Don’t make these punctuation blunders.
by Kathy Steinemann
Are you guilty of these punctuation mistakes that confuse readers and drive editors batty?
Someone told me recently that about 90% of writers need the information in this post (no names mentioned, but she runs a popular writers’ blog, the one with the green-on-green color scheme).
Are you one of the 90% she was talking about? Read on to find out.
Each Punctuation Blunder section below begins with an excerpt. Please scrutinize the excerpt before you continue to the next heading. Mull over what you see. Do you recognize the problem? If not, reread. It won’t take long: the first excerpt is 83 words, and the second is 139.
Blunder #1
Excerpt:
Allan crawled toward the exit. “The smoke is too thick, Carol. I don’t think …”
“Shhh,” she interrupted. “They’ll hear us.”
“But I think …”
“Pipe down,” she butted in.
“You pipe down! You’re always the …”
She cut Allan’s exclamation off with a slap across his face. “How dare you …”
“How dare I?” he interjected, voice shrilling louder with each word. “I’m not the one who …” The rest of his retort was muffled by an explosion that shook the room.
Let’s examine the problems.
The dialogue is punctuated with ellipses to indicate sudden interruptions. However, ellipses should signal omitted words, pauses in action, or unfinished sentences.
And there’s a double whammy. Although the ellipses in the excerpt are supposed to indicate interrupted dialogue, several superfluous phrases perform the same function:
she interrupted
she butted in
She cut Allan’s exclamation off
he interjected
The rest of his retort was muffled
Another snag: Editors who received their degrees from the University of Only-Use-Said will frown at some of the dialogue tags.
Here’s one solution (The Chicago Manual of Style approach):
[Note spacing around the em dashes.]
Allan crawled toward the exit. “The smoke is too thick, Carol. I don’t think—”
“Shhh,” she whispered. “They’ll hear us.”
“But I think—”
“Pipe down.”
“You pipe down! You’re always the—”
She slapped Allan across the face. “How dare you—”
“How dare I?” His voice shrilled louder with each word. “I’m not the one who—” A deafening explosion shook the room.
The same solution (The Associated Press Stylebook approach):
[Note spacing around the em dashes.]
Allan crawled toward the exit. “The smoke is too thick, Carol. I don’t think —”
“Shhh,” she whispered. “They’ll hear us.”
“But I think —”
“Pipe down.”
“You pipe down! You’re always the —”
She slapped Allan across the face. “How dare you —”
“How dare I?” His voice shrilled louder with each word. “I’m not the one who —” A deafening explosion shook the room.
Observations:
– The original excerpt shows and tells. Edits remove the redundancies.
– Deletion of superfluous phrasing reduces word count.
– Changing ellipses to em dashes corrects the punctuation.
The Chicago Manual of Style recommends that em dashes should not be separated from text by spaces. The Associated Press Stylebook recommends the opposite.
The Chicago Manual of Style approach:
Never use lard—or coconut oil—in this recipe.
The Associated Press Stylebook approach:
Never use lard — or coconut oil — in this recipe.
Note the spacing in the following. Both style manuals recommend that em dashes adjoin closing quote marks.
The Chicago Manual of Style: “But I don’t think that—”
The Associated Press Stylebook: “But I don’t think that —”
No matter which style guide you trust, an em dash preceding a quotation mark could result in a line break that looks like this:
“I never said I’d eat the—
”
Note the quotation mark on a line of its own.
Although workarounds like non-breaking thin spaces might fix the formatting, they cause unpredictable results in some platforms used by self-publishers.
P.S.
The resources I’ve found recommend that ellipses be surrounded by spaces except when they appear with quote marks:
Neil Armstrong said, “… I’m going to step off … now. That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” [In this paragraph, ellipses indicate missing words. No space appears between the opening quotation mark and the ellipsis. You can listen to the audio on NASA’s website.]
“I’m going to bed now,” Marnie said. … “Do you intend to join me?” [This ellipsis indicates a pause in dialogue. Those three little pinpricks might cause readers to envision Marnie raising her eyebrows, swiveling her hips, or making a seductive gesture. Note the spaces surrounding it: one preceding the ellipsis and another after. The space after the period and before the ellipsis is intentional.]
Orla patted her too-full stomach. ”I want another piece of cake, but …” [This ellipsis indicates a trailing off of dialogue. There is no space between the ellipsis and the closing quotation mark.]
Consider the next sentence.
Fiona yelled, “Get out or [space] […] [space] [”]
The space after the ellipsis could result in the following scenario.
Fiona yelled, “Get out or …
”
Note the lonely little ” on its own line. Unlike em dashes, ellipses are sticky beggars who cling to words and punctuation like baby koalas to their mamas—another good reason not to separate them from quotation marks.
Has anyone ever insisted that you shouldn’t use the MS-Word ellipsis character? Observe what could happen if you use dot-space-dot-space-dot:
Fiona yelled, “Get out or . .
. “
Not pretty, is it?
I know, I know, it’s The Chicago Manual of Style approach. But no editor will ever persuade me to form an ellipsis that way. It’s ugly. It causes irregular formatting. And it increases MS-Word count by three instead of one.
I scowl … and shake my head. [7 words]
I scowl . . . and shake my head. [9 words]
For ellipsis+space dissenters who read this post:
I didn’t make this stuff up.
The Chicago Manual of Style, The Associated Press Stylebook, Painless Grammar, and The Copyeditor’s Handbook all recommend spaces around ellipses, as do these pages (and many more):
http://plato.algonquincollege.com/applications/guideToGrammar/?page_id=925
https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/ellipses.html
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_25.htm
http://copywriter-editor.com/ellipses-and-quoted-material/
https://www.uhv.edu/student-success-center/resources/e-p/ellipsis-use-in-mla-style/
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/ellipsis/
http://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/punctuation/dash_slash_ellipses_brackets.html
http://www.kentlaw.edu/academics/lrw/grinker/LwtaEllipses.htm
__
Blunder #2
Excerpt:
Marianne cradled Heinrich’s emaciated hand in hers, gazed at his yellowish-grey skin, his tortured breathing, a rattle interspersed with bubbling, was almost inaudible among the beeps of monitoring equipment. His weak exhalations barely stirred his bedraggled mustache, tubes fed him and drained him, he floated in and out of consciousness.
Less than a week, the doctors said he’d be dead in less than a week, I’m going to paint him, I want something to remember him by.
The nurse checked Heinrich’s vitals. “Your brother’s fortunate to have a dedicated sister like you, you should go home for a while and get some sleep, he’s stable for now, we’ll call you if his condition deteriorates.”
Marianne opened her mouth to protest, but realized the nurse was right, she stroked Heinrich’s hand just one more time before she left his room.
Let’s consider the problem.
Were you forced to read sentences more than once because you couldn’t tell where one thought ends and the next begins?
The excerpt contains multiple comma splices (independent clauses separated by commas).
Here’s one solution:
Marianne cradled Heinrich’s emaciated hand in hers and gazed at his yellowish-grey skin. His tortured breathing, a rattle interspersed with bubbling, was almost inaudible among the beeps of monitoring equipment. His weak exhalations barely stirred his bedraggled mustache. Tubes fed him and drained him. He floated in and out of consciousness.
Less than a week. The doctors said he’d be dead in less than a week. I’m going to paint him. I want something to remember him by.
The nurse checked Heinrich’s vitals. “Your brother’s fortunate to have a dedicated sister like you. You should go home for a while and get some sleep. He’s stable for now. We’ll call you if his condition deteriorates.”
Marianne opened her mouth to protest, but realized the nurse was right. She stroked Heinrich’s hand just one more time before she left his room.
Observations:
If the words preceding a comma and those following it form complete thoughts (independent clauses), they should be converted into sentences and joined by a word such as and, or they should be separated by semicolons.
A few examples of comma splices, with suggested edits:
Alex wanted supper, he wanted sleep even more.
You can try: Alex wanted supper but he wanted sleep even more.
Alex wanted supper; he wanted sleep even more.
Alex wanted supper. He wanted sleep even more.
Alex wanted supper. However, he wanted sleep even more.
Although Alex wanted supper, he wanted sleep even more.
Note how one comma splice is corrected with but, a coordinating conjunction. The seven coordinating conjunctions are:
For And Nor But Or Yet So
[F A N B O Y S]
A second comma splice is corrected by adding the subordinating conjunction although. Subordinating conjunctions include words such as after, before, because, if, since, unless, until, whenever, why, et al.
In the sentence, Alex wanted supper but he wanted sleep even more, a comma before but would be preferred by many editors, because the phrases preceding and following but are independent clauses. However, an action scene often omits commas in short sentences; this type of phrasing accelerates pace.
Further examples:
Wayne drove to the store, he drove to the bank, he drove home.
Wayne drove to the store and to the bank. Then he drove home.
Wayne drove to the store; he drove to the bank; he drove home.
Wayne drove to the store. He drove to the bank. He drove home.
After driving to the store, Wayne drove to the bank and then home.
Wayne drove to the store, to the bank, and then home.
P.S.
Sometimes comma splices are warranted, especially in dialogue:
“I want you, I need you, I will have you,” Wade said as he grabbed Shelly’s shoulder and twirled her around to face him.
The commas add to the intensity of Wade’s words. Does he sound breathless, perhaps, or angry? Context should provide the details.
Many short sentences benefit from comma splices:
Dwayne threw a right, a left, he sidestepped.
I ran, I took cover, I attempted to calm my breathing.
My boyfriend likes cake, I like frozen yogurt.
I came, I saw, I conquered. (Veni, vidi, vici. ~ Julius Caesar)
P.P.S.
The initial excerpt in this section is a mangled copy-and-paste from one of my stories, “Anonymous Artist,” in Suppose: Drabbles, Flash Fiction, and Short Stories.
—
All right, folks, now that I’ve poked the beehive, I’m ready for the stings. I think. Let me check …
Yes, I have my epinephrine pen. Gimme your comments, I can handle them. [Note the intentional comma splice.]
—
by Kathy Steinemann (@kathysteineman) June 16, 2019
What about you, scriveners? Do you make either of these punctuation blunders? (I’m afraid I’m guilty.) Do you notice when authors are misusing ellipsis? Do comma splices drive you batty? Which punctuation blunders bother you the most?
Kathy Steinemann
Grandma Birdie to her grandkids, is a parrot-loving grandma involved in a passionate affair with words, especially when the words are frightening or futuristic or funny.
As a child, she scribbled prose and poetry, and won public-speaking and writing awards. As an adult, she worked as a small-town paper editor, and taught a couple of college courses. She has won or placed in multiple short fiction contests.
If you were to follow her around for a day, you might see her wince when a character on TV says “lay” instead of “lie” or when a social media post confuses “your” with “you’re.” And please don’t get her started on gratuitous apostrophes in pluralized words.
Her popular books in The Writer’s Lexicon series are touted by writers as “phenomenal,” a “secret weapon,” and “better than a thesaurus.”
You’ll find her at KathySteinemann.com, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
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Read all about Kathy’s books on her Book Page
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Well laid out. Thanks!
I can never remember whether or not there are spaces around em dashes. I always have to look that one up. 🙂
Hi, Jemi.
Either approach is correct, as long as you’re consistent.
Thanks for stopping by!
Kathy, Oh Kathy—*Now* you tell us! 😉
???? Heh heh.
Have a great Sunday, Ruth!
A great mini lesson in punctuation, cleverly done. Thank you!
Thanks for reading, Carmen!
Hah! Great work, Ms. Steinemann, I’ve seldom seen grammar and correct usage handled in this clear, fun fashion.
Yeah, people coming to yell at an editing guru, as if. Truth is, we live in terror of folks who know their stuff like you. Or we should.
I have had tremendous problems with that stupid em-dash, and you’ve given me release to clarify that it could indeed be either way. I had no idea. I recognized about two years ago that I was manhandling dashes, semi-colons, ellipses and splicing commas horribly, and for one awful reason. I was hearing the tale told in a certain way and was trying desperately to dictate how the reader should cadence the reading experience. Awful as soon as I realized the problem. But then I started narrating my own tales and I notice the problem is much better now!
Thanks for a great column.
Thanks, Will! I don’t bite–honest. No terror required. 🙂
Good point: Narrating a WIP reveals weaknesses that other types of edits miss.
Absolutely right about the value of proofing out loud. But I think authors need to give up on trying to dictate to the reader how it will go. Let ’em read on their own!
Isn’t that what punctuation and grammar are for, Will?
Consider the classic meme: “A woman without her man is nothing.”
Punctuation makes a huge difference:
“A woman, without her man, is nothing.”
“A woman: without her, man is nothing.”
The writer needs to provide direction so that readers understand the intent of each passage.
Wonderful post! I do have a question though.
You said: “In the sentence, Alex wanted supper but he wanted sleep even more, a comma after but would be preferred by many editors, because the phrases preceding and following but are independent clauses.”
Did you mean a comma BEFORE ‘but’—i.e., Alex wanted supper, but he wanted sleep even more”?
Good eye, TT! You’re right. Thanks.
That’s what happens when you work on revisions before the coffee has brewed.
Anne fixed the boo-boo. 🙂
Ah, OK, good. Now I must read ellipses again and make sure I’m doing it right! I prefer the style where there is no space between because of how it comes out on a formatted mobi and ipub page. But I overuse ellipses, so will review! Thanks for a great post!
I used ellipses wrong when I began but learned how to use the em-dash instead. I’ve always made them without spaces though. With spaces just looks wrong.
Thanks. I agree, Alex. Spaced ellipses look like ugly gaps in the text.
Em dashes have their place, but some writers insert them so frequently that the narrative looks like an alien language.
For trailing off of dialogue and pauses, ellipses rule.
Brava, & brava again.
Thanks, CS! And a huge brava to Anne for hosting such an informative blog.
Great post, Kathy. About the style guides: I understand (please correct me if I’m wrong) that CMOS is generally used/preferred for fiction editing and AP for non-fiction.
Boy, do I share your intense dislike for hearing lay when it should be lie and laid when it should be lay. I’m surprised you only hear it on TV, though. I hear it used incorrectly in real life way more often than correctly.
You’re right regarding the style guides, Tricia, although many fiction writers prefer AP. Some use a combination of both guides. In my opinion, consistency is the important factor.
I set up my own style guide:
https://kathysteinemann.com/Musings/whats-better-than-a-style-manual-or-grammar-book/
Whenever I encounter something I suspect I’ll refer to again, I add it.
Re lie and lay, the TV reference is just an example. I hear and see its misuse everywhere. Blech.
Thanks for reading my rants!
A useful precis which confirms (partly) what I’m beginning to realise: a lot of punctuation ‘rules’ are chiefly a matter of preference. Only which ones…?
To complicate matters, things are sometimes a little different in the UK from the US. For instance, I’ve taken to using US-style double-quote marks (inverted commas in the UK) even though the single version is common in the UK and easier to use on the UK keyboard (two keys right of the L with no shift required). That’s because it’s easier to change in a whole manuscript using Word’s Find/Replace, should I need to.
Thanks for doing the research on ellipsis. I kinda gave up in the end and do it the way I think looks right (usually opting for consistency over logic).
Oh, yes, Cathy, agreed that double-quote marks make blanket search-and-replace operations easier to manage. I’m guesting on another blog tomorrow and discuss why.
An increasing number of UK writers tell me they’re switching to the North American style for quote marks. In fact, some say they’ve never written any other way. It’s fascinating to see how language and punctuation have evolved.
Thanks for stopping by!
Kathy–We’re loving this great post! Can you tell us where you’re guesting tomorrow? I’m happy about sending people there for more info! Thanks!
I’m also British and was taught double quotes at school so did a search on line and found this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark
It’s a long article (and a bit tedious in places) but almost every explanation is there.
Thanks for inviting me, Anne!
I’ll be at https://libraryoferana.wordpress.com/ tomorrow, with a few manuscript-formatting tips.
Here’s the URL for the post. I didn’t have it yesterday:
https://libraryoferana.wordpress.com/2019/06/17/guest-post-14-manuscript-formatting-tips-for-writers-and-poets-kathy-steinemann/
Yeah, very helpful. Thank you. I’ll slay the next person who lays down, right there where they lay.
I won’t lie–I feel the same way, Julia. I’ll lay my hands on them and …
Happy Monday! Thanks for stopping by.
Excellent way to show how these should work. After much research and head banging a few years back, I figured all of this out, and am delighted to know I’m doing it correctly. I also can’t stand spaces . . . within an ellipsis. It just looks odd. I view an ellipsis as a single element and a word in and of itself.
I will be sharing this post with my writer’s guild, Saturday Writers.
Ha ha, Jeanne. I imagined you banging your head on a desk as I read your comment.
Thanks for stopping by!
An addendum thanks to Kay Vreeland, @cay_anchor, on Twitter.
For this post, I copied and pasted the incorrect ellipses sections and ran a search-and-replace to substitute em dashes, I hadn’t considered that —“ produces an opening quote mark rather than a closing mark.
To get around this Word idiosyncrasy, type qqqq” throughout your WIP instead of —“
When ready for final edits, copy an em dash to the clipboard.
Then do a search-and-replace:
Search for: qqqq
Replace with: —
Result: Every instance of qqqq” will have been transformed into —”
I had this problem consistently til about two years ago (Mac, macOS and Scrivener) and found that (on the Mac keyboard at least) the key combination Shift-Option-Open Square Bracket yields a close quote mark even following an em dash. However, two years ago, the problem vanished. Hints that Apple changed something were quietly bandied about. That’s unlikely to affect Word on a PC platform, I’d guess, but it’s interesting that the problem showed up on both.
Also on the Mac, the –” string does not break between the em dash (signaled here by two dashes) and the quote mark at the end of line, the desired behavior. What I had to chase down was the case where the string “text–” This would reliably break between ‘text’ and the em dash. *I* use unicode U+2060 (Word Joiner) to prevent that break.
Thanks for more insights; they are always useful!
Thanks for the info, Tony!
Thin spaces make documents fail EPUBCheck. I suspect that U+2060 might do the same. Have you tried word joiner with documents accepted for iBooks or other markets that require EPUBCheck validation?
I don’t see a Reply gadget on your comment, so I’ll post it here and hope, LOL.
I use the same document (as far as the base text goes) to create my mobi, my epub and my pdf (for POD), and have had no problem with any of them. I use the current version of pagina EPUB-Checker (1.9.1, today), and both it and D2D report no errors in my epub3 documents.
Earlier (six months ago or so), I had an issue with three or four of the Kindle fonts, that they didn’t recognize the WJ character (while the other three or four did), but I think (now that I put a little apologia in my Kindle books) that that problem has been resolved, so from where I sit, it looks like a viable solution. Hope it helps someone!
Good to know.
Thanks again, Tony.
What an informative post, Kathy!
I would not mind if Anne invites you back for follow up posts.
As a non-native English speaker, I want to say thanks for the punctuation lesson.
~Ingmar Albizu
Thanks, Ingmar. I enjoy working with Anne.
Yes. A very popular writer who probably prefers to remain unnamed, here, did tell me it is “space dot space dot space dot space”. The reason given was: publishers hate to have to undo formatting? I always wondered about that, but religiously followed her advice, figuring there is no point in angering a publisher. Right?
Oh, and I also did encounter those awkward line ends with only one dot on the next line.
Thanks for making me feel I wasn’t imagining it.
“Dot-space-dot-space-dot” is old-fashioned and ugly. *shiver* I’m sure its proponents have a reason for preferring it, Katharine, but I fail to comprehend their logic. Maybe a “. . .” guru will read this post and explain.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
I have to confess I’m feeling crimson-faced with the strong anti-space-dot-space-dot-space-dot-space sentiments. I got that formation from CMOS. I wonder if they’ve changed it in their newest iteration. Does anybody know?
I have a fairly recent edition, and as far as I know, Tricia, CMOS still recommends the spaced ellipsis.
Here’s another reason to hate their approach. When used along with a period, the dot-space-dot-space-dot-space-dot combo looks like a four-dot ellipsis, and it could create weird end-of-line spacing:
The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. .
. . And the lazy brown dog rolled onto its back.
AP formatting would work out one of two ways:
The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. …
And the lazy brown dog rolled onto its back.
or
The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.
… And the lazy brown dog rolled onto its back.
Thanks for stopping by!
Wow, it’s nice to know that for once, I’m doing something right! I gave up on the dot-space-dot-space-dot simply because of formatting. I not usually guilty of comma splices, but my copyeditor is constantly making me add commas before conjunctions. Sometimes I ignore because the sentence is short and it flows better without. However, I feel like semi-colons in fiction make it seem stilted and I usually use an em-dash instead. If it seems like too many close together, though, I change the wording.
A question for you. Where do commas go with conjunctions in a compound sentence? (Pretend these are longer sentences!)
“He wanted the book so, he grabbed it.”
“He wanted the book, so he grabbed it.”
I say #2 is correct, and #1 just drives me batty!
BTW, thanks for a great post!
Dang, I typed too fast and there’s no chance to edit! “I’m not” and “I ignore them!”
Heh heh. At least you didn’t press the PUBLISH button and then discover that you had spelled your own name wrong, Jen. Mind you, “Peters” is easier to get right than “Steinemann.” 🙂
CORRECT: “He wanted the book, so he grabbed it.”
You have joined two short sentences with a coordinating conjunction–which should be preceded by a comma. The first version drives me batty too.
I wrote a post that covers this: https://kathysteinemann.com/Musings/gripe11/
Here’s to good copyeditors! And an occasional semicolon when nothing else seems to fit.
I am I am an avid ellipsis supporter, it just looks like dialog. I use it where an em dash thingy should be and let the poor editor fume. Unapologetically.
Besides, considering you clear distinction of the em dash use with an intent to conform, I can not find it on my keyboard. I use a Mac, if that matters. Hang on, I must look for it…
Ok found it. Four clicks under edit. I’ll stick with the more aesthetic ellipsis, thank you.
That’ll cost you extra if your editor charges per hour, Sam.
I can’t help if you work in Pages, but on Word for Mac, you just type two hyphens in a row, and when you put a word after it, it changes it to an em-dash. If you type space-hyphen-space, it changes it to an en-dash. Good luck!
Thanks, Jen!
Kathy, thanks for this great post! One thing I’d like to add is that my publisher has changed from the CMOS rule to the AP because of ebooks. A space between the em dashes means there can be a break in the text on the ereader. Since the ereader justifies margins, and you can enlarge the font, you can get weird spaces when two long words are strung together with an em dash and have to go to the next line. Put spaces between the em dash, and the problem is eliminated. 🙂 I think the AP rule came about because of justified margins in newspapers. A newspaper column of text can have odd widely spaced words. if they have to go to the next line with two words joined by an em dash. I hope that makes sense.
Thanks for mentioning that, Anne. I’m considering switching to the AP style of em dashes for the same reason.
Thank yoy so much for that. I now realise I’ve been using ellipses wrong for years?
I don’t have problems with em-dashes, though. I’ve never used spaces, so I’m consistent in that, anyway.
Ellipses without surrounding spaces often don’t cause problems, but when they do, they can mangle a page’s appearance and force readers to reread sentences.
The em dashes were overdone in the example I provided. 🙂 I don’t know how long I’d stick with a book that started out with similar phrasing.
Thanks for stopping by, Viv! I always enjoy hearing from you.
I’m trying to respond to Lindsey Russell, but I think the thread is full.
Thanks for the Wikipedia source, Lindsey, and for visiting Anne and Ruth’s blog.
Wikipedia: “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.”
One of the most popular British writers of modern times is J.K. Rowling. Millions of people worldwide have read her books, which use single quotes for direct speech.
Numerous sources, including the University of Bristol, recommend the same approach.
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_24.htm
https://www.lexico.com/en/grammar/inverted-commas-quotation-marks
https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/british-versus-american-style.html
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-to-use-quotation-marks?page=1
https://kathysteinemann.com/Musings/single-or-double-quotes-trunk-or-boot-does-it-matter/
Whether a writer chooses single or double quotes, consistency produces text that readers understand.
I haven’t re-checked recently but Amazon was replacing em dashes with unrecognised character question marks last time I used them. I’ve found alternatives ever since, including ellipses (which shouldn’t have a space before them when used to indicate interrupted speech.)
Are you uploading .doc files to Amazon for conversion? Em dashes and other special characters are converted properly by software such as Calibre and Jutoh.
All the sources I’ve found indicate that ellipses should have a space before them when used to indicate trailing off of dialogue, and that em dashes, not ellipses, indicate interruptions in speech. See the links and resources I gave in the article for more information.
Thanks for stopping by, Jaq!
Hi, Jaq.
Next time you see that on your Kindle or in the Kindle app, (However you check these) try a different font. In my experience, the “special” characters show up as a open box or a ? when that character is not part of the font.
Best of luck!
Thanks. I tend to submit in Time New Roman.
The font you submit in, as I’m sure you know, has no effect on the font the reader (either device or app) chooses for display. There are eight fonts at least in the current version, and as I alluded to above (far above, now), I found that half of them didn’t support the zero width non-breaking space character, and half did. *That* problem now appears to be fixed, however.
Just something else to watch for. Best wishes!
Thanks!
Excellent post. Thank you.
Veni, vidi, Visa. I came, I saw, I shopped.