| SpookySausage | Capitalization after quotes? |
    40,008 / 50,000 Official Participant
Joined: avr. 8, 2009
Location: United States, eastern side. North or south depends when you're asking. Posts: 23
Posted on:
nov. 4, 2009 - 05 46 |
I haven't really had a chance to write dialog in my English classes, so I don't know what the grammar rule is for this. Do I capitalize the next word after a quotation or not? As in: On word, spellcheck makes me capitalize if a non-comma ends the dialog, but I don't think that's right. What's the rule on this? |
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9,000 / 50,000
nov. 4, 2009 - 05 58
Don't capitalize it if the sentence continues. Spellcheck can not be trusted on this. "Blah blah blah!" he said. <--The way to go.
28,907 / 50,000
nov. 4, 2009 - 06 31
That's weird that Word is doing that to your post-dialogue letters! I've used Word for about 15 novel manuscripts so far and it hasn't tried to capitalize the "he said" after an exclamation point or question mark. Hm. Maybe it's time to turn off spell check / grammar check / auto-correct, at least for the month of November?
My rule on dialogue punctuation / capitalization: when in doubt, look at a published book. Unless it's highly experimental fiction, it will use the proper dialogue format.
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22,873 / 50,000
nov. 4, 2009 - 06 33
If the sentence ends at the end of the dialogue, then the next sentence must be capitalized. Usually this is when an action follows the speech and is contained in its own sentence, like so.
- "The sky is incredibly blue, don't you think? It's lovely!" He stared up into the heavens.
- "Can I take your bag?" She extended a hand for his suitcase.
- "We'd prefer it if the papers didn't leave this house." He gave her an apologetic smile.
If there's a dialogue attribute (he said, she asked, etc.), it should not be capitalized. You never want to create a sentence fragment like "He said." It wouldn't make any sense; the attribute belongs with the dialogue.
- "Yes, really astoundingly blue!" the other man agreed, looking up as well.
- "Are you sure you can manage it?" he asked.
- "Of course. I understand completely," she assured him.
For less conventional ending punctuation, like a dash (for broken-off dialogue) or an ellipsis (for trailing off without finishing a sentence), the rule is generally to start a new sentence rather than adding a dialogue tag, but it could really go either way.
- "But--" He broke off, hearing a knock at the door.
----------- "But--" he started to protest, but the other man cut him off.
- "I wish..." She sighed, thinking about the many things she would have liked to have seen before she died.
35,016 / 50,000
nov. 4, 2009 - 08 42
Seconding what Callirhoe said.
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40,008 / 50,000
nov. 4, 2009 - 13 13
Thanks everyone!