[bksvol-discuss] Re: questions about quotes
- From: Ann Parsons <akp@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:35:51 -0400
Hi all,
Shanell, you really should dig out your old high school text book and
look up how to write dialogue. This should be standard fair in all
English curricula, but maybe not. Here's a very brief synopsis.
Yes, when you switch speakers, you switch paragraphs. Each time the
speaker in a dialogue changes, you change the paragraph so that people
know who's who and who's speaking and to whom.
Now, as far as text applying to a speaker which is placed in the same
paragraph as his/her speech, if the text applies to that given speech
or is directly related to what the speaker is saying, then it stays in
the paragraph with the speech. Here is an example.
Dan picked up his cup of coffee and paced the room. "I don't understand
it!" he exclamed. "Who would want to murder Jill?"
Or:
"What are you doing, Target?" she asked. The noise continued in the
kitchen and she rose reluctantly to go find out what was going on.
When she entered the kitchen, she discovered the cupboard door open and
the dry catfood spilled all over the floor. "Oh, Target!" she
grumbled. "You're going to be as big as a blimp!"
or:
"Sam, where have you been? It's 02:30 and you were supposed to be in
by midnight," said his father. He put down the telephone receiver. "I
was just about to call the police."
"Oh, Dad," said Sam. "Well, Julie and I, well, we had an accident--no,
no, I didn't trash the car. I, um, well, I ran out of gas on route
59." Sam pushed back his hair from his forehead.
"You didn't think to call us," responded his father. "Where was your
cell phone?"
Sam looked down sheepishly. "I left it on my dresser, Dad. If you go
into my bedroom you'll see it. I wished a dozen times I had it cuz we
wouldn't have had to walk two miles to the nearest gas station, and
Julie's mom wouldn't have grounded her and Julie's Dad wouldn't have
yelled at me for half an hour and--"
Does that help?
Ann P.
Original message:
Hello Volunteer List,
I know that when two people are speaking, quotations need to be on two
separate lines. My question is about text immediately before and after
quotations. For example, if a complete sentence ends without
quotations, followed by a quotation, should there be a line between the
end of the sentence and the beginning of a quote instead of a space?
I have the same question about the end of a quotation and the beginning
of the next sentence.
Also, it seems like the apostrophe should be substituted for a quote
within a quote. What is the code to type into find and replace that
represents the double quotation? I know that this is a really basic
question, but I thought that I would ask so that I don't badly mess up
the books I am proofreading.
Chanelle
--
Ann K. Parsons
Portal Tutoring
EMAIL: akp@xxxxxxxxxxxx
web site: http://www.portaltutoring.info
Skype: Putertutor
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost."
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