Back when I was a book editor, I’d enclose a copy of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style with every signed contract. In 90 pages (and in those days, for $3.50), it contained every thing a working writer needs to know about the craft, presented in E.B. White’s crystalline prose without a trace of pedantry. Years later, there’s still not a better toolbox for a writer who wants to learn how to communicate with clarity and style.
Chicago, on the other hand, is a professional publisher’s toolbox. Every rule is presented, answered, dissected, in exhaustive (and exhausting) detail. For a publisher or editor, Chicago is invaluable. For a writer, especially a new writer, it’s constipating.
I never knew a writer made better by Chicago, but I can think of dozens and dozens who went from unpublishable to professional courtesy Strunk & White.
You are just starting out and I see you have been given already all the worthy advice you need to get on with, but I cannot resist to add my two cents.
Cent 1) Use all dialog tags sparingly.
You know this common advice: Use dialog tags other than ‘said’ sparingly. A worthy addendum is this: Use all dialogue tags sparingly. ‘Said’ tags are a device to use only when the reader would be in danger of losing track of who is speaking.
One way to see that you should be sparing is to note that half of your ‘said Molly’ is perfectly redundant, for your reader will already know someone said something — that is what the quote marks (or other marking convention) on the dialogue indicate. The only information the tag is offering is who it is that is speaking, but because of the dictates of grammar, this information comes at the cost of some redundancy. So, whenever you use a ‘said’ tag you are being half redundant.
This bit of advice is an instance of a general policy: guidance where guidance is needed and not otherwise.
Cent 2) Don’t interrupt the speaker without a good reason.
“There is nothing”, he said, “I could have done.”
My second suggestion is not to interrupt dialog with a dialog tag without a really good reason. The above example doesn’t have one. One might think some such interruptions make a pretty cadence, but disrupting a speaker mid-speech requires more justification than that (just as it would in real life).
Good luck with your project. In choosing Scrivener as your base of operations, you’ve given yourself a real leg up!
Have you seen Geoff Pullum’s critique of Strunk and White? It’s highly critical: points out that it’s simply wrong on some points of grammar, and elevates personal prejudice into rules in others. It’s an interesting read.
I haven’t read it myself, but it looks interesting. This is Amazon’s blurb:
EDIT
I’ve just downloaded it and had a quick scan… here’s the intro to the entry on Less/Fewer (the full article is a few pages long, giving examples and discussing the history of the controversy.)
I’ve seen it, but I prefer to rely on E.B. White’s advice rather than Geoff Pullem’s. But that’s just me. Well, no, it’s not just me. But then I started in publishing when a Post-It note was considered a high-tech upgrade over a paper clip on the margin.
I’m sure there are updates in English usage trends in the–can it be 60 years?–since the original pubbed, but I’m unaware of any updates to such useful (and frequently ignored advice) to omit needless words and avoid constructing awkward adverbs.
Strunk and White give us the rules in a concise and digestible form. We should all learn them, so that when we break them we do so as an act of studied intent rather than of ignorance.
But suppose the book is inaccurate about some of the rules (and it is); suppose the authors frequently break their own ‘rules’ not just in their other writing, but also in the EofS itself (and they do)?
Doesn’t that mean that the book is better seen as something to read with interest when you already know the rules, and can judge when its advice is useful, rather than as an accurate guide to good grammar for a learner?
Loads of great advice here. I’m pretty closely aligned with @brookter.
I’ll add a couple of things to the mix:
Read your dialogue aloud. Doing so makes it clear what is and isn’t needed. If you’re new to this, then perhaps have someone else read it to you. As a writer, you have to develop writing and reading personas who are prepared to argue with one another. It takes a while.
Don’t worry about dialogue “tags” when writing a first draft. The following is adequate:
A: There’s someone at the door.
B: Who is it?
A: Maybe we should open it and find out.
Suddenly, the door burst open.
B: It’s a man with a gun!
For A and B, use character initials.
I’m also not a fan of Strunk and White. I prefer to live by Garner’s, which is huge (as it must be), UK/US bilingual, not very expensive, and a thing of beauty. There are no rules, of course; but when I need to be consistent, Garner’s is a worthy bible.
Of the rest, I enjoyed the recent Dreyer’s English. It pads itself with a part deux entitled, The Stuff in (sic) the Back; but, if you ignore that, it dispenses copious amounts of sound and practical guidance.
That example I gave is actually from the Oxford Guide to Style itself.
[The sentence above is factually true - I did take it directly from the OGS. But if we were putting it into dialogue, in British English we would look at the fact that the sentence legitimately doesn’t have any internal quotation, and then reflect that lack by not having any ‘new’ punctuation inside the quote.]
The point is, you wouldn’t recast it as “‘Go home, to your father,’ he said.” because the original doesn’t have a comma after home. That’s why the American usage is ‘illogical’ from our point of view, because that comma isn’t in the original. The comma after father goes inside the quotation mark in both US and GB styles, though, because it represents the full stop at the end of the original sentence.
The split quotation construction isn’t the most common, and you can usually recast it, but I wouldn’t say it was particularly rare either. It can lend itself to comedy, for example. PG Wodehouse (and there is no finer stylish in English that PG…) does it a lot.
I see… sorry if I misunderstood! I wouldn’t have said it was particularly rare. Also, if you’re reading mainly American printed/edited material, they would follow US style, no matter what the original says.
The rule itself extends beyond this one case, though: the OGS discusses where to put the final punctuation mark (not just commas) in a variety of ever more complicated circumstances. by that point it’s probably only of academic importance (in both senses!)
You don’t need the comma–‘stronger’ punctuation marks override weaker ones and you don’t double up on them.
But, just to be clear, even if this quotation was an ordinary statement, not a question, you wouldn’t put the comma outside the quotation even in British English. That’s because it’s a complete sentence, so the punctuation goes inside.
So…
“Excuse me, I hope I’m not interrupting,” said a woman’s voice from the doorway.
(The comma replaces the full stop at the end of what was actually said.)
And of course, a question mark usually goes at the end of a sentence, and the same principle applies: the punctuation goes inside the quotation mark. However, meaning would be lost (the fact it was a question) if it was replaced by a comma, so the quotation mark is retained. The same would apply to an exclamation mark.
“Excuse me, am I interrupting something?” said a woman’s voice from the doorway.
“Excuse me, I think you’re right!” said a woman’s voice from the doorway.
I’m on my way now, but make sure the door is locked and have your Beretta in hand ready to go.
In this case both American English and British English style would be:
“I’m on my way now,” Lizzie said, “but make sure the door is locked and have your Beretta in hand ready to go.”
This is because Americans do it that way anyway (the comma is always inside the quotation mark, even it there wasn’t one in the original) and we Brits would say that as there is a comma in the original, it should be reproduced. The logic is different, but in this case, the effect is the same.
You never have a full stop when dialogue is followed by a tag in the same sentence – it’s usually a comma, but it can be a question mark or exclamation mark.
e.g.
“This is the house.” Sarah’s voice was emphatic. <- a full stop is fine because this is two sentences.
“This is the house,” said Sarah emphatically. <- it’s a comma because it’s all part of one sentence.
I’m in no way contradicting @brookter; but I have a different view. Note the semicolon between my clauses
I’d edit this as:
“I’m on my way now,” Lizzie said. “But make sure the door is locked and have your Beretta in hand ready to go.”
The two clauses in:
“I’m on my way now, but make sure the door is locked and have your Beretta in hand ready to go.”
can easily be separated, and because semicolons in dialogue are generally not a good look – I use them endlessly elsewhere – I prefer to separate them, as above.
That said, personally, I’d remove the “but”. Hence:
“I’m on my way now,” Lizzie said. “Make sure the door’s locked. And have your Beretta ready to go.”
There’s immediacy in short sentences, which is what this sentence seems to require. (I removed the “in hand” mainly because it wrecks the rhythm (which I regard as important) – say both options aloud to hear the difference.)
Oh, I don’t think there’s any doubt the sentence can be rewritten, and of course you’re right that if you split it into two sentences, you punctuate it the way you suggest.
But that’s a more a stylistic matter (which way do I split the quotation?) than a grammatical one (how do I punctuate it when I’ve chosen to split it this way?), which I gathered was the point of the question.
