Post by Stella on Jan 29, 2009 21:01:57 GMT -8
Important Note: This is a simple guideline for dialogue orthography [punctuation, spacing, and capitalization] written by a [very] amateur writer. If mistakes are found, I will fix them as soon as possible.
Why punctuate, space, and capitalize dialogue properly?
It helps fellow RPers understand what is being said and by whom.
While I don't expect all these rules to be followed to the T [granted RPing is something to do for fun, people are lazy like me, and people make mistakes],basic paragraph spacing is the minimal requirement I hope you'll take away with you after reading this post.
[These are guidelines NOT rules. If you don't follow down, you won't be penalized or anything. Consider this...advice? Suggestions?]
Ready? Let's English!
The Bare Basics
[/li][li]Puntuation goes in between quotation marks.
[/li][li]Know the difference between interrupted and uninterrupted sentences of speech.
[/li][/ul]
Double quotation marks ["] are the most common for indicating speech and will be used as such in the below examples.
Examples
The line "He told me about the flowers" is a uninterrupted sentence thus it is ended with a comma [inside the double quotes]. Said is not capitalized and the whole sentence ends with a period. The whole sentence is the first line of its own paragraph.
Here the line "He told me about the flowers" is interrupted so in place of the period, a comma is used to show that the line of speech continues. Do not capitalize the beginning of the continued line as it is being continued. Similarly, one wouldn't write the uninterrupted form of the sentence as "He told me About the flowers" unless About is a name of something but then the sentence is grammatically incorrect.[Emphasis on certain words should be indicated in a fashion that's identifiable and does not conflict with other dialogue rules. Examples include all caps, italics, bolded text, underlined, single quoted, between two symbols like /.../, etc.] Again this is the first line of its own paragraph.
The lines "I'm the greatest!" and "There's nothing you can do about it!" are both separate, uninterrupted sentences thus the first line "I'm the greatest!" is punctuated according to dialogue where the speech verb 'exclaimed' is not capitalize and the whole sentence is in double quotes. Because there's an exclamation mark [!] there is no need for a comma as the exclamation mark replaces it [and is still inside the double quotes]. This is the same if the sentence ends in a question mark. The second line of speech is treated as any normal sentence, ending in a period but is in double quotes to show that it is part of speech not description.
Here the position of 'exclaimed Jeanne' is placed at the beginning of the sentence. From what I've observed, this is more commonly used when quoting other people. A comma follows 'Jeanne exclaimed' because it is connected to the speech.
The verb and noun are interchangeable when at the end of the sentence."I'm the greatest!" Jeanne exclaimed. However if the sentence starts with Jeanne exclaiming, the person or object speaking must be placed before the verb to follow proper grammar structure.
One may be tempted to switch out that period after 'broadly' for a comma but the action of grinning does not pertain to speaking. Any other actions done before speech is treated as its own sentence.
Here, the action of grinning is still its own sentence and is treated as such. There's also a bit of confusion as to whether Cecil is saying this or if it's merely reacting to someone else speaking so be careful when using this one.
This usually fixes any confusion that the previous example may cause.
Dialogue of a Second Character
Simple stuff, whenever someone new is speaking, give them their own paragraph.
Dialogue without indicating the speakers are also separated by paragraph spacing.
Additional Notes
And that concludes this post! Thank you for bearing with my anal retentiveness and ranting about the obvious.[And the out of class English lesson] I hope something can be learned from reading this and suggestions to improve it are most appreciated.
Credits to Jesseppuku who generated all the lovely examples used in this post.
Why punctuate, space, and capitalize dialogue properly?
It helps fellow RPers understand what is being said and by whom.
While I don't expect all these rules to be followed to the T [granted RPing is something to do for fun, people are lazy like me, and people make mistakes],basic paragraph spacing is the minimal requirement I hope you'll take away with you after reading this post.
[These are guidelines NOT rules. If you don't follow down, you won't be penalized or anything. Consider this...advice? Suggestions?]
Ready? Let's English!
The Bare Basics
- Always
[/li][li]Puntuation goes in between quotation marks.
[/li][li]Know the difference between interrupted and uninterrupted sentences of speech.
[/li][/ul]
Double quotation marks ["] are the most common for indicating speech and will be used as such in the below examples.
Examples
"He told me about the flowers," said Gregory.
The line "He told me about the flowers" is a uninterrupted sentence thus it is ended with a comma [inside the double quotes]. Said is not capitalized and the whole sentence ends with a period. The whole sentence is the first line of its own paragraph.
"He told me," said Gregory,"about the flowers."
Here the line "He told me about the flowers" is interrupted so in place of the period, a comma is used to show that the line of speech continues. Do not capitalize the beginning of the continued line as it is being continued. Similarly, one wouldn't write the uninterrupted form of the sentence as "He told me About the flowers" unless About is a name of something but then the sentence is grammatically incorrect.[Emphasis on certain words should be indicated in a fashion that's identifiable and does not conflict with other dialogue rules. Examples include all caps, italics, bolded text, underlined, single quoted, between two symbols like /.../, etc.] Again this is the first line of its own paragraph.
"I'm the greatest!" exclaimed Jeanne."There's nothing you can do about it!"
The lines "I'm the greatest!" and "There's nothing you can do about it!" are both separate, uninterrupted sentences thus the first line "I'm the greatest!" is punctuated according to dialogue where the speech verb 'exclaimed' is not capitalize and the whole sentence is in double quotes. Because there's an exclamation mark [!] there is no need for a comma as the exclamation mark replaces it [and is still inside the double quotes]. This is the same if the sentence ends in a question mark. The second line of speech is treated as any normal sentence, ending in a period but is in double quotes to show that it is part of speech not description.
Jeanne exclaimed,"I'm the greatest! There's nothing you can do about it!"
Here the position of 'exclaimed Jeanne' is placed at the beginning of the sentence. From what I've observed, this is more commonly used when quoting other people. A comma follows 'Jeanne exclaimed' because it is connected to the speech.
The verb and noun are interchangeable when at the end of the sentence."I'm the greatest!" Jeanne exclaimed. However if the sentence starts with Jeanne exclaiming, the person or object speaking must be placed before the verb to follow proper grammar structure.
Cecil grinned broadly."Today, I feel like eating babies."
One may be tempted to switch out that period after 'broadly' for a comma but the action of grinning does not pertain to speaking. Any other actions done before speech is treated as its own sentence.
"Today, I feel like eating babies." Cecil grinned broadly."Know where I might find some?"
Here, the action of grinning is still its own sentence and is treated as such. There's also a bit of confusion as to whether Cecil is saying this or if it's merely reacting to someone else speaking so be careful when using this one.
"Today, I feel like eating babies," said Cecil, grinning broadly."Know where I might find some?"
This usually fixes any confusion that the previous example may cause.
Dialogue of a Second Character
Simple stuff, whenever someone new is speaking, give them their own paragraph.
"Today, I feel like eating babies," Cecil drawled lazily.
"Would you like fries with that, sir?" Ysabel countered blandly.
"Would you like fries with that, sir?" Ysabel countered blandly.
Dialogue without indicating the speakers are also separated by paragraph spacing.
"Today, I feel like eating babies."
"Would you like fries with that, sir?"
"Would you like fries with that, sir?"
Additional Notes
- Quoting something or someone while speaking is indicated with single quotes [if used with double quoted speech] to avoid conflict. Puntuation goes inside both sets of quotes if the sentence ends with it."...and on the poster, Karl Marx says,'Give me puppies,'" she said.
- Paragraph spacing is usually done with 'double spacing'[clicking Enter/Return twice] or with indents [clicking Enter once and then tab]. Apparently there's some weird style conflict about double spacing to be 'old fashioned' or something. It's your choice how you want to do it. Just remember to do it so it's easy to tell that a new paragraph is started.
- I'm colouring a bunny with a yellow Crayola [*shudder*] pencil crayon. Yeah, I know this has nothing to do with this but being formal so long is stiffening my joints.
And that concludes this post! Thank you for bearing with my anal retentiveness and ranting about the obvious.[And the out of class English lesson] I hope something can be learned from reading this and suggestions to improve it are most appreciated.
Credits to Jesseppuku who generated all the lovely examples used in this post.
