Come Again?
by Graham Murray
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 by Graham Murray.
Published by Living Books USA
All
rights reserved. Cover design by author.
Despite the clever and deliberately misleading title of this book, it is not actually about a request for additional erotic services. It is actually a guide intended for writers. Yes, I write non-fiction, too.
As a writer, editor and publisher, few things are worse for me than picking up a new manuscript (paper or otherwise) and finding it peppered with silly grammatical errors and misspellings that smack me right between the eyes like a bum note on a piano.
If I find two or more such errors on the first page, I toss the script aside and choose another one. Nobody wants to read something in which the writer clearly has taken no pride.
Regardless of the possible brilliant content and storyline, a manuscript full of errors is the kiss of death in my book. This is particularly true when it comes to writing dialogue, something which remains a major stumbling block for many writers, especially newcomers.
It is clear that many aspiring writers still have great difficulty in not only writing believable dialogue in their stories, but also especially when it comes to punctuating it correctly. Bad or incorrectly punctuated dialogue not only makes reading a piece difficult and tiresome, it can lead to some hilarious faux pas.
It stands to reason that any serious writer must to have a good grasp of grammar. When it comes to spelling, there are countless electronic spell-checkers and dictionaries available from which to choose, so there really is no excuse. The occasional typo apart, there is no reason for any piece of writing to be marred by spelling mistakes. Good grammar, however, is somewhat different and comes mainly from experience and/or a good educational background.
However, there are always those who have lame excuses such as, “I’m just a bad speller.” They make it sound as if it were an inherited affliction. Mostly, it’s just laziness and unwillingness to learn. Imagine if I said, “Sorry, I’m just a mass murderer,” as if it can’t be helped, or was perfectly normal. That doesn’t carry much water either, does it? So, stop making feeble excuses and, like everything else, learn how to spell. At the very least, learn how to use a spelling checker.
You weren’t born with the knowledge to drive a car were you? Similarly, you also weren’t born with a dictionary inside your head; you had to learn the words you use now, and had to learn how to spell them. Spelling is remembering. Let me guess . . . you have a bad memory as well, right? If so, change careers . . . writing is not your calling.
Still, I am amazed at the number of writers who, despite possessing good grammar skills, still have not mastered the essential (and relatively simple) art of writing dialogue and punctuating it correctly. But before I wax lyrical over bad dialogue, I need to explain a few terms and concepts used in good writing.
Dialogue is all the parts in a piece of writing where somebody speaks, and is indicated by, would you believe, quotation marks, thus: “ ”.
There is an opening mark and a closing mark, which serve to encapsulate and identify the spoken word (or a quotation). In other words, everything between quotation marks indicates that a person is speaking.
Remember that the written word is not the same as the spoken word; a major pitfall for beginners. A good writer can tell a story as an observer, a third party . . . a story-teller. A poor writer lacks this skill and writes as if they were talking the story. This is why many publishers will ask for only the first page of your wonderful new blockbuster novel. Yeah, it’s that obvious.
The skill in good writing is the ability to tell a story objectively, with believable dialogue interwoven along the way.
The descriptive writing (exposition) part of a story is the actual storyline and is often in a passive form (not a good idea), whereas the dialogue is always in an active form. The most powerful writing is active writing, as it keeps the reader concentrated and pulls them into the story. Passive writing allows the reader’s mind to drift and they soon become bored. Do yourself a favor and look up the difference between these two forms of writing. You will thank me later.
Those who are familiar with writing or reading screenplays will also be familiar with the term, ‘on-the-nose’ dialogue. This is where the dialogue is obviously false and reads that way. Good dialogue feels right and the reader gets no sense that it has all been fabricated. On-the-nose dialogue is the number one fault in screenplays, novels and short stories. If the dialogue is not believable, neither is the exposition – the elucidation of the story.
As if this isn’t difficult enough, the writer then has to ensure that the dialogue is correctly punctuated. A single incorrect, or absent piece of punctuation can not only completely change the intended meaning of dialogue, it can also produce some hilarious results.
To illustrate a point, here is a simple example of incorrectly punctuated dialogue, and a breakdown of why it is incorrect.
“Come here.” He said.
The writer, by use of the pronoun ‘he’, has attempted to tell us that ‘he’ wants somebody to come to him. Or have they? There are actually three mistakes in this simple example.
The correct form is: “Come here,” he said.
Let’s break down the original, incorrect example.
1. “Come here.” – this is a statement or request. On its own, it is correct although we do not know who spoke the words as it lacks a tagline (the bit at the end of the dialogue that tells you who spoke the words. Usually ‘he said’ or ‘she said’, etc.
2. He said. – He said what? This is an incomplete sentence. Presumably a male said something, but we do not know what he said.
Thus, if we correct the original statement, it should actually read:
“Come here.”
He said.
Notice that it is actually two, separate and disparate statements.
So, what was missing that prevented this from being a perfectly good piece of dialogue? Two things: a comma and correct capitalization.
In the phrase, Come here,” he said., the comma is what joins the two phrases together. It serves to indicate that ‘he’ spoke the words “Come here”, and the lower case H in ‘he’ indicates that ‘he’ spoke the words. Now we know that ‘he’ said, “Come here.” Got it?
As an editor, I have found this error by far to be the number one suspect in written dialogue. For me, the humble comma is the most powerful of all the punctuation marks; it can turn gobbledygook into coherent language. I cannot go into the complexities and correct usage of the comma here as it requires (and deserves) a hefty tome all its own. Suffice it to say, however, that the comma is your friend, and when used properly will make your writing and dialogue not only correct, but also much more legible and powerful.
In writing dialogue, the comma’s main job is to clarify who said what and to whom, and what they said or did afterwards. My favorite comma example is this one:-
“While we were eating the cat on the table jumped down.”
While you were eating the cat! Really? Wow!
It should, of course, read:
“While we were eating, the cat on the table jumped down.”
What a difference that little comma makes!
TIP: Some grammar checkers, for reasons of their own, sometimes assume a question mark to be a terminator, and will treat it the same as a period (.) Therefore, they will often offer to ‘fix’ a piece of dialogue that is actually already correct. Never put blind faith in grammar checkers.
Example:
“How are you?” she asked.
Some grammar checkers will attempt to change this to:
“How are you?” She asked. - which is incorrect. So be alert. If you can’t be a lert, then be wary . . .
The job of punctuation is to make the written word legible. Without it, writing would be unintelligible. You have to admit though, writing is indeed wonderful. By arranging a mere twenty-six letters into groups called ‘words’, and then interspersing these words with the use of a handful of punctuation marks to convey incredible complex documents and novels is a remarkable achievement.
Imagine if writing had no punctuation (like some people do). My late grandmother was queen of this. She would write a ten-page letter to me with absolutely no punctuation whatsoever. Just lower case words that ran on and on and on. Admittedly, it was fun trying to decipher what she was trying to say at times, bless her.
Punctuation marks tell your readers when to pause, or stop when you intend them to, in relation to the words you have chosen. They can add rhythm to your writing and make it leap off the page. They also help to convey emotion and to clarify your meaning and intention. So, the obvious question is: where do we place all these different punctuation marks in dialogue? Well, without further ado, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.
The entire point of punctuation is to make what you have written make sense. Otherwise it’s just a string of words with little meaning, lacking emphasis or inflexion.
Consider the following:-
Bob looked up at the sky. “Looks like rain.”
Here there are two separate actions and each is treated as two separate sentences. So you should punctuate them as such. The only difference is that Bob’s speech is indicated by being enclosed in quotation marks.
Dialogue Tags
If you want to ensure your readers know that Bob is speaking, you use a dialog tag. If you’re adding a straightforward tag such as “he said,” “Bob whispered,” or “shouted Bob,” that is part of the sentence; you include it in the sentence with a comma.
Example:
“It’s going to rain,” Bob said.
or:
Bob pointed at the sky and whispered, “It’s going to rain.”
Think of Bob’s speech as something you are relating to somebody. You wouldn’t say:
“Then Bob said. It was going to rain.”
You would say:
“Bob said it was going to rain.”
Another technique is to remove the quotation marks and then punctuate the sentence as normal:
It’s going to rain, shouted Bob.
Then put in the quotation marks when you’ve finished:
“It’s going to rain,” shouted Bob.
Shouting implies that Bob is a little more excited than the mere comma indicates. Perhaps an exclamation point would better relay his excitement to the reader.
But an ! is considered as ending punctuation (a ‘terminator’), and you’d really like to make sure the reader knows that Bob is the one getting excited. You can do this in two ways.
1. You can avoid the whole issue of comma vs. exclamation point by inverting the sentence and letting the exclamation point fill its terminator role:
Bob pointed at the sky and shouted, “It’s going to rain!”
2. You can use the double standard often offered by quotation marks to your advantage by treating them (and what they enclose) as something of a parenthetical element within the sentence.
Just as you may enclose a comment in brackets (the proper term for these brackets is parentheses), you can think of anything within quotation marks as something a little separate from the rest of the sentence. When you want to convey excitement or confusion, the comma can be replaced by an exclamation point (!) or a question mark (?):
“It’s going to rain!” Mark shouted.
“What do we do now?” asked Sharon.
Q. What if Sharon hadn’t asked Bob what they should do? What if she only thought this? Well, there is still a question involved, even if it is not spoken out loud. So where does the question mark fall?
A. You could fall back on exposition (see previously):
Sharon wondered what they would do now.