Correct punctuation for pauses in dialogue

Mr.Letterman

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Hello again everyone :)

I'm just going to show an example of what I mean instead of explaining.

"Who knows", he looked at the bottom of his empty glass with disappointment, "They can be a funny bunch" he added as he glanced around the tavern for the closest barmaid.

Instead of commas, should they be dashes instead. I'm reading The Goldfinch and Donna Tart uses dashes.
 

Twick

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I don't see the need for any dashes in this particular example. I'd punctuate it as:

"Who knows?" He looked at the bottom of his empty glass with disappointment. "They can be a funny bunch," he added, as he glanced around the tavern for the closest barmaid.
 

Mr.Letterman

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I see what you mean. Would a dash be more relevant if it interrupted the dialogue? I sometimes find the grammar rules surrounding dialogue confusing and equivocal. Thanks
 

blacbird

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Em-dashes are the common convention, as you have already noted. Twick's rewrite is another way. In either case, it's not a thing to overworry about.

caw
 
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Mr.Letterman

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Thanks to you both :). That had plagued my thoughts the last few days
 

Fruitbat

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I think your example needs less detail rather than ways to add more intricacy to it. Telling us every little motion a character makes dulls the prose because it's not interesting. It's a common mistake, but if you had a whole story with this much detail, it would sound like explaining to us how each character breathes in and out. Use details for a reason, not everywhere. And if it's what we'd expect anyway in that situation, there's even less reason to tell us. Here's what I mean:

"Who knows", he looked at the bottom of his empty glass with disappointment, "They can be a funny bunch" he added as he glanced around the tavern for the closest barmaid.

There's a lot wrong with the above, but needing to let us know exactly where he paused in his simple statement there isn't one of them.

For example, punctuation goes within the quotation mark, and there should be a period rather than a comma in the first sentence.

Watch telling us everything people look at, you have "look" and "glance" here in just a couple of sentences. We usually assume people are using their eyes appropriately.

"Looking with disappointment" is a bit clunky. Just looking is enough already without adding more detail to a small unimportant detail.

You need a period after "disappointment," not a comma.

We don't need to be told "he added" more words, we already get that when he actually adds more words.
 
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Captcha

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Well, I disagree with blacbird (not rare) and also with Fruitbat (much more rare).

Re. blacbird's post - I disagree that this isn't important. The original sentence is rough, and absolutely needs some changes in order to not distract from the story. Even if it were just a punctuation issue, it would still be important to get it figured out and do it right.

Re. Fruitbat's post - I don't think we can decide whether something has too much detail or too many beats based on a two-sentence excerpt. We have no idea of the context of this excerpt, the significance of the statements, or anything else that we'd need to know to judge whether we should "cut the whole bar scene short." (Possibly Fruitbat has read more of this story somewhere else - that's the only explanation I can think of). Based on what we've seen here? Who can say? Sometimes a story needs to be sped up, sometimes it needs to be slowed down. That decision needs to be made based on the story as a whole, not a two-line excerpt.
 

Fruitbat

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@Captcha- I know. I got on a roll and couldn't stop. LOL.
 

blacbird

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Re. blacbird's post - I disagree that this isn't important. The original sentence is rough, and absolutely needs some changes in order to not distract from the story. Even if it were just a punctuation issue, it would still be important to get it figured out and do it right.

I don't disagree with you here. I was simply addressing the punctuation question, not the overall sentence style.

caw
 

Mr.Letterman

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I just want to clarify that I literally made that up on the spot as an example. It is not an excerpt from my manuscript. I just wanted to know the correct punctuation. Thanks
 

KendallDavis

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Regarding commas, em dashes and pauses in thought, this post matches my concern. In this instance, I am not referring to dialogue with commas and pauses, and I admit that I am overly hung-up on correct comma usage. I do not want a strong pause here. Should it be:

I feel that we had an extremely productive meeting and that together, we can help move your mission along.

Or

I feel that we had an extremely productive meeting and that together—we can help move your mission along.
 

Bufty

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Regarding commas, em dashes and pauses in thought, this post matches my concern. In this instance, I am not referring to dialogue with commas and pauses, and I admit that I am overly hung-up on correct comma usage. I do not want a strong pause here. Should it be:

I feel that we had an extremely productive meeting and that together, we can help move your mission along.

Or

I feel that we had an extremely productive meeting and that together—we can help move your mission along.

You refer to 'thought' but your illustration appears to be dialogue with missing quotation marks.

Neither a comma nor an em-dash indicate a pause of any sort.

If indicating a pause is important and it has an obvious meaning in the dialogue, the best method of indicating it is to say exactly that - He/she/Tom/Sue paused or hesitated or whatever the reason is for pausing.

An ellipsis indicates omitted words or trailing off, and an em-dash in dialogue usually indicates an external interruption.

An ellipsis might work in the example you give by showing trailing off/hesitation before the final phrase, if that is indeed what you wish to indicate, but beware of overusing ellipses.
 
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KendallDavis

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Thank you very much, Buffy. I can surely apply this to future quandries, but in this instance, it is not for dialogue. It is written correspondence. This post just seemed to match my concern without creating a new thread.
 

DarienW

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Mr. Letterman and Kendall, and anyone interested, Beth Hill has a blog post with clear instructions on all things dialogue. Link.

Head on over and help her celebrate 5 million views on her blog site!

:)
 

JDlugosz

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I think there is a distinction between the dialog being literally interrupted as he is speaking, and an effect where you show other actions taking place while the character is talking, interspersing the speaking with the other narrative thread.

Your example is a literal pause as the speaker has movement between the two spoken lines. Furthermore, he does not cut off the end of a sentence or pause in the middle of a sentence. The sentences spoken should be punctuated normally.
 

KendallDavis

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Yes, it is a literal pause, but I do want the reader to know that there is a pause between "together" and "we can". I thought about puttig an emphasis on together with italics.
 

Bufty

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Yes, it is a literal pause, but I do want the reader to know that there is a pause between "together" and "we can". I thought about puttig an emphasis on together with italics.

It's a letter. When you mention the reader, do you mean the recipient of the letter? You really are overthinking this. Aim for clarity. Have your character write what she means without relying on dashes and italics.
 
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KendallDavis

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Yes, the reader of the letter. Lol, I know, I always overthink. I realize this is such a little bitty point, but it is important to my context. Thank you.
 

Roxxsmom

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I see what you mean. Would a dash be more relevant if it interrupted the dialogue? I sometimes find the grammar rules surrounding dialogue confusing and equivocal. Thanks

I think the dash is more often used if you're inserting an abrupt action that interrupts the dialog briefly, rather than something quieter that is occurring as the words are said. The commas are definitely wrong, though, as the action you inserted isn't a dialog tag (with some form of said).

So you could write it the way Twick suggested, or you could use a tag for the first part, which would allow the commas there. But then it would be smoother to make the second part its own sentence.

"Who knows?" he said as he looked at the bottom of his empty glass with disappointment, "They can be a funny bunch." He glanced around the tavern for the closest barmaid.

If you wanted to use m-dashes, you could do it like so:

"Who knows?"--he looked at the bottom of his empty glass with disappointment--"They can be a funny bunch." He glanced around the tavern for the closest barmaid.

But that implies a level of abruptness that the description of the action and its placement don't imply. I'd be more inclined to use them if the sentence were interrupted mid stream by the action. I think Twick's suggestion works best for the example at hand. It's all about the feeling you're trying to get across.



So
 
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Roxxsmom

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I see what you mean. Would a dash be more relevant if it interrupted the dialogue? I sometimes find the grammar rules surrounding dialogue confusing and equivocal. Thanks

I think the dash is more often used if you're inserting an abrupt action that interrupts a sentence in the middle (or cuts it in two), rather than something quieter that is occurring as the words are said. The commas are definitely wrong, though, as the action you inserted isn't a dialog tag (with some form of said).

So you could write it the way Twick suggested, or you could use a tag for the first part, which would allow the commas there. But then it would be smoother to make the second part its own sentence.

"Who knows?" he said as he looked at the bottom of his empty glass with disappointment, "They can be a funny bunch." He glanced around the tavern for the closest barmaid.

If you wanted to use m-dashes, you could do it like so:

"Who knows?"--he looked at the bottom of his empty glass with disappointment--"They can be a funny bunch." He glanced around the tavern for the closest barmaid.

But that implies a level of abruptness that the description of the action doesn't imply. I'd be more inclined to use m-dashes if the action actually interrupts a sentence and cuts it in half. I think Twick's suggestion works best for the example at hand. It's all about the feeling you're trying to get across.
 
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NealM

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I'm reading The Goldfinch and Donna Tart uses dashes.

For what it's worth, I read The Goldfinch a few weeks ago and recall being perplexed by quite a bit of the punctuation. I figured they were mostly either literary grammar devices that were over my head or just the author's own style choices, so I didn't get too caught up by them. There are many things about Donna Tart's writing that I would never in a million years attempt to emulate - and I mean that in a good way.
 

ForeverYoursCaffiene

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I use this for a pause:
"I don't know," Bob said, sighing toward the doorway. "I hope she returns soon."

The words after "I don't know" give a pause automatically without doing any amazing syntax. The reader is busy reading up to the next quote, which should give the length of the pause if read at an average speed.

I also use '...' when there's a breathing pause, such as being out of breath. I use '—' when something immediately follows, which often has a very short pause. For something in the middle, I would normally use the syntax above.
 
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