Dialog and Punctuation/Capitalization

I would say Ex3. That's what I would use anyway.

These are the correct choices:

When Jane asked, "What's your name?" his mind went blank.

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"I like you Jane, but," he paused, trying to find the right words, "you're just too crazy for me."

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"When I was a little girl, I always... ... ... Even then I didn't that I was like everyone else.

"After I turned eighteen, I moved to the city, and got an apartment... ... ... Like I said, it wasn't the most pleasant place, but I managed.

"I tried to attend college, but... ... ... Eventually, I just started working at this dead end job. That's when I met you, Joe."

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Agreed with Devil

Why not just:

Jane asked, "What's your name?" His mind went blank. (There's no need to use "when.")

"I like you, Jane, but--" He tried to find the right words. "You're just too crazy for me." (There's no need to use "he paused." It's very clear he's pausing.)

Devil would be right on all cases for correct grammar. Those look good to me.

Maestrowork is right on cutting out words that aren't needed.

But I think it's good we covered the correct grammar part. If you run into similar things (but not exactly the same) in the future, you at least know how to make it look right.

One thing that drives me frantic:


No, no, no. She is not capitalized.

is correct.

Do not screw this one up.

Uh-oh, answers provided and gratitude given, but I don't agree with all of them. Am I too late?

ct bliss said:

First of all, when a character asks a question mid-sentence, how would I punctuate it?

Ex: When Jane asked, "What's your name?" his mind went blank. OR When Jane asked, "What's your name?" His mind went blank.

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The first seems logical, as the dialog is found mid-sentence, but the second looks more asthetically pleasing.

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I'm 100% certain that the first one is correct. Why? Because When Jane asked, "What's your name?" is not a complete sentence but a dependent clause, so you need to have a an independent clause--a sentence that can stand on its own--to say what happened when Jane asked. While His mind went blank is a complete sentence, it leaves that dependent clause hanging on nothing. Your choices are When A, B. or the simpler A. B. that Maestro suggested.

Secondly, pausing in mid dialog, to do something, anything, even pause.

Ex: "I like you Jane, but," he paused, trying to find the right words, "you're just too crazy for me." He failed. OR "I like you Jane, but," he paused, trying to find the right words, "You're just too crazy for me." He failed.

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This is the one where I disagree, quite strongly. Paused is not a synonym for said and can't be used as a dialogue tag or attribute. You can't say, for instance, "Hello," he paused. It's an action. If I were to write this sentence using these words, rather than finding a work-around, I'd write "I like you, Jane." He paused, trying to find the right words. "But you're just too crazy for me." He'd failed.

And lastly, a long dialog - as in a character is telling a story to another character. I've seen this done many ways, and was wondering if there is a right and a wrong way to go about it.

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I didn't copy any of the examples because I suspect it's never right, or the best choice, to have dialogue trail off with ellipses, then another set of ellipses to show the reader there's unheard dialogue continuing, then a third set of ellipses leading to resumed dialogue, ending up with three ellipses in a row. If I were an editor, I might leave for the day with a headache.

What I'd consider instead is allowing the dialogue to trail off, one set of ellipses, then a close quote and a summary or remark about the content the reader doesn't get to see, then a resumption of dialogue without any ellipses leading into it. Something like "After I turned eighteen, I moved to the city, and got an apartment..." She'd told the story so many times she scarcely heard it as she told it yet again. "Like I said, it wasn't the most pleasant place, but I managed."

Maryn, daring to be different

I didn't copy any of the examples because I suspect it's never right, or the best choice, to have dialogue trail off with ellipses,

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I agree with you about elipses, however, in this case I took them to mean the poster was showing us that he was leaving some of the dialogue out, so as not to make his post overly long.

I didn't think he'd meant us to believe he'd created a dialogue stuffed full of ellipses.

And yes, there were better ways to word the passages he asked about, but he didn't ask us to reword them, he asked us to help him choose which, of those presented, were correct. My impression was that this was not text from his actual WIP, but simply example sentences he whipped up so he could figure out proper punctuation in dialogue.

Maryn said:

This is the one where I disagree, quite strongly. Paused is not a synonym for said and can't be used as a dialogue tag or attribute. You can't say, for instance, "Hello," he paused.

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I agree. I hate incorrect dialogue tags. I don't even like for people to 'smile' things.

You often see something that looks superficially similar, however, though it is really quite different. That is when 'business' is inserted as break in the sentence. This is an interruption, not a tag. I've usually seen this done with em-dashes (though there seems to be some disagreement about where the em-dashes go relative to the quotation marks--maybe someone here has the definitive answer?) Example:

"I like you, Jane, but—" he popped down his last two Valiums and winced— "you're just too crazy for me."

Of course, you could just say:

"I like you, Jane, but..." He popped down his last two Valiums and winced. "You're just too crazy for me."

It's a stylistic matter. The first one reads more like an interrupting action, the second like a full stop and a resumption. (I also find the em-dash break annoying if it is used too often, or used for no real reason.)

The big question is, should we correct Valiums to Valia? (just kidding)

Hey, CT.

Isn't it odd how you can read books for years without really noticing the specifics of dialogue mechanics? These are all really just conventions, but they are conventions we absorb as we learn to read ("Look, Dick," said Jane, "see Spot run!").

They tend to be invisible until we have to write them down ourselves--and then we realize that school never prepared us for this!

Hang in there.

I've been almost scolding myself about it. Like, how many books have I read and still don't know this!? I've been going back and picking some off the shelf just to see how the simplest things are done.

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It's a credit to the authors of all the books we've read without noticing the mechanics. They pulled us into the story, just as they should. I should write so well, eh?

Sorry about misunderstanding the ellipses thing. I thought you were literally using 3 ellipses in succession, which looked pretty weird.

Maryn, glad to hear it's going better