Whoa.. Karai, your advice was approximately what I told Brina in our email we've been passing back and forth. I guess that little editorial advice I got from Phish a couple years back did help me see the light! ;)
The next task... just remebering to stay consistsent on those grammar rules. I tend to to let them slide when I get "caught up in the moment" at times. *lol* ~HT --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I agree (and strongly disagree) with a lot of what's been said. It > happens to be that dialogue is one of my pet peeves. So get ready > for the Karai's Dialogue Rant. > > To answer Brina's question, you can write either "he said" or "said > he." Both are grammatically correct. In American writing, though, > the more common form is "he said." Also, he can put the dialogue tag > at either the beginning or end of the dialouge, but traditionally in > America it is used at the end of the sentence. > > This is my main disagreement with everyone: I don't think you should > vary your way of writing a dialogue tag. If you write it "he said," > always write it "he said." If you want the reverse of that, always > do the reverse. You must teach your reader how to read your writing, > so if you're not consistent you will confuse your reader. You want > your story to be easy to read. Dialogue tags are garnish, not the > meat; you don't want attention called to them. > > This is my big pet peeve with dialogue tags: they're useless. If > there's a piece of dialogue in quotations, obviously someone said it. > Saying "said" adds *nothing* to the writing. And if you have a > question mark, it's obvious it was "asked." The only thing dialouge > tags are good for is denoting a speaker, and what better way to do > that than add an action (I know Siren mentioned this). Just > remember, if you have a piece of dialouge, the action needs to > correspond with the speaker. And if you have a new action with > another character, that needs to go in a new paragraph. > > One of my other pet peeves with dialogue tags is when they're wordy. > People like using simultaneous action and create tags like, "Leo > said, spinning his swords." DON'T DO THIS! It's annoying, wordy and > ruins the rhythm and flow of your story. Why not just say, "Leo spun > his swords," instead of using a dialogue tag at all? So much neater > and more efficient. > > And lastly, on punctuation, there are two ways to address the > punctuation of dialogue if a dialogue tag interrupts dialogue from > the same speaker. > > 1. If the dialogue tag occurs after a complete sentence, a comma is > used inside the quotation marks and a period follows the dialogue > tag. The continuing dialogue begins as a new sentence with a capital > letter on the first word inside the quotation marks. An example: "I > don't know what you're talking about," Raph said. "We didn't go > anywhere last night." > > 2. If the dialogue tag is interrupting a sentence, a comma is used > both inside the quotation marks and following the dialogue tag. The > continuing dialogue is part of the same sentence and has a lower case > letter on the first word inside the quotation marks. An example: > "We know you went out. Your coats," Leo said, "were missing." > > Those are a few things I've noticed people have a lot of trouble > with. One day I'm going to write a book on writing and have an > entire chapter just for dialogue--I gave you the abridged version of > Karai's Dialouge Rant. If anyone wants more dialogue advice (or > other writing advice), please feel free to ask. I think my creative > writing degree and editing internships should be put to more use. > > --Karai > ===== "A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself." ~Master Splinter ---== ] http://www.turtlequest.com [ ==--- __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com
