Exclamation in dialogue...
- Thread starter jennifer75
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I prefer the first one, but think we could do without the "I scream", since the words used and the exclamation marks are already showing that it's loud and urgent.
I have no idea what's going on in the story, of course, but maybe something like
"It's 7:20! Hurry!" I peeked out the window to see if we were going to miss the school bus yet again.
I have no idea what's going on in the story, of course, but maybe something like
"It's 7:20! Hurry!" I peeked out the window to see if we were going to miss the school bus yet again.
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The question is two parts, really. First, is it one or two sentences? I'd say two. Sentence one is the announcement of the time. Sentence two is an imperative with an understood subject, 'you.'
Second, should either or both have an exclamation point? I'm aware that it's often overused, and when it is, its impact is reduced to almost nothing. If the situation is life-or-death, literally, I'd stick with the exclamation point, but if it's mere lateness, whether it belongs is up to you, depending on how many others appear in your work.
Third (which is a neat trick for a two-part question), I think if you choose to keep the exclamation point, I screamed becomes redundant. You could go with no dialogue attribution at all, or use an action by the character instead if you need to make it clear who's speaking.
“It’s 7:20. Hurry!” I start the engine. works for me.
Maryn, almost never late
Second, should either or both have an exclamation point? I'm aware that it's often overused, and when it is, its impact is reduced to almost nothing. If the situation is life-or-death, literally, I'd stick with the exclamation point, but if it's mere lateness, whether it belongs is up to you, depending on how many others appear in your work.
Third (which is a neat trick for a two-part question), I think if you choose to keep the exclamation point, I screamed becomes redundant. You could go with no dialogue attribution at all, or use an action by the character instead if you need to make it clear who's speaking.
“It’s 7:20. Hurry!” I start the engine. works for me.
Maryn, almost never late
No I scream for sure, unless the situation is : "It's 7:20, and the bomb will detonate at 7:21. Hurry!" Hmm, and maybe not even then.
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It's very hard to scream and talk at the same time, but if you managed it, then it's worth writing down.
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No screaming. Last option is grammatically incorrect. First one has too many exclamation marks. Second one is better, but still icky because of the dialogue tag.
Try: "It's 7:20, hurry!" I said.
Or maybe: I cupped my hands around my mouth. "It's 7:20, hurry!"
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Not the last one.
Picking between the others is *not* a matter of punctuation, it's a matter of how you want the line read.
"It's 7:20, hurry!" means you only put a half stop between the two.
"It's 7:20. Hurry!" means that '7:20' is pronounced all on a level, with a full stop afterwards.
"It's 7:20! Hurry!" means that you are probably putting strong stress on 'TWEN', and probably an upward rising tone on 'ty'.
When you are punctuating *dialogue* what you are really doing is finding the best way to transcribe sound, and so the key is to make sure that you can hear the delivery in your head, and then keep in mind that the punctuation is really there more as diacritic mark.
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I'll go against common advice and say the "I scream" isn't necessarily redundant, because an exclamation point does not ALWAYS indicate the subject is screaming. It just indicates that they're speaking urgently or rapidly. Without it in this example, I would assume the person is just speaking in a hurried, urgent manner. I would not know they were screaming. Adding the "I scream" makes it obvious that the fact it's 7:20 is a lot more important/urgent than I thought it was.
Speech tags might be unnecessary at times, but like with adverbs, they are NOT the enemy.
That being said, example one or two would be correct. It depends on whether the person is speaking one urgent sentence or two urgent sentences. *shrug* The third example is grammatically incorrect.
Phoebe H's reply is excellent.
Speech tags might be unnecessary at times, but like with adverbs, they are NOT the enemy.
That being said, example one or two would be correct. It depends on whether the person is speaking one urgent sentence or two urgent sentences. *shrug* The third example is grammatically incorrect.
Phoebe H's reply is excellent.
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