Punctuation in Stories

Exescort said:

Be yourself; don't be owned, don't feel you owe anybody!

There lies a lesson in punctuation.

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Well, yes, if you don't want readers or anyone to pay for you to be published. Quite frankly I'm surprised that the OP story got published. People come here to talk about rejection of their stories, and the quotation punctuation of the OP story was one of the treatments that normally gets rejected here.

And I notice that you only have one story (barely meeting the wordage requirement) posted here and it's still new, so you're hardly one to speak from experience.

sr71plt said:

Well, yes, if you don't want readers or anyone to pay for you to be published. Quite frankly I'm surprised that the OP story got published. People come here to talk about rejection of their stories, and the quotation punctuation of the OP story was one of the treatments that normally gets rejected here.

And I notice that you only have one story (barely meeting the wordage requirement) posted here and it's still new, so you're hardly one to speak from experience.

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Theirs me thinking this was an open forum!
Get over yourself!

Exescort said:

Punctuation is for Oxford and Cambridge.
Just do your own shit, if it's your story it's your punctuation!
Anybody feels the need to correct you? Tell them straight their (They're) wrong, even if they may be right.
Your story your punctuation!
No arguments

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Fixed that for you at no charge.

I get what you're (not your) saying as far as some people can be serious nit pickers and personally I can enjoy a story with some grammar errors, its not a huge turn off for me.

However, even for me some things are glaring and annoying especially if I see it consistently throughout an author's work because it shows they have no desire to improve.

My grammar when I started here was horrible. Its still not perfect by any means, but if you read a story by me from 2010 and 2016 its night and day and that's just from practice and getting better.

No improvement means not giving shit and that's a poor attitude to have with ones work.

Exescort said:

Theirs me thinking this was an open forum!
Get over yourself!

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Oh, in an open forum it's only your inexperienced opinion that counts? ("Theirs"? Case closed.)

I think in the realm of arrogance and ignorance, you're taking the prize on this thread.

lovecraft68 said:

Fixed that for you at no charge.

I get what you're (not your) saying as far as some people can be serious nit pickers and personally I can enjoy a story with some grammar errors, its not a huge turn off for me.

However, even for me some things are glaring and annoying especially if I see it consistently throughout an author's work because it shows they have no desire to improve.

My grammar when I started here was horrible. Its still not perfect by any means, but if you read a story by me from 2010 and 2016 its night and day and that's just from practice and getting better.

No improvement means not giving shit and that's a poor attitude to have with ones work.

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Personally, my grammar, punctuation and tenses are far from perfect.
It's my view however, if you struggle don't get downbeat or let "experts" tell you, you've to be perfect.
Nobody, but nobody is perfect. We could all sit and find fault anywhere.
Just my opinion. And I'm entitled to comment as are all.
Perhaps I even managed without belittling others as some feel a need to do.

Exescort said:

Personally, my grammar, punctuation and tenses are far from perfect.
It's my view however, if you struggle don't get downbeat or let "experts" tell you, you've to be perfect.
Nobody, but nobody is perfect. We could all sit and find fault anywhere.
Just my opinion. And I'm entitled to comment as are all.
Perhaps I even managed without belittling others as some feel a need to do.

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Nope, never let it get you down or stop you and no one is perfect and not all-in fact not most-of what anonymous said is worth shit-but there's nothing wrong with taking some advice and learning as you go either. A bad attitude won't help you learn anything

Wow...my wife just totally came out of my mouth just then...she is rubbing off.

(and yes there are two really good innuendos in that sentence)

Ah so. Knowing Freddie's alt behavior, she could be just another variant of "Susan."

Exescort said:

Punctuation is for Oxford and Cambridge.
Just do your own shit, if it's your story, it's your punctuation!
Anybody feels the need to correct you?
Tell them straight ; they're wrong, even if they may be right.
Your story, your punctuation!
No arguments

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If there is an "agreed" standard of English usage, I feel in might pay the author to write in the commonly-used type of language. The only time I'd agree with you completely is if you have a character in the story doing it.

I reckon you don't need to get the reader's back up as he's reading what he may see as 'wrong'.

PS. I've taken the liberty of 'correcting' your text as I see it.

I don't think punctuation is all that important cause I mean if the people in your story are going to an appointment and stuff but they're late it doesn't really matter cause no one's gonna read it til later than that anyway. So most of the time I don't care if the people are late or punctuated.

Debbie

Exescort said:

Personally, my grammar, punctuation and tenses are far from perfect.
It's my view however, if you struggle don't get downbeat or let "experts" tell you, you've to be perfect.
Nobody, but nobody is perfect. We could all sit and find fault anywhere.
Just my opinion. And I'm entitled to comment as are all.
Perhaps I even managed without belittling others as some feel a need to do.

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That may be true, but it's worth trying to learn occasionally.

I like your style. If you can't win the game, change the rules.

In your first claim you were very clear – no ifs, no buts, no caveats.

sr71plt said:

Publishing doesn't use superscripting.

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Suddenly, with the game lost, ‘publishing’ has shrunk to ‘novels printed in the last twenty years’.

sr71plt said:

Read novels printed in the last twenty years and let me know if you find any with super- or subscript in the text...

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I do recall a historical novel – it may have been one of Bernard Cornwell’s – which used Anglo-Saxon versions of place names and provided the modern equivalent names in footnotes, referenced by superscripted note cues.

Countless non-fiction works – they, too, are encompassed by the term ‘publishing’ – use superscripted note cues.

Green_Knight said:

I do recall a historical novel – it may have been one of Bernard Cornwell’s – which used Anglo-Saxon versions of place names and provided the modern equivalent names in footnotes, referenced by superscripted note cues.

Countless non-fiction works – they, too, are encompassed by the term ‘publishing’ – use superscripted note cues.

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I think Terry Pratchett used them a good bit in "Men at Arms" as a pointer to an "aside".
But then, that's an English writer & publisher; they may do it differently in 'the Colonies' .

This thread has descended into the usual back-biting and ad-hominems and will likely be closed soon. Before the demise, here's my take:

Accepted standards of punctuation exist in various literary realms guarded by jealous gatekeepers usually known as editors. Items submitted for their approval for publication must meet their standards. One is free to write whatever and however one wishes -- for self-publication. The rest of us are free to appreciate or deprecate or ignore the resultant gibberish, er I mean visionary masterpiece. Whatever.

RubenR said:

You should be a little bit careful with those accusations. I can tell from personal experience that it can be very confusing. After Susan’s harsh words a month ago, I’m still asking myself: ‘who's sock puppet am I?’

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"could be" is innuendo, not accusation.

(I was trained to be very careful with words. I edited the PDB--the president's daily brief--for a few months. Not that carefulness with words matters to anyone editing it now.)

Denny

I don't get involved in this sort of debate because I really don't fit in. Still I can read the comments and learn. My writing stinks and I don't use $3.00 words.
Still even I can see my improvements since I began here on Lit.
Writing for some of us is fun yet getting it right should be part of the fun.

Exescort said:

Personally, my grammar, punctuation and tenses are far from perfect.
It's my view however, if you struggle don't get downbeat or let "experts" tell you, you've to be perfect.
Nobody, but nobody is perfect. We could all sit and find fault anywhere.
Just my opinion. And I'm entitled to comment as are all.
Perhaps I even managed without belittling others as some feel a need to do.

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Nobody's grammar and punctuation are perfect. I like to think my grammar is pretty good, but I review stories I've published on this site and cringe at the basic errors I've made (mostly editing errors, rather than ignorance of the right rule, but still . . . ). I even conjugated the past tense of "lay" incorrectly in one story. Horrors!

Some punctuation rules seem less necessary than others, but the one in discussion in this thread is a good one for the sake of clarity and consistency. Using a comma at the end of the dialog segment and not capitalizing the dialog tag line make it clear that they are connected -- clearer than doing it the other way.

I remember a time when AH was mostly populated by intelligent adults who carried on enlightening conversations and sometimes got flirtatious and occasionally just plain bawdy. There were a few ignorant, self-centered, obnoxious children, but even most of them could be reasonable when you asked politely.

Now it seems to be exactly the opposite. Nothing more than a bunch of spoiled unruly children with no manners and no sense of responsibility for their actions. And the few intelligent adults that remain here are drowned out by the brats.

Maybe it's time to find a better site.

That fantasy land of the "AH once was" must have been sometime more than eleven years ago.

Maybe that was a time when posters prattled in valley girl talk to themselves in multiple alts.

sr71plt said:

Read novels printed in the last twenty years and let me know if you find any with super- or subscript in the text. The definitions of superscript and subscript in the Chicago Manual of Style says that is for use in mathematical and scientific renderings (p 903). Review the CMS section on numbers and ordinals and let me know if you find any ordinals in the examples that are superscripted.

Note cues on guidance you have found opposing what I give, please. (tit for tat)

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I misread what Green Knight meant about "note cues" (and overlooked the application of superscripting to footnote identifiers). Yes, you'll find these in fiction as well as nonfiction. What publishers have shied away from, especially in fiction, is using superscripting for ordinal numbers. That requires extra typesetting work and they just don't use it in nonscientific text anymore. But, yes, footnote markers, when they are used, are still superscripted. They are rare in fiction, though.

sr71plt said:

Ah so. Knowing Freddie's alt behavior, she could be just another variant of "Susan."

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Nah, look at their posting history. Freddie isn't going to hang around and make countless posts in the playground to throw people off.

RubenR said:

You should be a little bit careful with those accusations. I can tell from personal experience that it can be very confusing. After Susan’s harsh words a month ago, I’m still asking myself: ‘who's sock puppet am I?’

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I thought you were one of mine? No? Damn, I seem to have misplaced a sock puppet.

'Alts' & wind-ups are what really p1$$es me off about a thread like this.

You see a question, and there's a bit of a discussion, as there rightly should be.

Then some daft twerp joins in with the serving spoon and stirs up the pot - just for fun?
The poor devil who posed the question is now likely getting thoroughly confused with all the handbag throwing and suggestions/ accusations of an 'Alt'.

Lets face it, Grammar should be an author's stock in trade, and if some 'experts' are able to offer some guidance to the rest of us, we should be grateful and actually try and LEARN.

sr71plt said:

But, yes, footnote markers, when they are used, are still superscripted. They are rare in fiction, though.

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I encounter them a little more often in SF/F than other genres, possibly because there's more occasion for explanatory notes there. Terry Pratchett was a prolific footnoter.

The only time I can remember seeing footnotes in erotica was John Norman; some of his "footnotes" ran for three pages as he tried to explain the socioeconomic background to his fantasies. But he's a career academic so perhaps it's to be expected.

What if?

I want to look at the sequence of events in this thread.

Someone posted a question about grammar. Not a clearly stated question, but at least nothing anyone would find too contentious.

Within 15 minutes, people had opined about a group of people they didn't know, and categorized them as idiots.

Within 30, someone did a little fact checking, unmaligned the group of "idiots" and correctly answered the original question. Within an hour and a half, the OP got things sorted out with his question, and said thank you.

The thread could have ended there, HEA. But...

Within 15 hours, people were trading insults.

In less than 24, the discussion was about alts.

It's been less than 48 hours and someone's already predicted the thread will be closed.

No one here, as far as I know, is under 18 - my impression is that most people active on AH are 40+. Moreover we're all at least amateurs at writing; we're likely to be above average in intelligence, taken collectively. And most of us have been here for awhile. We know what sets people off, we know alts happen, we know people make unsubstantiated, unresearched claims. We even know that grammar matters to some people and not others.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to be like this.

Maybe it's because I binged on a handful of Nickleback music videos this weekend. But does anyone else hear the hate, the pure spite, quietly backing up too many of the posts around here?

Skip your next chance to slap someone's internet face. There's other fora and sites for that. Stop and check your facts before making a claim. Decide to be worth talking to, instead of talking innuendo and trash about people. There's enough spite and hate on the internet; enough and to spare. Use ignore when you need to, or just shrug and move on at the very least.

I'm no angel and I know as well as anyone how to get a dig in. But I figured out that nothing discussed here really matters - we're all artists in the media of the quick orgasm, not exactly a skill of major importance. This is not the place of earth-shaking relevance; there's no reason for passionate opinions. If you can't chill here, where are you ever going to?

"Against the grain should be a way of life." Yeah, it's a cheap platitude from a band not known for musical depth (though they don't deserve the hate in my opinion). But in this world today the most radical thing you can do is to deconflict, defuse, and move on. And this is a pretty easy place to try it...

But then the "off the rails" characterization of this thread seems more than a bit overblown to me. This certainly wasn't in the mold of the GB.