Suppose you have a longish paragraph that leads into one character speaking. The last sentence in the paragraph could be considered a dialog/action tag to show who's speaking. According to http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/dialoguebasics.html
"When using action to identify the source of dialogue, each sentence stands alone with its punctuation: John jumped up and down three times. “I am happy!”"
Considering this, what would be the best way to format the following example dialog? With the dialog tag contained in the main paragraph, or broken off to stand alone? Please, this is just a general example, no comments on it's lameness
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John and Suzy sat at the table. Suzy reached for the butter. The cat jumped up. John looked annoyed but did nothing. Suzy swatted the cat.
"That damn cat of yours better not do that again."
or ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John and Suzy sat at the table. Suzy reached for the butter. The cat jumped up. John looked annoyed but did nothing.
Suzy swatted the cat. "That damn cat of yours better not do that again."
"When using action to identify the source of dialogue, each sentence stands alone with its punctuation: John jumped up and down three times. “I am happy!”"
Considering this, what would be the best way to format the following example dialog? With the dialog tag contained in the main paragraph, or broken off to stand alone? Please, this is just a general example, no comments on it's lameness
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John and Suzy sat at the table. Suzy reached for the butter. The cat jumped up. John looked annoyed but did nothing. Suzy swatted the cat.
"That damn cat of yours better not do that again."
or ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John and Suzy sat at the table. Suzy reached for the butter. The cat jumped up. John looked annoyed but did nothing.
Suzy swatted the cat. "That damn cat of yours better not do that again."