Long quotations

[NotWise]

How do you use quotation marks on multi-paragraph quotations?

I've read that an opening quotation mark should be placed at the beginning of each paragraph, but there should be no closing quotation mark until the final paragraph. As a result, the quotation marks are unpaired.

I don't know if that is consistent with the Chicago Manual or not. My word processor doesn't like it, so I would rather use the closing quotation marks.

Does anyone know the right way to quote multiple paragraphs? Has Laurel ever kicked anything back because it wasn't done one way or another?

 

[Hypoxia]

I've read that an opening quotation mark should be placed at the beginning of each paragraph, but there should be no closing quotation mark until the final paragraph. As a result, the quotation marks are unpaired.

I don't know about Chicago but that's the accepted style and no, Laurel hasn't kicked back any of mine. Your WP is being unreasonable. Discipline it!

Or you can break up long quotations with descriptions of the the speaker's expression and movement, listener reactions, etc.

 

[Areala-chan]

If your quotation goes across multiple paragraphs, the grammatically correct format is to not close the quotation marks until the character is finished speaking. Your WP might be set to a 'high' formality level of checking. If you're mostly writing for LIT instead of composing a thesis or writing grant proposals, you can set it to a less-formal setting and see if that takes care of the multi-paragraph quoting issue.

 

[Handley_Page]

Open at the beginning of the paragraph.
Close at the end of the last one.

 

[NotWise]

Thanks.

I think I found out how to disable the WP's check for closed quotes. The LibreOffice Language Tool was highlighting them all. I wasn't able to find the rule in the tool options, but I had the Language Tool check the entire text, and the first time it got to an unclosed quote I told it to ignore the rule.

Highlights went away.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't know about Chicago but that's the accepted style and no, Laurel hasn't kicked back any of mine. Your WP is being unreasonable. Discipline it!

This is correct per every style guide I've checked, and it's what I use, but I've found that some readers aren't aware of the rule and will mistake it for sloppy editing. *grumble*

 

[NotWise]

This is correct per every style guide I've checked, and it's what I use, but I've found that some readers aren't aware of the rule and will mistake it for sloppy editing. *grumble*

I find the rule to be pretty damned arbitrary, maybe an exception to the norm, and inconsistent with practice outside of fiction. I can't blame the readers too much.

 

[sr71plt]

The rule is standard across publishing. Nonfiction is no different from fiction in this regard.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I find the rule to be pretty damned arbitrary, maybe an exception to the norm, and inconsistent with practice outside of fiction. I can't blame the readers too much.

The obvious alternatives are:

#1: opening quote at the beginning of every paragraph, closing quote at the end of each paragraph.

"So, Bob, what do you do for fun?" asked Alice.

"I play poker. Spend time with my grandkids. [blah blah blah words to pad this out to a long paragraph.] Most of all I like to hike in the country."

"I hiked the Appalachian Trail last year. Saw some amazing things. You wouldn't believe what raccoons are capable of."

"One time a raccoon got into my pack, left the food, took my Janis Joplin tapes. Hope he liked them."

In this style it's impossible to tell whether Bob's continuing his thoughts across multiple paragraphs, or Alice is interjecting. Who had the Janis Joplin tapes? We'll never know.

#2: opening quote marks only at the beginning, closing only at the end of the entire quote.

Chris grinned at me. "Diana, let me tell you about the time I met a grizzly.

I was in backwoods Alaska, doing some work for an oil exploration company. The locals warned me there were bears in the area, but it all looked pretty quiet so I didn't pay too much attention.

[blah blah blah three pages of long rambling story]

It was getting dark. Just then my phone rang.

Chris's phone, or Diana's? Is it getting dark within the Alaska bear story, or in the place where Diana is listening to Chris tell that story?

You can't tell from local context. You have to go back through the previous three pages looking for a closing quote - and if somebody accidentally left out that closing quote, it might be tricky figuring out where it's supposed to be.

The stylebook style avoids those problems. It's clear when you're reading quoted text and when you're not; even if somebody does accidentally leave out a quote mark it's obvious from local context, without having to read back to look for a matching quote.

So I wouldn't agree that it's arbitrary. It's less ambiguous and more robust than the major alternatives. There are other options that work well for some situations e.g. indented quotes, italicisation, or just giving the speaker a chapter of their own, but they're not as universally usable.

I do find it counter-intuitive to write that way. I spend more time programming than writing fiction, and in programming quotes come in pairs just like parentheses. Repeatedly opening quotes with only one closer feels weird.

But in programming I'm writing for a computer that will remember the opening quote I typed a thousand lines earlier, and will assume it's still in effect until I close it. In fiction I'm writing for a human, and humans don't read the same way a computer does; humans need to be reminded of stuff, and the opening quote on each paragraph achieves that.

 

[Kimikimidoll]

The obvious alternatives are:

#1: opening quote at the beginning of every paragraph, closing quote at the end of each paragraph.

[blockquote]"So, Bob, what do you do for fun?" asked Alice.

"I play poker. Spend time with my grandkids. [blah blah blah words to pad this out to a long paragraph.] Most of all I like to hike in the country."
"I hiked the Appalachian Trail last year. Saw some amazing things. You wouldn't believe what raccoons are capable of."
"One time a raccoon got into my pack, left the food, took my Janis Joplin tapes. Hope he liked them."[/blockquote]

In this style it's impossible to tell whether Bob's continuing his thoughts across multiple paragraphs, or Alice is interjecting. Who had the Janis Joplin tapes? We'll never know.

I would use this option, then add a few details while Bob is talking so everyone knows Bob is still talking, e.g.

"I play poker. Spend time with my grandkids. [blah blah blah words to pad this out to a long paragraph.] Most of all I like to hike in the country." There was a distant look on his face, a light smile...
"I hiked the Appalachian Trail last year," he reminisced. "Saw some amazing things. You wouldn't believe what raccoons are capable of." He slouched back, sinking into the sofa.
"One time a raccoon got into my pack, left the food, took my Janis Joplin tapes," he added with a laugh. "Hope he liked them."

See, it's all Bob here.

 

[sr71plt]

Since it's authors just willy-nilly doing whatever they want that would be arbitrary. I'd follow the guidance publishers use: (Chicago Manual of Style, 13.30) "If quoted material of more than one paragraph cannot be set as a block quotation (which is normally much preferred; see 13.10), quotation marks are needed at the beginning of each paragraph but at the end of only the final paragraph."

As for block quotations, they wouldn't be appropriate for dialogue in Fiction. That said, Not Wise seems to be right up the line about block quotations being more appropriate for nonfiction than the delay in final paragraph quotes would be.

 

[NotWise]

SAs for block quotations, they wouldn't be appropriate for dialogue in Fiction. That said, Not Wise seems to be right up the line about block quotations being more appropriate for nonfiction than the delay in final paragraph quotes would be.

My example is a case in which one character is relating a story to the other -- essentially becoming a third-person narrator. There are actions and some exchanges interspersed with the story, so block quotes would not work.

I'm not sure how the style guidance covers the case with a quotation starting mid-paragraph, after action and tags. I've been treating the mid-paragraph start just as if the quotation starts at the beginning of a paragraph.

 

[sr71plt]

The quote starting in mid paragraph wouldn't change the treatment of the quotation going on for another paragraph or two.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I would use this option, then add a few details while Bob is talking so everyone knows Bob is still talking, e.g.

"I play poker. Spend time with my grandkids. [blah blah blah words to pad this out to a long paragraph.] Most of all I like to hike in the country." There was a distant look on his face, a light smile...
"I hiked the Appalachian Trail last year," he reminisced. "Saw some amazing things. You wouldn't believe what raccoons are capable of." He slouched back, sinking into the sofa.
"One time a raccoon got into my pack, left the food, took my Janis Joplin tapes," he added with a laugh. "Hope he liked them."

See, it's all Bob here.

I'm fond of that technique and it works pretty well for passages of a few paragraphs. But for a longer story those little interruptions can start to drag. If I want my reader focussed entirely on the story-within-story Bob's telling, it's unhelpful to keep switching back to a different layer; in that situation quotes are less intrusive.

 

[NotWise]

I'm fond of that technique and it works pretty well for passages of a few paragraphs. But for a longer story those little interruptions can start to drag. If I want my reader focussed entirely on the story-within-story Bob's telling, it's unhelpful to keep switching back to a different layer; in that situation quotes are less intrusive.

For me, those little interruptions serve two purposes: they serve to pace the story and they provide the setting. The two purposes need to be balanced to provide enough of a setting without slowing the pace too much.

I once wrote a novel-in-a-novel in which one character related an inherited recollection of the Battle of Hastings and its aftermath. In that case there were whole printed pages of uninterrupted quotation; that was the way it balanced. My current effort is using much more condensed stories, so the pacing allows (probably requires) more of those intrusions.

 

[Kimikimidoll]

For me, those little interruptions serve two purposes: they serve to pace the story and they provide the setting. The two purposes need to be balanced to provide enough of a setting without slowing the pace too much.

I once wrote a novel-in-a-novel in which one character related an inherited recollection of the Battle of Hastings and its aftermath. In that case there were whole printed pages of uninterrupted quotation; that was the way it balanced. My current effort is using much more condensed stories, so the pacing allows (probably requires) more of those intrusions.

Sometimes not interrupting works for the piece. For example, where the character is recollecting an event to provide information rather than amusement, or if it's an explanation, or they're giving a lecture. But then I would add something in the dialogue that reminds the reader that a certain person is speaking ("...I was the drummer boy in that battle...")

I love the interruptions because they say so much about the character, and how they feel about the info they are talking about. For example, you can have a lecturer give a lecture passionately or distastefully- and that like/dislike tells you a bit about his own character.

Related on that note, anyone read books in French? I hate their angular quotation marks. Their speech text ends up looking like a big block. Then other hanguages just have a dash in front to show that this is a spoken sentence. And other languages rarely use quotation marks. That's one reason why I like English, there are all these little symbols to help you while you write.