I never had any need to think about it. But I saw Was he going to kiss her?, she thought. a few days ago in Swedish so I just wanted to know what you think about it. I always write in more or less close third. There is never any need to say who is thinking as it's always obvious. The problem is more to distinguish thoughts from narration. Writing omniscient and a scene with several characters you might need to use thought tags. If I ever get in that situation I will follow the advice from both of you.
So which one is correct? “I got a plan for the weekend” Martha said and continued. “I am going to the zoo.” “I got a plan for the weekend,” Martha said and continued. “I am going to the zoo.” Do you absolutely need to use the comma?
You do. And you need one more comma, because you have two tags. Really, I’d add two more, but my comma after “said” in the below is probably optional. “I got a plan for the weekend,” Martha said, and continued, “I am going to the zoo.”
Other languages certainly do have other punctuation conventions. In Spanish, the following is correct: Y me preguntó la señora, ¿Que pasó aquí? In English, that kind of punctuation next to punctuation is at best questionable (as in the use of ?! at the end of a very emphatic question) or simply not grammatical. My AP English teacher explained it to me this way (and I am loosely paraphrasing): Quotation marks hover above the sentence and do not interact with the punctuation that is in line with the words. They serve only to indicate that which is spoken aloud and know nothing about the syntax below. I agree with Chickenfreak here. “I got a plan for the weekend,” Martha said, and continued, “I am going to the zoo." Had you not added the and continued, it could be different. We would have no grammatical expectation of a subsequent clause - either independent or dependent - and the sentence would finish, leaving the remaining dialogue as independent and on its own without a written attribution, but logically attributable to Martha since we are still in the same paragraph. “I got a plan for the weekend,” Martha said. “I am going to the zoo."
The only counterexample I can think of is when a period is used to abbreviate, such as in A.I., etc., and such.
Ooh I am starting to have a love-hate relationship with this website. It is teaching me so much about the English language and how to write properly.... but it also reminds me of how little I know, how bad my English is and that I constantly need to go back and fix my own mistakes..
What if its just a simple sentence like this? “I'm going to the zoo,” I said to Martha and poked her. Or would it be: “I'm going to the zoo.” I said to Martha and poked her. ?
I see. What about this: “I got a plan for the weekend,” Martha said, smiling cheerfully, “I am going to the zoo.” or “I got a plan for the weekend,” Martha said, smiling cheerfully. “I am going to the zoo.” ? Sorry for so many questions.
The second one. There, you don't use a comma before the second line of dialogue because "smiling cheerfully" isn't a dialogue tag.
Jeez, sorry for all these questions, but what about: “We should visit the zoo,” I heard someone say. “Yes, later today,” I heard someone else reply. I turned around, and saw my parents right behind me. “Can I bring a friend with me?” I asked. “Sure, why not,” my dad said. Do you need to replace some of the commas with full stops, or is it correct as it is?
Well, here you also need line breaks. Normally, every new speaker gets their own paragraph. But the commas are fine. “We should visit the zoo,” I heard someone say. “Yes, later today,” I heard someone else reply. I turned around, and saw my parents right behind me. “Can I bring a friend with me?” I asked. “Sure, why not,” my dad said. I would probably have put a question mark on the last line, instead of a comma: “Sure, why not?” my dad said.
That's actually how I write my dialogue; it makes a lot more sense that way since the person is stopping (presumably) at the point of the period. However if that person was to continue speaking (without stopping) I'd end it with an "Example..." X shrugged his shoulders, and then said: "...words, words." I would never use commas at the end of a statement before X said because it implies X will continue to say something (which may not be the case--if it is the case, I'd rather use ellipses). Practically speaking even classical English-speaking writers contradict each other in the proper use of grammar on the finer level. Therefore I don't think it is worth worrying about; especially if it makes contextual sense.
Standard dialogue punctuation is pretty standard. I wouldn’t consider it a matter of opinion thing so much as an “If you’re not worried about being traditionally published, you can do whatever you want” thing.
"I'm not." I said; "I don't think the difference really matters, and I prefer to end with periods when the speaker is in fact ending." After thinking some more, I continued: "I'm curious how many other English-speaking authors, past or present, agree with me." "After all, I can't be the only one." I said, scratching my head and wondering.
Traditionally published or not, do you care about having readers? I would be unable to read this for more than a page or two—my brain would keep tripping and falling on what to me are errors.
"Well..." I said; "I did try to provide a visual example. The third line was supposed to be the start of a new paragraph in order to further demonstrate, as the "x said" actually isn't as common as I thought it was--assuming only one person is talking." I paused for the explicit purpose of having an excuse for a new paragraph. "Hey!" said a voice in my head. "Lol I gave you a reason to use an exclamation mark instead! Ha!" "Hahaha!" I laughed. "Interesting." Another voice in my head added. "Oh look, another example of a period at the end of a line before a line between yet more dialogue." "Oh crap." I cursed. "I accidentally submitted this while typing this. Hope I don't get replied to before the edit's done..." "Hm." noised another voice. "Well..." began yet another. "An obvious benefit of ending lines with periods before the interjection is to make it clear that the person had stopped. Also, perhaps, in the first person especially. After all, the narrator is technically a 'character' in this charade." "Yes, I am." I said, finishing. Second Edit: I could say the same of writers who use ' "," X said' as I find that annoying and misleading. Like, I'd assume X would go on. Or, rather annoyingly, I'm reminded that only the narrator is talking--technically it's just some guy speaking to me through text, not actual characters speaking for themselves. And that's a bit immersion breaking. Ultimately I think it's a matter of personal taste. Most people either wouldn't notice, wouldn't care, and a minority might find it preferable. Perhaps even a minority rivaling the size of the minority that finds such a little persistent "mistake" difficult. Third Edit: Having said all this, I think I'd rather just correct my persistent mistake as it apparently is a surprisingly rare thing (dialogue followed by tag) but is consistently comma'd. I'd rather not bother the eyes of those who are both familiar and know better.
I don't know, honestly. I can think of advantages for the non-standard and the fact no one has noticed it implies a lack of a problem. Even non-standard, I could probably get away with it depending on the context. However... People most likely to buy a book and read are also much more likely to care about the finer points of grammar instinctively. However tactical use of periods creates a certain tone without having to explicitly say it. For example: ' "Looks like there's going to be a war." John said. ' The period makes John sound nonchalant. If it was "Looks like there's going to be a war..." suddenly he sounds nervous. An exclamation mark would make him sound excited (either fearful or... well, joyful). A comma implies nothing beyond a continuation, and I'd like to give tone to whom I am quoting with as little said as possible about the speaker in the moment. It seems like a small, yet big, thing. I'm not sure how seriously to consider it as there are technically many styles of writing and since the use of punctuation and symbols like " ; "," : ","--", "-". etc. are sometimes inconsistently used (between authors, not within the story itself) I question it even more. Especially since standardized spelling and punctuation is rather recent. I'm not going to through punctuation and spelling to the wind (after all it'd be rather annoying to read something that is purposely full of mispellings and eccentric use of punctuation) however I think the comma before a tag thing can be ignored. After all, I just heard about placing spaces (1 or 2) before and after quotation marks... which apparently originated with the typewriter. Considering how the rules are always changing, I might as well ignore the non-standard neglect of the comma before the tag since that might very well be how it's done a decade or so from now anyway. The English language is flexible. I wouldn't be surprised if emojis start (or started) to populate fiction books, even...
But it doesn't. I can't deny that you read it that way, because obviously you know how you feel. But most people are going to be used to the standard punctuation, because it is indeed the standard, and they'll read the comma as being the end of the sentence that John is speaking. A variation from the standard will distract them from the story. If you're writing solely for yourself and don't care if your writing is read by anyone, then that doesn't matter. Otherwise, it matters. I could declare that I don't like the word "tea" and that instead I'm going to say, "Would you like a nice hot cup of bagel?" And I could argue that the language is changing all the time, and in ten years surely most people will follow me in referring to hot brewed leaves as 'bagel'. But...I'd be pretty much wrong.
