Punctuation question

kaitie · Oct 26, 2009

I've got a sentence in my synopsis that's stumping me. Typically I'm good at grammar, but in that I really have no idea about the rules behind it and it all comes naturally sort of way. Anyway, here's the sentence:

[FONT=&quot]Angie is skeptical. After all, she has spent all day watching him lie, but she finds herself believing him. [/FONT]

I feel like the first and second sentence should go together, probably with a dash so it looks more like this:

[FONT=&quot]Angie is skeptical--after all, she has spent all day watching him lie, but she finds herself believing him. [/FONT]

If I do that, however, do I also use a dash after "lie?" Or can I just use commas. I can't decide if it's a run-on with commas or a fragment without.

vroth · Oct 26, 2009

Depends on what you want the sentence to say. If you want it to say, essentially: "Angie is skeptical, but she finds herself believing him" with a little comment inside it, you put the dashes in like this:

Angie is skeptical--after all, she has spent all day watching him lie--but she finds herself believing him.

If you want the "after all, she has spent all day watching him lie" attached to the "but she finds herself believing him," it goes like this:

Angie is skeptical--after all, she has spent all day watching him lie, but she finds herself believing him.

(Hopefully that made sense!)

Summonere · Oct 26, 2009

Angie is skeptical -- after all, she has spent all day watching him lie -- but she finds herself believing him.

Using the form above, the dashes render the inner material parenthetical.

sydney · Oct 26, 2009

JMO, but I think it's better without the "after all."

Angie is skeptical--she has spent all day watching him lie, but she finds herself believing him.

kaitie · Oct 26, 2009

Summonere said:
Angie is skeptical -- after all, she has spent all day watching him lie -- but she finds herself believing him.

Using the form above, the dashes render the inner material parenthetical.

That's the idea I was going for. I wanted to put it in parenthesis, but I'm trying to remove them so this works perfectly. Thanks.

Punctuation question

kaitie

With great power comes

vroth

...yep.

Summonere

sydney

kaitie

With great power comes