Hi everyone, Please bear with me, I have not had a chance to write for quite a few years now, and as I plan to start again I find myself running into a problem! I was on a writing course in college a few years ago, and two writers who were tutoring the course were debating grammar with "" One thought this was correct: "I don't understand." Said the patient. The other thought this: "I don't understand," said the patient. Its now really thrown me. Should it be a full stop or a comma? Which I guess will dictate the capital letter after. Others on the course went further, querying if this would be correct: "I don't understand," said the patient, "why you are treating me like a child." Which I personally don't like the sound of but anyway, I am just curious!
Before a dialogue tag, is had to be a comma If has no dialogue tag, it's a full stop. Hehe, this kinda threw me off to at first...At school they never taught us to put a comma. I think your sentence would be: "I don't understand," said the patient(Removed the comma) "(Capitalized)Why you are treating me like a child." Hope this helped
Sorry I am not well versed in the lingo lol...dialogue tag? You mean like 'he said' and 'she cried' ?
Cool thanks. So it would be like this: "I don't understand," said the patient "Why you are are treating me like a child." "I'm not." "Yes, you are!" He stood abruptly as if to leave, then hesitated. With the I am not bit being the Doc? Sorry if its a rubbish example lol, I just pulled it out of my brain randomly. (There are no doctors in my novel lol.) Why do you change to capital after 'said the patient' since its technicaly the same sentence spoken by the patient.
That explains the capital Why a full stop though, since it feels like it should be all one piece, being the conclusion to beginning of the sentence eg "I don't understand why you are treating me like a child." Why a full stop after said the patient? Sorry for being dense lol
Lol Why? Erm...I'm going to try explain why..don't be suprised if someone else comes and corrects me. After a dialogue tag, it has end with a full stop and also me thinks, a new line dialogue is a new sentence.
"I don't understand," said the patient. "Why are you treating me like a child?" If the second part of your passage is going to be a full sentence, then the full stop is required after the tag. But, if you choose to treat the "Why are you treating me like a child?" as an independant clause you may do so (gramatically it's a bit iffy), but it would be written like tihis; "I don't understand," said the patient, "why are you treating me like a child?" A more correct way might be; "I don't understand," said the patient, "why you are treating me like a child."
there's a misunderstanding here... incorrect... first period must be a comma, 'said' must not be capitalized... that's correct... that's correct, because the line of dialog is interrupted with a dialog tag, continues after it... but... that's incorrect, because the second part isn't a sentence and doesn't make sense unless it's connected to the first part, both making a full sentence... and... that's something entirely different, since 'why you are' and 'why are you' have been reversed, making the second part a question... so while that is correctly written, it doesn't relate to the original question... that's not correct, makes no sense connecting the second part to the first as if it's all one sentence, when it's really a question that needs to stand on its own... terry's final example is just what the original post showed and is correct...
Thank you for your help everyone. I haven't been writing for years! I am going to redo the prologue of my novel, and post it up for suggestions. I fully look forward to all of the errors that will need correcting lol!!!
