Hello everyone,
I searched and searched to find whether this question had already been asked. If I missed it and this is a repeat for some, then my apologies!
Basically, I get quite tripped up regarding the use of punctuation within a sentence with dialogue. Even after reading a lot myself, I find there are different methods with different authors. Anyway, I have three examples I would love help with!
"John," mum called impatiently, "please can you get off he couch and put the groceries away?"
"There is something that you really need to know." confessed Lucy with hesitancy.
Michael wiped the tears from his eyes and said, "love isn't as easy as they make it out to be in the movies."
SORRY! This is like a little quiz you'd get in English class, haha. I have seen in some previous answers there are some great grammar/punctuation books by Penguin, which I will definitely have a look at. Does anyone have a resource they use for things like this? Thank you in advance and apologies once again if this is a repeated, or appalling question!
Oh, Wilhelmina, you [opinionated] witch, you! ;P
[Actually,] I'm [rather] surprised that you failed to include an [obvious] adverb+adjective team in your [humorous] [cocktail] party diatribe:
"I don’t care if 24 best-selling authors and 12 Nobel Literature Prize laureates all corner you at a cocktail party and tell you that you should never use an adverb or adjective if it can be avoided. It’s STILL just a [widely held] opinion."
@ Rio: another widely held opinion that I've been battling on other social networks recently: "Donald Trump is an excellent president who is just what this country [this meaning that, from a European's point of view] has needed for FAR too long."
In MY opinion [sprinkled with salt], Wilhelmina's advice to you to find your OWN voice is the best that you're going to get on this forum.
Oh, Wilhelmina, you [opinionated] witch, you! ;P
[Actually,] I'm [rather] surprised that you failed to include an [obvious] adverb+adjective team in your [humorous] [cocktail] party diatribe:
"I don’t care if 24 best-selling authors and 12 Nobel Literature Prize laureates all corner you at a cocktail party and tell you that you should never use an adverb or adjective if it can be avoided. It’s STILL just a [widely held] opinion."
@ Rio: another widely held opinion that I've been battling on other social networks recently: "Donald Trump is an excellent president who is just what this country [this meaning that, from a European's point of view] has needed for FAR too long."
In MY opinion [sprinkled with salt], Wilhelmina's advice to you to find your OWN voice is the best that you're going to get on this forum.
Hi, Rio!
While agreeing with all of the punctuation advice already given, I take strong objection to experienced (?) writers expressing their opinions on STYLE as if they were hard and fast rules. Every writer should find their own voice. Do you know the saying, ‘Variety’s the very spice of life’? Well, it’s also the very spice of lit! If everybody wrote like Adrian Sroka, the world of books would be a very poor one. I don’t know how many times I’ve read his opinion that your stock of verbs of speech should be reduced to ‘said’. Frankly – and this is only MY opinion, so take it with a pinch of salt – books that replace ‘asked’, ‘chortled’, ‘snarled’, ‘whimpered’, et al with ‘said’ are boring, boring, boring!
Why should these verbs exist in the dictionary if they’re never allowed out for a walk about? The same with adverbs and adjectives. There are plenty of writers who say that you should reduce them to a minimum: which means that – ideally – you shouldn’t use any. That’s THEIR opinion… and they’re welcome to it. I don’t care if 24 best-selling authors and 12 Nobel Literature Prize laureates all corner you at a cocktail party and tell you that you should never use an adverb or adjective if it can be avoided. It’s STILL just an opinion. Smile [nicely] and tell them [politely] that you need [desperately] to go find a [stiff] drink and some [salted] cashews.
Let’s take Lorraine’s and Adrian’s advice and combine them to transform
"There is something that you really need to know," confessed Lucy with hesitancy.
into
"There is something that you really need to know," said Lucy, shifting in her chair.
The first tells me, elegantly and economically, that Lucy is nervous, somewhat ashamed of what she’s about to say. What does the second REALLY tell me about Lucy’s state of mind? Allow me to add a bit of background to that second sentence, so that – without contradicting anything in it – I am entirely warping YOUR original intention:
"There is something that you really need to know," said Lucy, shifting in her chair to reach Agent P’s file from the other end of her desk. “Your last mission was a total cock-up. Fourteen good agents are dead because of your bungling. GHQ isn’t sure whether to suspend you pending a full enquiry or just have you shot in the back of the head by a ‘hoodlum on crack’.”
Adrian and Lorraine will protest that your sentence must be read IN CONTEXT. And, of course, it must. But your sentence explains Lucy’s state of mind without a lot of falderal that it would need if “simplified” according to Adrian and Lorraine’s opinions.