I was going to put this on a blog page mostly as a convenient quick-ref for myself. Then I realized it might be helpful to discuss first, in part as a useful community discussion and in part to catch omissions or points someone believes to be incorrect. I do believe in authorities and often consult them, but as a (mostly former) working editor, I've always paid a lot of attention to professional editorial precedent. For my relatively new focus on fiction, that means looking at major works published by the major houses. Some of the practices below are merely obvious. A couple come from putative authorities, and a bunch are things I've flagged over the years in books I've read. I find that examples, sometimes annotated, work better for most people than descriptive rules and terminology, so here's my personal list of models for punctuating dialogue. These look at period, comma, question mark, ellipsis, and em-dash—both interruptive and interjective. One thing that surprised me in reviewing some of my books is that the single-character glyph-ellipsis (…) was widely used in place of the spaced ellipsis (. . .) in some of the very best places already as long as 60 years ago. From reading online advice today, one easily gets the impression the tight glyph is an invention of the Internet era. That is manifestly not the case. There were some surprising little details around usage of the glyph-ellipsis that I'll weave into the examples. There are intricate connections between capitalization and the selection of comma or period in these examples. Agree or disagree, but the choice is not haphazard in any of them. "Wait," she said. "Wait," she said, "you have to take me with you." (Reports "Wait, you have to take me with you.") [Note comma] "Wait," she said. "You have to take me with you." "Wait," she said, "You have to take me with you." [I probably wouldn't use this one, but it's not wrong.] (Both report "Wait. You have to take me with you.") [Note period/fullstop] "Wait." Her expression showed resignation. "We'll go together." (reports "Wait. We'll go together.") "Wait!" she cried. "Wait!" She hurried after him. [Note capitalization] "Wait!" she cried. "You have to take me with you!" "Wait!" She hurried after him. "You have to take me with you!" (Both report "Wait! You have to take me with you!") (The second sentence isn't required to use an exclamation point, of course.) "Wait…" she sighed "…we can go together, I guess." (Reports "Wait . . . we can go together, I guess.") "Wait…" she sighed. "We can go together, I guess." (Reports "Wait.... We can go together, I guess." [Note the period/fullstop after the ellipsis — in this clarification, not in the paradigm example — ending the sentence.]) "Wait…" She put on a scolded-dog expression and placed her hand in his. "We can go together, I guess." (Reports "Wait.... We can go together, I guess" as in the previous example. "You can't be serious," she said, "[since] he was here only yesterday." I don't like the second comma, because it reports the comma-spliced speech "You can't be serious, he was here only yesterday." But that's how one would report the speech if that's how the speaker says it. Personally, and since I can make the speaker say whatever I want them to say, I'd use one of the next two. "You can't be serious," she said. "He was here only yesterday." "You can't be serious!" she cried. "He was here only yesterday." "And—?" [sharp, challenging, similar to So what?] "And...?" [prolonged, inviting the partner to figure something out] "So...?" [do you have something to tell me?] A minority of publishers place the question mark before the dash or ellipsis in these. Then there are these four: "So what—dare I ask?—have you been doing all this time?" "So what—dare I ask—have you been doing all this time?" "And he claimed—the nerve!—to have known all along." "I would hope—will you check?—that we can get a refund." And more vanilla question forms: "Why?" she asked. "Why?" she asked. "What are you up to?" "Why?" She turned slowly. "What are you up to?" "Why," she said, "that's the most foolish idea I've ever heard." (Reports "Why[,] that's the most foolish idea I've ever heard.") "Why…" she said "…that's the most foolish idea I've ever heard." (Reports "Why... that's the most foolish idea I've ever heard" which is equivalent to "Why . . . that's the most foolish idea I've ever heard.") "Why—" she sputtered "—that's the most foolish idea I've ever heard!" (Reports "Why—that's the most foolish idea I've ever heard!") "Why?" she demanded. "That's the most foolish idea I've ever heard." (Reports "Why? That's the most foolish idea I've ever heard.") Note that with rare, antiquated exceptions, no other punctuation follows: word—" or precedes "—word regardless of possible capitalization. "Why"—she turned to face Sylvia, her jaw trembling—"are you only telling me now?" (Reports "Why are you only telling me now?") "Why…" she turned to face Sylvia, her jaw trembling "…are you only telling me now?" (Reports "Why are you only telling me now?" or "Why... are you only telling me now?) "Why" ...she turned to face Sylvia, her jaw trembling... "are you only telling me now?" (Less standard or non-standard, but this form is used by John Fowles and his distinguished editors at least once in Daniel Martin. Reports "Why are you only telling me now?" without implying any interruption in speech rhythm.) "You promised we'd—" "You promised we'd—" she began. "You promised we'd—" She pulled away from him. "You promised we'd—" she pulled away from him "—go away for the weekend." This non-standard or less standard version (dashes inside the speech instead of outside) reports "You promised we'd—go away for the weekend." It's much less common, but does occur now and then to emphasize the break in speech in addition to interjecting commentary (which in more ordinary instances does not have to break the speaker's flow). Ian McEwan's Atonement frequently uses a space before or after a glyph-ellipsis. I believe that was more common in the deeper past, but clearly it still occurs. "I'm sorry …" instead of "I'm sorry..." But today … all day it’s been strange instead of But today... all day it's been strange or But today...all day it's been strange or But today . . . all day it's been strange Some sticklers differentiate between four dots (ellipsis plus period/fullstop) at the end of a sentence and only the ellipsis mid-sentence. There are even subtler end-of-line distinctions in a few publishers, but I'm not sure they're consistently applied. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage (Public Domain)(1915, George H Doran Company) provides these examples. And this unusual inverted gem: Untangle this, if you can: Note the space between the ellipsis and the question mark, which is unconventional in modern fiction. This is also unconventional in the modern eye, because it mixes ellipsis on the start of the interjected narrative (bad..." Philip) with comma on the end (discourse, "I speak). Of course much has changed since 1915, but they're still almost modern. John Fowles, The Magus (1965, Little, Brown, and Company) This is interesting and happens more often with dashes than ellipses, but is otherwise not terribly uncommon. The interruption is an entire paragraph, and one sometimes sees rather extensive interruptions of speech handled this way. Also, notice how in paragraph 3 of this first example, the continued speech begins with glyph-ellipsis space and. I doubt it's a miscommunication with the typesetters, because it repeats in the next example, with glyph-ellipsis space under. Perhaps the space was part of the ellipsis glyph on old typesetting machines. That would also explain the appearance in other places and books of the antiquated form glyph-ellipse space question-mark. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy (1933, Harper & Brothers) Lisa Alther, Original Sins (1981, Knopf) Notice, at the end of the example above, the period/fullstop after all around the area and before the in-quote ellipsis introducing ...yes, I think sewers are a real good idea. It's there because it comes after multiple sentences. While I don't object to it or feel strongly either way, I do believe some publishers would have omitted it. Others would include it even with a single complete and capitalized sentence between Well... and ...yes, but not with a phrase that's not a sentence, such as tapping the ash off her cigarette John Fowles, Daniel Martin (1977, Little, Brown) Note the ellipses moved outside the quotation marks in this one.
Is lack of spacing between lines causing anyone difficulties reading this on some device? I can spread the example out if so. I just thought grouping some would be helpful.
