So, in the past I never realised that when you have a sentence like "You've got to be blood kidding me" you say; 'You've got to be bloody kidding me," she sighed, rather than have a fullstop. Now I'm wondering what exactly are the rules for punctuation in speech marks? Chiefly, what are the rules with "?" and "!". Thanks for any help guys.
"I'd like the chicken, please," she said. "Do you have chicken?" she asked. "I need chicken!" she said.
Okay so the word afterward is never capitalised? That's interesting considering google docs spell-check keeps trying to capitalize it!
It's capitalized for beats, but not for tags. The spellcheck probably can't tell the difference. Tag: "I'd like the chicken, please," she said. Beat: "I'd like the chicken, please." She folded her arms. Tag: "Do you have chicken?" she asked. Beat: "Do you have chicken?" She leaned on the counter. Tag: "I need chicken!" she said. Beat: "I need chicken!" She waved her arms frantically.
It occurs to me that if you use the comma, it might stop correcting you on those sentences. That is, if you had: "I'd like the chicken, please." she said. then the spellchecker has to either tell you to capitalize the "she" or tell you to change the period to a comma. Apparently it's coded to do the first. But for the ? and !, there would still be ambiguity. It would presumably have to parse what comes after the "she" to try to figure out what was going on.
Some more advanced constructions, courtesy of Punctuation Made Simple: When the character starts speaking, stops to do something, and then speaks again: "I'd like--" she studied the menu for a few seconds "--the chicken, please." Some people put a comma after "seconds," but I don't know if that's grammatically correct or not. When the character speaks continuously while doing something: "I'd like"--she gestured at the menu--"the chicken, please." However, Malik on Mythic Scribes has this warning about the latter: He recommends using commas instead: "I'd like," she gestured at the menu, "the chicken, please." Again, I have no idea if that's grammatically acceptable.
In dialogue, the end quotes always go after the exclamation mark and question mark. EX with a dialogue tag: "Are you going to school today?" she asked. Alternatively: She asked, "Are you going to school today?" "You are insane!" he shouted. Alternatively: He shouted, "You are insane!" -------------------------------------------- EX with a dialogue beat: I stare at him in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?" "You disgust me!" She slaps him in the face. (NOTE: dialogue beats can go before or after the quote. Placing them on either side determines how readers visual what's being done first and what's being said as a response; vice-versa.) ------------------------------------------- EX with no ? or !: "She was supposed to give me five dollars for lunch today," he said. Alternatively: He said, "She was supposed to give me five dollars for lunch today." EX with dialogue tag in-between a quote. "Allison," she said, "why haven't you returned your book to the library? You know they charge you ten cents each day after the day it's supposed to be returned." (NOTE: if you look at the quote above, you can see that the "why" isn't capitalized. That's because the first word of the quote has already been capitalized---Allison.) Hope any of this helped. Good luck!
I can't suppress my need to correct this to: "I'd like the chicken, please," she asked, gesturing at the menu. or, my preference, "I'd like the chicken, please," she said, gesturing at the menu.
Oh yeah, I forgot the comma thing! Goddam I wonder why I never knew that?! Did I learn it in primary school and forget it?
My guess is that nobody taught dialogue punctuation? Nobody ever taught me either fiction writing or news writing in school, and that's where you'd mostly use it. Edited to add: Well, OK, they taught me news writing when I took journalism in high school, but nobody ever taught it specifically in English class. That I recall.
Would this be acceptable? "I'd like . . ." she gestured at the menu, ". . . the chicken, please." I've seen it used mostly when the character pauses in their speech. For example: "It was . . ." he shifted, ". . . odd."
You're right that it's meant for pauses, especially long ones. I don't think it works in your first example.
What drives me nuts is trying to remember if I should put a comma after an ellipses but before the quotation mark, or leave it out. So far I'm leaving it out, but I'd rather be sure.
