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Cut off sentences in quotes

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mellymel

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I was just wondering what the proper way of writing someone's dialogue is when they are being cut off in speech. Do you use a quotation at the end or just leave it hanging with the dash?

Ex.

"Stop it! What the hell are you--"
"Stop moving, damn it. You're going to rip it."

Or is it,

"Stop it! What the hell are you--
"Stop moving, damn it. Your going to rip it."

Okay, for some reason the dashes are not showing up here as one longer dash the way they do in my MS, but you get my drift. What is the proper way of doing this? When I put the end quote on one of my sentences where there's speech being cut off, the quote comes up backwards. Am I making sense? Do you kwim? Thanks for your help.

Mel
 

Ryan_Sullivan

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The first, but it could get a little confusing. It might be nice to have something between the quotations.

"Stop it! What the hell are you--" He was cut off by (blah blah blah). "Stop moving, damn it. Your going to rip it."
 

Soccer Mom

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Use the first. Em dashes still require you to close your quotation marks. You're having issues because you have smart quotes turned on (makes the curly quotation marks). Change it to straight quotes and you won't have to worry about what direction they face.
 

Jill Karg

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actually i was always taught this way.


"Stop it! What the hell are you..."
"Stop moving, damn it. You're going to rip it."


three periods together next to word. no spacing between ... and word and "
 

TheIT

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The em-dash indicates a sudden cutoff or interruption. The ellipsis indicates a gradual trailing off.

MS Word has default settings for some punctuation marks. One setting converts two -- into an em-dash. Another is "smart quote" to make curly quotes. Most recommendations I've seen say to turn off both these features. Also, get rid of the AutoCorrect value to convert ... into one character.

Remember that quotation marks must come in pairs. In the second example in the original post, there's an odd number of quotes. MS Word will always try to match up pairs of quotes for curly quotes to make sure the "curls" are in the right direction. That's why the "quote shows up backwards". It's trying to match the first quote of the second sentence as the last quote of the first sentence. Doesn't matter to Word that it's on a different line.
 

mellymel

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Interesting guys. Thanks for the info. My computer turns -- into what I now know is called an em-dash.

Ellipsis I only use for as you said, trailing off in conversation or thought. But I do have the curly quotes so I will look into turning them off.

Thanks so much.

Mel
 
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FennelGiraffe

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"Stop it! What the hell are you--"
"Stop moving, damn it. You're going to rip it."

Or is it,

"Stop it! What the hell are you--
"Stop moving, damn it. Your going to rip it."

Is this the same speaker with no intervening action? If so, why are you separating it? Why not keep it together?
"Stop it! What the hell are you-- Stop moving, damn it. You're going to rip it."
 

Leah J. Utas

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Got drawn to this discussion and glad of it. I was having the same quote mark problems and had no idea about smart vs. straight marks. Thanks Soccer Mom.
 

Shadow_Ferret

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Is this the same speaker with no intervening action? If so, why are you separating it? Why not keep it together?
"Stop it! What the hell are you-- Stop moving, damn it. You're going to rip it."

No, I thought it was one speaker being interrupted by a second speaker.

In which case it would be the first example where each piece of dialog is enclosed within quotation marks.
 

Sevvy

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Got drawn to this discussion and glad of it. I was having the same quote mark problems and had no idea about smart vs. straight marks. Thanks Soccer Mom.

Ditto, and it used to drive me nuts. My writing teachers would circle them all, and I'd just be like "...you know what I meant! Stupid computer..."
 

mellymel

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Is this the same speaker with no intervening action? If so, why are you separating it? Why not keep it together?
"Stop it! What the hell are you-- Stop moving, damn it. You're going to rip it."

No. Two different speakers. This isn't an example from my work. I made this on the spot. Sorry if it wasn't clear. But thanks for taking the time to respond :)

Now...how the heck do I turn off the curly quotes :)
 

Sevvy

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Tools>Autocorrect>Autoformat Tab. It's called "Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes. Uncheck it.

You can also uncheck the thing that makes -- into an M dash, and a few other things that might annoy you. :)

If you're working with Word 2010 (like I am T_T). Then it's File->options->proofing->autocorrect options

I think we should get together a giant spreadsheet of how to use all of our various writing programs, honestly.
 

mellymel

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Thanks Shadow,

Did it.

One last question, how do I get them to change in the text of my MS? Do I have to do a find all " and change them that way or is there another way to do it? Last question, promise :)

Thanks
 

mellymel

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will give that a try. thanks so very much everyone for your help :)

Mel
 

Satori1977

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actually i was always taught this way.


"Stop it! What the hell are you..."
"Stop moving, damn it. You're going to rip it."


three periods together next to word. no spacing between ... and word and "

I was taught that ... meant the speaker was trailing off deliberately. Pausing, thinking, whatever. But a dash -- indicates something else cut them off, like another person talking over them.
 

Satori1977

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No, I thought it was one speaker being interrupted by a second speaker.

In which case it would be the first example where each piece of dialog is enclosed within quotation marks.

That is what I was assuming, it was two different speakers. If it is the same, I wouldn't seperate the dialogue by making a second line...keep it all on one line.
 
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