Punctuation Question about... questions

I'm currently writing a piece of dialogue involving a question followed by a tag. It's been so long since I sat down and worked on any piece that I've forgotten some rules on punctuation. In the following sentence do I need to insert a comma or is it not needed. If so does it go inside the quotation or outside? I referred to Cogitos mechanics of dialogue post but I'm still having trouble.

Here's the sentence:

"Hey, you up?", a creaky voice said.

 

No omma after the quote mark.

 

Thank you.

So as a rule is the only time a comma is used following dialogue if the quote would have normally ended in a period?

 

No. If the spoken dialogue ends with a full stop (period), replace with a comma.

"It's hot!" said John. - correct

"It's hot." said John. - wrong

"It's hot," said John. - correct

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

 

Well, you can put a period before the end quote as long as the thought ends there. For example.

"Hey," Tim said, "you wanna play Mario the hedgehat?"

"You're an idiot." Timothy said. "Mario is a werehat."

"No, he isn't." Timaeus the Timely said.

The trick is that the dialogue tag doesn't technically exist as a part of the sentence. All it is is moving what would normally precede or follow the dialogue in the middle as a way to spice it up a bit.

Tom said. "You're stupid. You all suck."

Is basically the same thing

"You're stupid." Tom said. "You all suck."


Tom said. "Hey there Delilah, what's it like in New York City?"

Is the same thing as,

"Hey there Delilah," Tom said, "what's it like in New York City?"

 

Those are actually incorrect. Sorry.

They should be:

"You're an idiot," Timothy said. "Mario is a werehat."

"No, he isn't," Timaeus the Timely said.

.............

and this is also incorrect:

It should be:

Tom said, "You're stupid. You all suck."

.........

If you don't believe me, pick up a conventionally-printed novel and check to see how the author has punctuated dialogue. (Unless you live in a part of the world that does it differently ...uses dashes instead of quotes, etc.) Or get hold of a little guide book, like Webster's Compact Writers Guide, which should demonstrate how it is done.

In fact, the dialogue attribution IS punctuated as if it's part of the sentence it's being linked to. (Tom said doesn't make sense as a stand-alone sentence without a link, does it?) The confusion comes, I reckon, because question marks and exclamation points sometimes replace the comma—for emphasis—so folks assume that a period should replace the comma as well.

 

Exactly! My largest source of confusion was to whether or not a comma should follow the question mark but apparently it's unnecessary.

 

Also, even if the second part of the dialogue is a continuation of the first part, the first word needs to be capitalised. So:
"Hey there Delilah," Tom said, "What's it like in New York City?"

Because the narrative splits the dialogue into two sentences. Tom here is saying:
Hey there Delilah. What's it like in New York City?
Not:
Hey there Delilah, what's it like in New York City?

If the second is what you intend, don't split the dialogue up.

 

Huh, never thought of it that way.

 

Not necessarily. You can have:

"It's hot." John tugged at his collar.

The comma applies only if it's followed by a dialogue tag.

 

Again, I beg to disagree. That's just not true. If dialogue is split up, and the second line of speech does not necessarily require a capital letter.

"Hey, you know," Tom said, "that's a really good idea."

^That's clearly one single sentence: "Hey, you know, that's a really good idea." Capitalising "That" wouldn't make an ounce of sense. The example you gave, however, pertains to two complete sentences and I feel is a poor example, because it looks odd either way. I'd just end "said " with a period and capitalise "What" like you suggested - I wouldn't let it run.

 

Sure, but in this case, the two parts are separate sentences. It would be correct if you had:
"It's hot," said John, tugging at his collar.

Which is one sentence. As you said, dialogue tag.

 

To be fair, the example was a quote from the OP.

 

I am reading everybodies comments and just getting confused!

Is this correct?

'I dont think that's right,' said Tom, 'you have to do it this way.'

Thats the most commonly split kind of sentence that I write.

I have also seen many writers end dialogue sentences with a comma, which I think is incorrect.

So an example would be:

'I could not be sure,'

Whenever I see a comma I expect more dialogue. Although I do appreciate there are many reasons for using them. I believe the correct thing to do is use a full stop in this particular case. Leaving a sentence hanging gets us into another ball game entirely so lets not go there.

Or are you all right and all wrong and it is simply a question of preference!

 

Lol this has expanded into quite the discussion. All I was wanting to know about originally waa dialogue where a tag follows a "?". I was confused about whether a comma followed the ? or just omit it altogether.

 

'I dont think that's right,' said Tom, 'you have to do it this way.'

Yes, this is correct. Except again, I would treat the two spoken halves as two separate sentences, therefore capitalising the "you". The reason for this is, if you wrote this as one line of dialogue, it doesn't sound righ to me.
"I dont think that's right, you have to do it this way."
Doesn't sound right when spoken.
"I dont think that's right. You have to do it this way."
Is more natural.

So to split, I would write:
'I dont think that's right,' said Tom, 'You have to do it this way.'

However, again, it might be better to simply not split the dialogue.

As for this:
'I could not be sure,'

It's correct IF it's followed by a dialogue tag. That is:

'I could not be sure,' said John.

If it's a standalone line of dialogue, the comma is not required.

'I could not be sure.' John started walking away.

Because this is the same as:

'I could not be sure.'
John started walking away.

 

“Confused? You won’t be, after this week’s episode of... Soap!”

 

Yes. Think—is your dialogue tag splitting a sentence?

Like, for instance: "It's wrong," said Tom, "when you do it that way."

It's wrong, when you do it that way. That's a complete sentence, which you are splitting with the dialogue tag. If the dialogue tag wasn't there, you wouldn't punctuate it like this: It's wrong, When you do it that way. The dialogue tag doesn't change the punctuation of the original sentence. It simply fits in to that punctuation.

If your dialogue split does come between two sentences, then you punctuate with the period after the dialogue tag and start the next sentence with a cap letter:

"I don't think that's right," said Tom. "Our teacher told us to do like this, instead."

The trick to punctuating dialogue is simple. Remove the dialogue tag. How would you punctuate what is left? Once you have that worked out, you can re-insert the dialogue tag and fit it in to the punctuation you've established.

..........
By the way...

BEWARE the comma splice, which is certainly creeping in to a lot of writing these days. You should never use a comma to split two complete clauses (sentences) unless the clauses are very short and there is an obvious parallel: One day you're a Senator, the next day you're unemployed. And that doesn't happen often. Complete clauses are usually separated by a conjunction (and, but, etc), a semi-colon if the two clauses are related enough that the thought isn't complete without both, OR a period/question mark/exclamation point, followed by a Cap letter.

 

This would be fun, if you wrote it into a story. Readers could think that Tom is saying he doesn't think.

"I don't think," groaned Tom, "I need braiiiinnnsss....."

 

I think we're at risk here of confusing the OP even further.

 

I laughed. Mind you, with the comma after Tom, you'd have to read it as "I don't think I need brains". So maybe we'll end up with a poor friend thinking, "Well, I'm safe, Tom won't eat my brains" and then subsequently go down in a puddle of blood?

Let's confuse things further by mentioning that there are occasions when you don't close speech with speech marks, shall we?

 

Omit

Omit! For the purposes of your question, Naomasa298’s first response with the grammarly link is all you need.