1. Ubrechor

    Ubrechor Active Member

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    Question in dialogue...

    Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by Ubrechor, Apr 19, 2011.

    So if I have a question in a piece of dialogue, such as:

    "Is this all a game to you?

    Can I add 'she yelled at him.' to the end? Or does it have to be a new sentence, seeing as it's the entire sentence in the quotation marks?

    "Is this all a game to you?" she yelled at him.

    Or

    "Is this all a game to you?" Her face was inches from his as she yelled at him.

    Thanks!
     
  2. Melzaar the Almighty

    Melzaar the Almighty Contributor Contributor

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    You can do it either way. If you are describing the speech in a speech tag - she said, yelled, muttered, etc, then it is not a new sentence. If after the speech you move onto a new sentence, such as your second example then you are quite right that it is treated as a new sentence.

    Just to give an example with commas/full stops because questionmarks are the same whether it's a new sentence after or not so makes it confusing for most pieces of speech which aren't questions:

    "It is a game," he said.

    "It is a game." He turned away from her, and...
     
  3. Ubrechor

    Ubrechor Active Member

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    Thank you!

    So I just treat the question mark in the dialogue as I would a comma, then?
     
  4. Melzaar the Almighty

    Melzaar the Almighty Contributor Contributor

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    Or a full stop, depending on the sentence. You did it right in your examples. :)
     
  5. Ubrechor

    Ubrechor Active Member

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    YAY! :cool:
     

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