Similarly, the ellipsis used to show interrupted speech can be replaced with an em-dash ( — ). I think the only requirement is to be consistent: use either dashes or ellipses when showing where the dialogue is either interrupted or interleaved with narration, but not both.

 

[Culhwch]

I've certainly seen hyphens used in that way, and as a rule we get as many UK/Australian publications as we get American ones here. It's definitely my prefered method of inserting some action mid-sentence.

I would also disagree with Urse and contend that an ellipsis wasn't a suitable replacement. I think the ellipsis is more suited to showing uncertainty or trailing thoughts (albeit spoken, as it were). So...

'This is a terrible example-' Culhwch snatched the sandwich from her grasp. '-but I'm gonna use it anyway!'

or

'This isn't that bad of an example...' Culhwch chewed on the sandwich thoughtfully. '...but it could be better.'

I think the ellipses add a totally different feel to the sentence.

 

[Ursa major]

I agree with your last comment, but that's just as true of the narration verbs you're using, 'snatched' and 'chewed [...] thoughtfully', to the extent that you're also right that a bare ellipsis should not really be used in your first example, as it does imply a tailing off, while 'snatched' implies a sudden action. The reader would be being offered two incompatible images of what was happening.

However, an ellipsis followed by a full stop would work:

"This is a terrible example...." Culhwch snatched the sandwich from her grasp. "But I'm gonna use it anyway!"

This shows a change of pace: Culhwch is showing doubt about how to proceed, or the strength of his argument, illustrated by the tailing off of his speech. Then suddenly, he has made a decision, and snatches the sandwich. Of course, in this example, the narration isn't being inserted in a single sentence of dialogue, but between two sentences.

Personally, I'm not that keen on putting narrative "inside" dialogue except in very special circumstances, such as where it's important to show that someone is talking while simultaneously doing something. Most of the examples we're using in this part of the thread are not describing this at all, but two activities (one of them being talking) that are interrupting each other (like playing table tennis). That is why, I think, I'm okay with ellipses, because it seems to me that they're useful in describing what's happening in the narration, independently of the parallel/simultaneous action.

Probably.