Punctuation Using no end-quote mark on the end of a paragraph means next quotation is the same speaker

My position is you wouldn't do this sentence by sentence paragraph separation (from the same speaker) in normal writing. It's just too difficult to read and keep track of. Dialogue that whizzes by that quickly (without any amplifying information) doesn't stick. Sometimes it doesn't even register. Just wordswordswords—next.... I get to the bottom of a page like that, and I'm hyperventilating and thinking, "WTF did I just read? It's like Chipmunk-speak.

 

It might be correct, but I don't like it. Reading it is just feels off. I'm a pretty average human, so I anticipate a lot of regular shmucks like myself would also feel the same if they were to happen upon it.

 

True. And importantly, the period at the end of the sentence indicates a pause.
If there's going to be a longer pause than that "natural pause," a paragraph break isn't the way to indicate it. Not with sentences that short.

 

I know some have cited a source but I don't think I have seen it done much.

I don't like the look of it for some reason. ((The not ending with a quotation mark but starting each new paragraph with a quotation mark)).

 

For native English readers, at least, quotation mechanics are like speech tags: you don't like them when you're looking at them (or writing them), but they "disappear" when you are reading them. That's what the craft books I've read say, anyway.

 

The thread's too quick. Feeling @jannert's in the arena, otherwise I'm flailing, useless. Full stops and commas. Just don't put a grocer's apostophe in the first line of submission. Not that it matters a shit. The guy's reading your story in the round. He picks up on 'moron essentials' at the end like he's told to @ 3000 words, probably possibly.

 

It is the correct way to do it, though. But it's usually only used when the speaker is going on at great length about something, and it works fine because the context is clear—nobody is interrupting them. A rapid-fire exchange of information between two or more people, and this won't work at all.

 

That example was just for fun. But I think the initial two line examples are neither extreme nor unlikely.

 

Sorted, done.

 

See my blog entry "He said, she said." I don't have style guides handy right now, but I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find under multi-paragraph quotations.

 

I wonder how Ayn Rand did it with Howard Roark's long speech in The Fountain Head? I can't find my copy. That speech went on for several pages.

 

I've heard of this rule for the first time from this forum some time ago. Did I ever give it much attention? Nope and I'll explain why.

Never have I ever read a novel in which this rule has been incorporated into the writing and I've read plenty. If this rule indeed applied in any of the novels I've read, it was pretty well done, since it was seamless to the point I haven't even noticed it. Secondly, never have I ever needed to use it so far. On the side note! I've noticed it only a few times in scientific articles and interviews. Also, when it's being used, the side margins of the text change from the second open quotation mark up until the speaker (the person getting interviewed or quoted) finishes his speech. Some use open quotation marks in this instance, while others don't.

I've been trying for some time now, to research about it and although I see it getting mentioned sporadically, it is pretty hard to find further explanations and examples about it and its' proper use. So far, all of the sites I'm going to list below (that seem quite legit), fail to mention its' use. I might be wrong though. I might have missed it.

https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/quotation-marks.html

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/quotation_marks/index.html

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/quotation-marks/

Well, that's all I have.

 

Well you're mistaken because in my story if I [actually a character] say [says]:

'This important thing.

'And then another thing,' I want to say, then I want to write it properly. That's from an expert writing for myself on the internet for almost ten years, loser.

Excitable idiot in progress

 

She did it. I found it online and she did it the way the rule said to.

Howard Roark Speech Here: https://www.workthesystem.com/getting-it/howard-roarks-courtroom-speech/

 

That site is transcribing the movie dialogue, but you are correct.

The complete text of The Fountainhead is online at https://archive.org/stream/TheFountainhead/The-Fountainhead_djvu.txt.

Rourk's speech is about 90% of the way down; search for "the moment of silence" and you'll be at the start.
The text seems to have errors, but the use of standard multi-paragraph quoting is there throughout.

 

Joseph Conrad used this a lot. Whenever he had his narrator, Marlow, tell the tale, he was using it. Just about all of Heart of Darkness is written like this (not a quote!):

Marlow leaned back against the mast and lit his pipe. "Did I ever tell you about the time I went up the Congo? No? Wow, what a trip that was.

"I was sent there by an ivory company to find their station chief, a man named Kurtz. I thought it would be a normal trip, but I had never been to Africa before, and the Congo is a river the like of which I'd never seen. Jungle all around, a sense of wildness, like no god had ever passed that way, only devils.

"I had a small boat, little coal furnace to power the screw, spouting black smoke all the way around the river's bends and twists...

It goes on like that for almost the whole length of the book, only with much, much longer paragraphs.

 

Yes, it is correct to leave off the quotation marks at the end of a paragraph to indicate the person is still speaking and start the next paragraph with quotation marks. In non-fiction, I've used it in a lot of interviews. Before people started having the attention span of a gnat and and magazine interviews got short and snappy (and boring, IMHO), interviews would be multiple pages long and interviewees would have long, amusing anecdotes. The no-end-quotes/beginning-quotes" thing was a good way to delineate the interviewee's words from the article writer's impressions.

ETA: I should add, this is another one of those things where the publication's preferred style guide is God.

 

Ah, let's try this link again! Scroll down to Multiple Lines of Dialogue. http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/

But this also comes from the Chicago Manual of Style (online), 17th edition, which is used as reference by most US publishers to compliment author and house style.

"13: Quotations and dialogue.
If quoted material of more than one paragraph cannot be set as a block quotation (which is normally much preferred; see 13.10), quotation marks are needed at the beginning of each paragraph but at the end of only the final paragraph. (Note that each successive paragraph must begin on a new line, as in the original.) The same practice is followed in dialogue when one speaker’s remarks extend over more than one paragraph."

But it's something I see daily with UK writers too.

 

I avoid this construction at all costs because even if correct, it can be confusing to the reader. Try using a beat to separate the paragraphs, or find a way to avoid it. "We are out of toilet paper," he said, spinning the cardboard roll on the holder. "And that's a problem."

 

I might use this when quoting paragraphs of direct dialogue from one person, such as a speech, as not to make the reader think that there is a back and forth between two speakers. Though I would also avoid quoting paragraphs of dialogue, since that can get boring.

 

If the situation makes it clear that one person is going to be doing most of the talking (such as when someone is telling a story or giving a speech) I don't think there's any possibility of confusion. I have a terse writing style, so I try to avoid adding beats that aren't necessary.

My WIP has a private ceremony where, on the anniversary of the colony's founding, an old woman, Matron, invites the MC and her sister to hear Matron's family's personal history regarding how the colony came to be. You can argue whether what is essentially a backstory dump of almost 6000 words is necessary, but it's obvious who is speaking during it (except when the MC or her sister interrupt). And as Matron is sitting very still with her knees folded beneath her, a tray with sake in front of her, the only beats appropriate to Matron's character are occasional drinks of sake, which are used to punctuate the story (such as to honor a particular group of people in it).

So I guess my thesis is that the standard multi-paragraph quote works fine when the reader has an expectation that the same person is speaking. That expectation can arise from context (a speech is being given) or because the content of the beginning of the next paragraph flows logically from the content of the end of the current one.