How to punctuate dialogue

[SimonDoom]

Okay, right, but now humor me for a second!

Let's say I'm thinking of writing: "But, Dad--!"

Alternately, I could write:

"But, Dad!"

Or: "But Dad!"

Or: "But Dad--"

Or: "But, Dad--"

I don't have strong feelings about the comma, but I don't think the em dash + exclamation mark works, or even makes sense.

The em dash conveys an interrupted thought, in which case it's not possible that "Dad" is the word of emphasis, because the speaker intends some other MORE emphasized word that is to follow but is not allowed to be spoken because of an interruption.

The exclamation mark indicates a completed exclamation: "Dad!"

I don't know what the combination conveys. I can't make sense of it, and I can't sound it out. If they are having an excited conversation, then excitement can be conveyed through the nature of the conversation as a whole, and the em dash by itself will convey sufficient excitement for the purpose of that dialogue snippet. On the other hand, if you really want to emphasize that the word "Dad" is exclaimed, then use the exclamation mark and ignore the em dash. Either way, I think you convey sufficient meaning, but by combining the two, despite your intentions, I think you muddle the result.

Intentions only count so much in writing. It's a communicative act, and if you don't get the meaning across it doesn't matter whether you meant to.

 

[ronde]

Okay, right, but now humor me for a second!

Let's say I'm thinking of writing: "But, Dad--!"

Alternately, I could write:

"But, Dad!"

Or: "But Dad!"

Or: "But Dad--"

Or: "But, Dad--"

You'll hopefully appreciate that none of these breaks convention, and each one achieves something a little bit different--indeed, not in spite of but thanks to conventions! You could also argue that one is the "correct" way ("But Dad!" right?), but then we'd be talking norms, not conventions. And that shit gets stale fast. No thanks!

But so:

The comma adds a little crinkle of frustration, almost like a stomp or a scoff.
The exclamation point conveys urgency!
The em dash lets us know the speaker was--

No comma makes the speaker sound more confident or indignant.
No exclamation point loses the emotional intensity.
No em dash eliminates the sense of an interruption.

Combining the comma and the em dash and the exclamation mark lets us know that the character was interrupted in the middle of frustratedly communicating their emotions. I could also put all of this into dialog tags or what-have-you, but then this isn't a thread about dialog tags. I really do utilize punctuation like this in my dialog, and while my work gets plenty of well-deserved criticism, I have mostly ever heard that my dialog feels weighty and snappy.

I write unconventionally on both purpose and accident. Sometimes, there is genuine (if misspent) energy going into these little decisions I am making at the level of the comma. Other times . . well, I just write unconventionally. It's not ideal, no, but my only other option is not to write. I hope you'd agree that is no option at all.

Finally, let me admit the obvious: I'm sore from a recent drubbing one of my most experimental pieces ever is in the midst of receiving. I'm processing this grief. But still, I hope I've made a coherent point here. I like and respect you, eb. You make good comments.

I've been accused of using too many commas before and I have, but commas are generally used to indicate a change from one statement to another that occur in the same sentence, as in, "I didn't know he was that way, but I guess he is." They're also useful to give the speaker (and the reader) time to breath in long sentences. I suppose they could also be used to indicate a short pause as well, though I never use them that way.

As far as the em dash is concerned, one is sufficient to indicate interrupted speech and two is just confusing to me. A question mark at the end is OK as long as a question was asked prior to the speaker being interrupted. If no question has been asked, there's no need to a question mark.

If you want to indicate speech that "trails off" as in your original post, "I mean, if you want to . . . ?", the ... is an elipsis and since the statement is by definition partially omitted, it is not a question so the question mark at the end isn't needed. It may be the start of a question, but just as with the em dash, if no question is asked, no question mark is needed.

In short, the rules of punctuation serve as signposts in writing and direct the reader toward what the writer is trying to convey. It's just my opinion, but trying to change those rules to any great extent just confuses readers who are accustomed to those long-standing rules.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I write unconventionally on both purpose and accident. Sometimes, there is genuine (if misspent) energy going into these little decisions I am making at the level of the comma. Other times . . well, I just write unconventionally. It's not ideal, no, but my only other option is not to write. I hope you'd agree that is no option at all.

Finally, let me admit the obvious: I'm sore from a recent drubbing one of my most experimental pieces ever is in the midst of receiving. I'm processing this grief. But still, I hope I've made a coherent point here. I like and respect you, eb. You make good comments.

I see your points, and sorta kinda get what you're saying. But, like most of us here in the AH, I read more critically too ("What would I do?"). And in my professional life, I've learned a thing or two over the years. One of those things is, if it looks like a mistake, it probably is. It might not be (it might be quite deliberate), but it's more likely to be a mistake. I reckon, on the whole, a less critical reader is just going to say, "Well, that's wrong," without seeing all of the nuance.

Grammar and punctuation follow conventions for a reason - because everyone else knows what the codes mean, your meaning is always clear. But if you start making up your own rules, you end up out on your own, because you're asking readers to parse a new meaning.

It's like black print on white paper. Why do we do that? Because it's always clear. But if you go to different shades of grey, or start using colour, you're introducing unnecessary complexity, and people start saying, "Why are you doing that? What's the bonus? Why don't you do what works?"

 

[Bramblethorn]

I've been accused of using too many commas before and I have, but commas are generally used to indicate a change from one statement to another that occur in the same sentence, as in, "I didn't know he was that way, but I guess he is." They're also useful to give the speaker (and the reader) time to breath in long sentences. I suppose they could also be used to indicate a short pause as well, though I never use them that way.

As far as the em dash is concerned, one is sufficient to indicate interrupted speech and two is just confusing to me. A question mark at the end is OK as long as a question was asked prior to the speaker being interrupted. If no question has been asked, there's no need to a question mark.

Nobody was using two em dashes here. For comparison:

— em dash (the width of a capital M)
– en dash (the width of... you guessed it)
- hyphen

Typewriters and old-school computing systems often didn't support em-dashes, so it became a convention to use the double hyphen -- as a substitute em-dash, which is what @burgwad had here with "But, Dad--!"

These days, the convention is mostly unnecessary, but old habits can be hard to break.

 

[oneagainst]

Yep, that's pretty much where I landed.

I know it's grammatically correct to omit the parenthesis if the next para is also the same speech, but I don't do it for these reasons:

1. Crap use of speech between characters, unless we've got one of them monologuing, you sly dog
2. There are enough Lit stories where the writer just forget the closing parenthesis that you tend to assume the author just hasn't proof read

Snappier sections with character reactions cut in work better, I think.

 

[burgwad]

@electricblue66 "I hear your points." Jolly good! Which ones stood out? Did any surprise you? I can tell I didn't persuade you, but that's understandable. Hey, if I may pose a sporting question: what if I'm writing for the above-average reader? Because honestly, I'd much rather hang out with a curious, open-minded dork than an "average reader" any day of the week. And insofar as writing is me very much "hanging out with" my imaginary reader, I cannot f***ing imagine devoting as much of my life as I do to an imaginary friend whose favorite song is whatever is #1 on the Billboard Top 100, whose favorite movie is whatever is trending on Netflix, and/or whose favorite book is Harry Potter.

I don't know what the combination conveys. I can't make sense of it, and I can't sound it out.

No worries! Please see the bottom of my previous comment for a description of what the combination conveys, including a breakdown of what each punctuation's presence/absence accomplishes on its own. Hope that helps!

It should probably be acknowledged at some point that I am not the inventor of these punctuation combinations. Are any of us gamers, here? Compound punctuation is relatively common in video game dialog, especially jRPGs. (You'll note the surface similarity to coding language, which makes elaborate but still strictly rule-based use of punctuation.) We can balk all we want at this unholy matrimony of computational logic and human language, and perhaps for the sanctity of reason we should, but the fact of the matter is shit like this happens. Language changes, unstoppably, and often stupidly. I don't mean to come down staunchly on the Descriptivist side of Descriptivist-vs-Prescriptivist debate, but I would remind us that no winner has ever been declared.

 

[SimonDoom]

No worries! Please see the bottom of my previous comment for a description of what the combination conveys, including a breakdown of what each punctuation's presence/absence accomplishes on its own. Hope that helps!

As a reader, I don't want to read such descriptions. I want the author's meaning to be clear from the words and punctuation the author uses, based on common, mutually understood conventions. I don't want to have to consult the author's special reference guide.

I'm not much of a gamer, so those conventions don't mean anything to me. Which is not to say that you shouldn't use them if you feel that's where things are trending and you want to push them that way. It's your story. It's all about whether in the end the author and reader are on the same wavelength. I have a hard time getting on the wavelength with these particular conventions.

 

[ElectricBlue]

@electricblue66 "I hear your points." Jolly good! Which ones stood out? Did any surprise you? I can tell I didn't persuade you, but that's understandable. Hey, if I may pose a sporting question: what if I'm writing for the above-average reader? Because honestly, I'd much rather hang out with a curious, open-minded dork than an "average reader" any day of the week.

You can't select your readers.

I will always say, don't dumb down to the lowest common denominator of readers, but don't underestimate them, either. They're going to judge you on how you write, how you use your tools, but you don't get to value judge them.

It's fine to apply gaming conventions to games, just as it's fine to apply programming conventions to computing, mathematical symbolics to maths, atomic symbolics to nuclear physics. Writing's no different, it has its own conventions, and you'd be daft not to use them. You're writing "literary text", not "gaming scripts".

 

[Codoc24]

I just found this online article, and it does a great job covering how to punctuate dialogue in a relatively short space. It also uses examples from famous authors, lending it more credibility. It's concise, clear, and helpful.

I made 100% in the quick quiz at the bottom! woot woot!

 

[Euphony]

I made 100% in the quick quiz at the bottom! woot woot!

I worry it may be soft pitch.

I got as well and mY GrAmMeR Is tRoOlEy aBwHoReAnT.

 

[Codoc24]

I worry it may be soft pitch.

I got as well and mY GrAmMeR Is tRoOlEy aBwHoReAnT.

Yeah, the quiz wasn't that difficult.

 

[Euphony]

Yeah, the quiz wasn't that difficult.

When a few of them are ANY is an acceptable answer, you're in Maeby got a crocodile in spelling territory.