If a character is speaking, and every is given an abrupt signiture, can I show this by capitalizing the first letter of every word? "Go To Your Room!" Or maybe- "Go! To! Your! Room!" My writing guide didn't cover any of this.
either example would earn an editor's scorn, derision, and possibly much worse [tossing the whole thing]...
I would put how it is said before the dialog, otherwise the reader will only read it that way as an after thought. She paused after each word. "Go to your room!"
I've seen authors do "Go-to-your-room." Not exactly that, but you get the idea. I'm not sure about the general rule, but I see things. What about italicizing words to show emphasis? But w.e, your question was answered by the above posters
I would put "GO TO YOUR ROOM!" or "Go to your room!" instead of "Go To Your Room!" The first letter of every word being capitalized and the rest lower case just doesn't look right to me. Of course, if you don't wish to get loud with all caps, you can stick with "Go to your room!" and show how upset the character is
editors don't like all-caps used for anything... and the second doesn't look good, either... you'll see all kinds of things in books, but those are the result of the publisher's choices, or house style, and not what is acceptable for the writer to do in a ms... italicizing is properly used for that emphasis only with a word used out of context, or for foreign words... not for whole phrases or sentences... pauses in speech, however, are shown by inserting ellipses... like this: "Go...to...your...room!"
So just to be clear, using ellipses like this is proper? I have always been a bit confused on their proper use. I tend to use them alot for pauses in my posting, but was never sure if it was correct or just something I picked up on the Internet.
