The Nugget by Dannsar

[Graeme]

The Nugget by Dannsar

Just a little thing for the Autumn Anthology 2011

:nuke: :nuke: Spoilers Below!!! :nuke: :nuke:

[Cia]

You asked for specific instances so I thought I would share them here, in regards to your dialogue punctuation. The first type I noticed was this:

 

When he raised it again he went on. "We won't be sitting here together a year from now." Basically, when you have a speech tag before dialogue, you end the sentence with a comma. 'he went on' is indicating he is speaking, not an action, so the period before your dialogue should be a comma. That ties in a bit with the second issue I noticed.

 

"For as much as that's worth", he twinkled. as well as "What's wrong, mummy?", are both improper uses of commas with dialogue punctuation. You always put the comma inside the quotation marks when you have a speech tag after the dialogue unless you use ! or ?. If you end a sentence with ? or ! you do not add a comma after the quotation marks.

 

Hope that helps on what I was trying to point out in my review. I enjoyed the story, thanks for sharing!

[Dannsar]

Thanks for the clarification, Cia. The first one, is perhaps a slight overegging, but is disruption as I thought. It is meant to reinforce the pause mentioned. In this case I don't care about the rules, really!

 

The second example, I see your point, but my convention is to put the comma outside of the quotation marks because I don't like it inside. It might seem bizarre, and I can accept it as being 'wrong', I just don't agree with the convention in this instance. The reason is this: if it is inside the q marks, then it is something being imposed upon the dialogue which the speaker did not mean. See, this would indicate a pause or clause in the speaker's speech. However, this a clause in the narrative; the speech is just as it is. I appreciate that notions of ownership in a fictional character might seem odd, and that imposition may seem like a contradiction in a constructed thing like fiction. But, in my view, there needs to be a linkage to a feeling of reality in the characters, and to the constructedness in the writing. Putting these commas inside basically suggest to me that the writer is trying to convey something about the speech. Whereas, outwith the q marks, it is a convention for the understanding of the narrative. So it is all about who is applying the punctuation, and conveying that. If it is 'wrong technically, then so be it. The 'rules' are wrong in my opinion, and need reassessed.

 

The reason I asked for your clarification was because I wasn't sure if it was these types of issues, or the three typos towards the ent where the punctuation is not where it should be ... a function of my fingers outrunning themselves, and me not picking it up. Mind you, my betador didn't either, and he's a journalist who is usually very picky, so they may have been last minute edit cockups.

[Graeme]

I'm not absolutely sure, but I seem to recall that the punctuation inside or outside the quotes may be an American/British difference in style.