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*cue inner grammar pedant*
There's a grammatical mistake that I've been seeing all over the place lately. Like ... just about every third story I read. It's not big enough to make me stop reading, but it's driving me BONKERS.
You don't put a period between a line of dialogue and the attribution, unless the attribution is a new sentence. And you do not capitalize the start of the attribution line UNLESS it is a new sentence!
For example, this is correct:
"Hi, guys," John said.
"Where are we going?" said John wearily.
"Hey Teyla." John turned to smile at her.
"I just want to know where we are." Turning in a full circle, John couldn't see a recognizable landmark anywhere.
But this is wrong:
"Hi, guys." John said.
"Where are we going?" Said John.
"Hi, Teyla." Said Rodney cheerfully.
AAAUGH. (It hurt to even type those sentences on purpose.)
There are only a few writers (mostly new ones) who do it consistently throughout the story, so I know in most cases it's a typo -- a period for a comma, say -- or an accident. And I wouldn't be surprised if I've occasionally been guilty too. But it's cropping up EVERYWHERE lately and I just wanted to drop a quick note to be watchful for it when you're writing and beta'ing, because when I start stumbling across it in a story, it gets to the point where I'm not paying as much attention to the plot as I am to bracing myself for the next error, and you want the reader to be sucked into the story and not looking at the mechanical details, right?
You don't put a period between a line of dialogue and the attribution, unless the attribution is a new sentence. And you do not capitalize the start of the attribution line UNLESS it is a new sentence!
For example, this is correct:
"Hi, guys," John said.
"Where are we going?" said John wearily.
"Hey Teyla." John turned to smile at her.
"I just want to know where we are." Turning in a full circle, John couldn't see a recognizable landmark anywhere.
But this is wrong:
"Hi, guys." John said.
"Where are we going?" Said John.
"Hi, Teyla." Said Rodney cheerfully.
AAAUGH. (It hurt to even type those sentences on purpose.)
There are only a few writers (mostly new ones) who do it consistently throughout the story, so I know in most cases it's a typo -- a period for a comma, say -- or an accident. And I wouldn't be surprised if I've occasionally been guilty too. But it's cropping up EVERYWHERE lately and I just wanted to drop a quick note to be watchful for it when you're writing and beta'ing, because when I start stumbling across it in a story, it gets to the point where I'm not paying as much attention to the plot as I am to bracing myself for the next error, and you want the reader to be sucked into the story and not looking at the mechanical details, right?
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ETA: Oops, apologies for slipping a grammar peeve into a punctuation thread. You can see how much it bothers me. ;)
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