Tag Archives: punctuation

Technique

Dialogue from start to finish

Dialogue. In many scenes, it’s the lifeblood of conflict, relationships, tension—fiction! Is your dialogue the best it can be?

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The punctuation

dialogueWe’ll start with the technical stuff—a little rote memorization and it’s easy to master. Punctuating dialogue can be tricky—but messing it up (aside from the occasional error) will mark you as an amateur.

There are thirteen things wrong with the punctuation, paragraphing and capitalization in this passage. Can you catch them all?

“I can’t do this.” She said.
“But you have to,” he rubbed his hands together. “Really?,” She asked.
He nodded, “really, truly, Johnny Lion.”
“But—.”
“No buts. I know—,” he glanced around furtively, “I know you can do it.”

Need a quick refresher on dialogue mechanics? Check out #6 on this list of dialogue basics!

Non-dialogue: the rest of the story

When writing dialogue, we need to balance our narrative with the dialogue, and use that narrative to make it clear who’s speaking, show how they’re saying these things, increase the tension, ground the reader in a setting (instead of using “talking heads”), and more.

Again, balancing dialogue with narrative can be difficult. That’s why I made a happy little flow chart on how to attribute speech in fiction!

Those verbs!

All of us had the same teachers drumming the same rot into our brains: that it’s better to use a variety of speech verbs, so rather than ever repeat “said,” it’s better to hit up the thesaurus for postulated, pointed out and prevaricated.

But when you come across those—or even just too many of those—in a book, they tend to stand out. The good old standby, “said,” tends to blend right in, almost invisible to the reader’s eye because we’re so used to seeing it. It’s one of the first sight words kids are taught today in learning to read, because knowing that word opens up a world of understanding.

Of course, even said can be annoying if it’s repeated too much.

At the other end of the spectrum, we find another problem: inappropriate speech verbs. Go to the mirror (or turn on your webcam). Smile at yourself. Now, try to talk while maintaining that smile. Sounds a little funny, eh? Try it while laughing. Try “hissing out” a line of dialogue without a single sibilant (s, sh, z).

When we use a verb as an attribution, we need to make sure that verb is a speech verb (and an appropriate one ;)) . Need help? Learn to stop “smiling” dialogue.

The delicate balance: pseudorealism

For the most part, we try to write realistic fiction. We want our people to act and think and sound like real people living in the real world. Except that our fictional people have to make a whole lot more sense than the people in the world around us, or we’ll lose our audience (even if they’d act the exact same way in real life).

So it is with dialogue. We have to emulate real conversations, but we can’t slavishly follow the real way people would speak, or we’ll be reading a whole lot of “uh, like, you know, and, uh,” nonsensical elliptical references and people responding to the first half of what you said, but not the rest because they stopped listening to think of their answer.

Seriously: go eavesdrop on a casual conversation or tape record your dinner chats. If you transcribed that, it would either be boring, impossible to follow or just utterly unrealistic.

Struggling with this balance? You can learn to make your dialogue more realistic—or go for more fictionally appropriate dialogue.

Dialogue needs to do something

Part of the problem with that utterly boring dialogue we recorded at dinner is that we lack a goal in our conversations (beyond the relationship/conversation). In fiction, we need to remain goal-oriented. We don’t have to include every second of our characters’ lives from the time they wake up until they climb back between the covers at night—we focus on the parts of their lives that move our story forward.

We need to do the same with our characters’ conversations: enter late and exit early for maximum effect. But more than that, we as authors must be clear what the purpose of this conversation is. What does our character expect to get out of this communication? An answer, a friend, some help? Will they attain their goal? Will the other people in the dialogue help or hinder?

Dialogue accomplishes story purposes for sure, but if that’s all we use our dialogue for, it’ll probably ring pretty flat. Dialogue should be a way to indirectly show your characters: what they say, how they say it. Every passage of dialogue should be working on multiple levels to move your story forward, make it richer and deeper, and show your characters. (More purposes of dialogue from Annette Lyon.)

Also important: what they’re not saying. Subtext is one technique I consider more advanced in dialogue and storytelling. The basic definition is an element that carries a second level of meaning. A symbol might be considered a type of subtext.

In dialogue, it’s when a character says one thing, but the reader can infer another layer of meaning. Maybe the character doth protest too much; maybe his gestures show her anger despite his reassurances that he’s okay; maybe the reader knows this character acts like he’s the one when she’s with her friends, but plays hard to get when he’s around.

Need to brush up on subtext? Four ways to convey a deeper meaning.

More on dialogue

What are your best dialogue tips?

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Mechanics

For the love of commas!

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Get ready for Writing Wednesday tomorrow!

This has bugged me for a long time (I actually have a draft about this from a year ago), and I don’t know how much help I can really be, and I did just post something kinda ranty on Monday—but the time has come. I must take a stand for and against commas.

Okay, mostly just for the proper use and against the incorrect use of commas. (Note: we’ll be using the linguistic convention of marking incorrect sentences with an asterisk.)

When you DO NOT need a comma

  • When you are using a title with a name

He is not President, Barack Obama. You are not author, Jimble Berry. The comma implies we don’t necessarily need the element, that the sentence would be complete without it. But Barack Obama isn’t the only president ever in the history of the universe.

If the title can’t stand by itself, do NOT put a comma in there. You wouldn’t say:

*I had lunch with president!
*You spoke with head chef.
*Vice president fired him.

Thus, you wouldn’t use a comma there: I had lunch with President, Obama. VP, Wilsher fired him.

  • Kinda the same thing: when the thing after the comma isn’t the only example of the the thing before the comma

This might be easier to illustrate with examples:

*Last night I watched the television show, Jeopardy!.
*My sister, Brooke, had a baby three weeks ago. [I have three sisters. And one new niece!]

The comma in the first sentence indicates that Jeopardy! is the only television show. At all. Ever. I didn’t know that. As addictive as Jeopardy! is, I’m not sure how I waste so much of my life in front of the television if that’s the only show ever. But hey, when my turn finally comes up, I’ll know answer question to that question answer.

When you use a comma there, it means that “the television show” and “Jeopardy!” are the same thing. But the “the” is equally culpable, since that means there’s only one. So it’d be fine to say, “I was watching Jeopardy!, a television show, last night . . .” (You know, if you were on Mars and talking with someone who didn’t know what Jeopardy! was.)

  • When you’re using multiple adjectives that modify one another or that must read in that order

*I have a bright, red dress.
*She loves her Marine, drill, instructor boyfriend.
*Two, old, men played chess.

The first would be correct if your dress is both red and bright—but if you’re trying to say it’s a bright shade of red (which I’m guessing you are, unless your dress has LEDs), you need to drop the comma. Unless it’s a red, bright dress.

The second and third examples illustrate the other point. The commas tell us the order of these adjectives could change: that’s your long, old, dirty shirt could be written with those adjectives in any order and still make sense. “Her instructor, Marine, drill boyfriend” and worse yet, “men, old, two played” don’t work there.

  • Between an adjective and its noun.

Along with example #3 from the last round:

*I have a big, fish.
*He likes raw, bacon.

I hope this is obvious!

  • Between a subject and its verb

This doesn’t include phrases set off by commas, though.

*President of the United States Barack Obama, gave an address yesterday.
*The biggest problem here, is that we don’t know what a subject and a verb are.

(Note that if you added a “the” to the beginning of sentence 1 and a comma before “Barack,” you’d have it right!)

When you DO need a comma

  • When you’re using a title with the

The “the” makes it grammatical to drop the name, so you need commas to set it off.

The President of the United States, Barack Obama, addressed Congress.
He was fired by the vice president of internal sales, Jim Ferrera.

It would be okay to drop the names from these sentences: “He was fired by the VP of internal sales.” So the comma is necessary.

  • Kinda the same thing: when the thing after the comma IS the only example of the the thing before the comma

Again, easier to illustrate with examples:

Last night I watched the longest-running Broadway musical in the history of all time, Springtime for Hitler.
My middlest sister, Brooke, had a baby three weeks ago. [She’s in the middle of my three younger sisters. That makes her middlest. I reserve the right to make things up.]

Just like above, if you can completely drop the element, it needs to be set off by commas.

  • Between interchangeable adjectives

If you could say the adjectives in another order and still have a grammatical sentence, use commas:

Your old, long, dirty shirt stinks.
Your dirty, old, long shirt stinks.
Your long, dirty, old shirt stinks. (Wash it!)

  • To set off a dependent clause.

These clauses can’t stand alone as sentences. They include participial phrases, clauses of time and other modifiers.

Walking out the door, she noticed how scuffed the frame was.
When he woke up, he found a shiny nickel.
She hopped down the stairs, yelping all the way.

However, when these elements are in order in the sentence (i.e. not moved to the beginning), you don’t need one:

He found a shiny nickel when he woke up.
She held up her hands as she backed away.

It might seem complex, but with practice and meticulous self-editing, you really can become a comma wizard. Don’t give up on grammar or claim that it’s someone else’s responsibility!

When do commas stump you?

Photo credits: Obama by Floyd Brown; laundry by supermayd

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Mechanics, Technique

Dialogue: the bare essentials

3 Comments
This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Dialogue

Cool note: this is my 300th published post on this blog!

There’s so much to be said about dialogue. (Oh, wow—totally unintentional pun!) Some of us do it well naturally—we have an “eye” for dialogue. (And it drives us CAH-RAZY to see bad dialogue in published books.) But we all have different strengths—and we all have things to work on and learn.

The barest basics of dialogue are the simple mechanics, in no particular order. (Because, hey, we all have to start somewhere!)

  1. Make it clear who’s speaking.
  2. As a corollary for #1, change paragraphs when changing speakers. (Not necessarily every time someone begins speaking—see #4.)
  3. Use actual speech attributions (verbs like “said”) sparingly, and default to the near-invisible said and/or asked as often as possible.*
  4. Use action beats to help identify the speaker (among other important purposes). Keep those action beats in the same paragraph as the speaker, and if you involve more than one character in the thoughts or beats, make sure it’s clear who’s speaking.
  5. Do not use action beats as speech attributions. Or, as Annette Lyon put it in a guest post here, “Stop smiling words.”
  6. Punctuate thusly (American style): “I can’t do this,” she said. [comma, followed by a lower-case letter for the speech attribution]

    “But you have to.” He rubbed his hands together. [Always a period there! Always a capital next! This is an action, not a way to speak.]

    “Really?” she asked. [question mark, lower case for the attribution]

    He nodded. “Really, truly, Johnny Lion.” [Again, use a period for the action.]

    “But—” [Em dash, no comma or period—but if this was a question, you would put the question mark in. Just to make it hard on you.]

    “No buts. I know—” he glanced around furtively—“you wish you weren’t here.” [Although this one may vary depending on the house style.]

*This is actually one I don’t particularly follow. A couple weeks ago, I read something I wrote ten years ago, and I found almost no speech attributions. In fact, I only used speech attributions if the way someone spoke was important—and couldn’t be conveyed through the dialogue (i.e. whispering, sarcasm, etc.). But I’ve also taken that too far, and sometimes it’s hard for my readers to tell who’s speaking. So I’m slowly learning to slip in those little invisible saids without twitching. Too much.

Tomorrow: what goes between the quotes!

Is dialogue one of your strengths? If so, share your best technique, trick or advice—in a guest post!

Photos by Leo Reynolds

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Mechanics

The myth of the serial comma

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The Oxford comma, or serial comma, is a standard convention in many publishing houses—but almost no newspapers. The serial comma is the final comma before the conjunction in a list:

Angela bought eggs, milk, and butter.

Some serial comma enthusiasts say that serial commas are required, and that the recent tendency away from serial commas is yet another sign of the deteriorating state of English literacy, blah blah blah. But the most common argument in favor of the serial comma is that it just takes care of so much ambiguity, such as in this famous example:

I’d like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

And yes, it’s true that if this person had used the serial comma, it would be clear that they didn’t use “Ayn Rand and God” to mean “my parents” (hello, apposition!). But let’s be honest—you knew what this person meant, didn’t you?

It’s just simply not the case that the serial comma always clears up ambiguity. How many people are in this list?

I’d like to thank my father, the man who saw me through so many hard times, and my mother.

Is “the man who saw me through so many hard times” the same person as “my father”? (That sneaky appositive again!)

And then there are even times when the serial comma can’t fix the ambiguity:

I’d like to thank Angela, my editor, and my wife.

I’d like to thank Angela, my editor and my wife.

So is Angela his editor, his editor and his wife, or neither?

What to do:
Use the serial comma—or don’t—as you’re used to (or according to your publisher’s style guide). Add it or remove it if there’s any ambiguity. And if that doesn’t work, reword. (I’d like to thank my wife, Angela, who edits my work.) Just don’t claim that one way is always right—because it’s not.

Do you use the serial comma?

Photos by Xavi Blanch and Leo Reynolds

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