They Finally Got Her There! 🥺💖💞

Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

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➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can ask be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations, dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

I wonder if that guy who gave Conrad a hard time after being sold a paper was like, self righteous indignation or something.

Oh, neat. The new Um, Actually episode has two Grant O’Briens.

Yes, the “We can’t just not look, can we?” scene in Those Old Scientists is hilarious but imagine the Department of Temporal Investigations began to refer to that as the “Boimler Maneuver” or alternatively the “Shy Pisser Maneuver”.

Because that’s very much what it is. It’s an entire room full of people standing in a corner of the room, trying not to look, while you do your business. It just so happens that that business is utilizing methods and technology from the future

It would be very on brand for Boimler that when he finally gets a maneuver named after him it’s also called the “Shy Pisser Maneuver”, forever branding him a shy pee’er regardless of whether he is one or not.

Inspired by this post with an astute observation

I simply must immortalize this text conversation I had with my friend here:

Yeah, the “snack player” is cool and all, but what about the “DM wedding officiant player”?

My sincere hope for this season is that the appearance of a Cruller ancestor will grant Lou the dubious honor (through Delissandro’s careful charm and seduction) of fucking Calroy’s mom.

I’m imagining a scenario in which Boimler meets Worf and introduces himself as Ensign Boimler, and Worf says he recognizes him and Boims gets excited for a second until Worf explains that he recognizes the name Boimler from the brand of prune juice that comes from Bradward’s family’s vineyard.