Here is an example,
"I don't want to go to the store today," whined Johnny.
"Well," Mother replied, "if you want to stay home, you must clean your room."
In the above, the first two paragraphs are spoken text. When a new person speaks, you must always create a new paragraph. Sometimes, though, one person may be giving a long explanation. When this happens, a quotation mark is placed at the beginning of each paragraph but not shown at the end of a paragraph until a person is done speaking.
"You know I don't like leaving you alone, Johnny," mother said biting her lower lip. "You are still quite young and Mrs. Davidson isn't next door anymore. If you have trouble, you can't just run over to see her. Plus, you never can tell about some of the newer neighbors. I wouldn't want you to go outside the house for any reason.
"Why just the other day my sister was telling me a little boy had been kidnapped at the school. I know you are young and think those things won't happen to you, but they could. I don't want to lose you."
I cannot tell you how many manuscripts I read that don't get this right. This is important because it helps the reader understand who is speaking. Since a new speaker gets a new paragraph, you cannot punctuate it the same way as you would if the same speaker continues into the next paragraph. You also cannot just keep two paragraphs worth of information crammed into one because you don't know what to do. This is what you do. Most published books follow this same format so you can check them if you don't believe me. However, I have even seen some published books that didn't know what to do when the same speaker continued into the next paragraph.
I really don't want to go to the store, but my room sure is messy, thought Johnny.
Johnny's mother watched the struggle on Johnny's face. She didn't like leaving her nine-year old home alone and hoped that the overwhelming thought of tidying his trash pit would jolt him into agreeing to accompany her. Unfortunately, he was taking longer to think about it than she liked.
Again, I have seen many manuscripts that treat direct thoughts as if they were spoken. They will use quotations and then the word "thought." But that is confusing to the reader even if you put the "Johnny thought" in front. Direct thoughts should be italicized. This is the warning the reader needs to know that the thought wasn't spoken out loud.
For indirect thoughts, you don't need any grammatical conventions. The second paragraph above tells us what Johnny's mother is thinking--she is worried--but it is told indirectly.
You can also indirectly relate speech. This convention is best used when you just went through a nice dialogue of explanation and someone new walks into the room. Please, do not have the characters explain everything again. The new character may need it, but the reader doesn't. Instead you simply say:
Johnny's dad suddenly walked through the door. Relief spread across her face.
"You two look as if you were engaged in a battle of wills. What did I miss?"
With a smile, Johnny's mother explained her fears about leaving Johnny home alone. "But now that you are here, you can stay home with him," she finished with a grin.
British/ International English uses single quotes where I have used double above. Double quotes (as I have used) are the American English standard for quotations. If you have someone quote someone else verbally or say something you use the opposite of what you used for the outer quotes.
"Remember," Johnny's mother added, "'a stitch in time saves nine,' so cleaning your room today will make it easier to find things tomorrow."
British/ International English would reverse the double and single quotes in the above. The main thing is to be consistent throughout your work.
No comments:
Post a Comment