“He shouted” is a tag, and it’s followed by a modifier in the form of two prepositional phrases. (The dialogue is punctuated with the exclamation point inside the quotation marks. “Get out, now!” he shouted as he ran down the stairs. The beat gets its own terminal punctuation in the form of the period at the end.) The question mark serves as terminal punctuation for the dialogue, which is contained in quotes as usual. Why not tell us what the speaker does after she speaks? In this case, Mary’s pretty ticked off about whatever her companion is doing, so she snorts at him and gives him a nasty look. Saying “asked” when there’s a question mark already letting us know someone is asking something is redundant, if you think about it. It’s an issue of personal preference for me. (Here I’ve used a beat-an action-rather than a tag. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mary snorted and shot him a dirty look. The terminal punctuation for the entire sentence is the period following “said.”) Because it’s in dialogue, and because there’s a tag, the period becomes a comma. (Mary’s statement is a declarative sentence that would normally end with a period. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing,” Mary said. I’ll be covering beats/tags and interruptions in detail in their own dedicated parts. I did not create any examples of interrupted speech. Here are a few examples with different kinds of punctuation: some incorporate beats, some use tags. That exclamation point punctuates the sentence. Notice also that there is no additional terminal punctuation outside the closing marks. (As if my thousands of followers actually care what I say.) Notice that the terminal punctuation, in this case an exclamation point, goes inside the closing quotation marks. In the first sentence of this part, I used them to enclose what I hear my thousands of followers saying, as if they were actually saying it. “But Karen, we already know this part!” If that were true, I’d not be seeing errors in manuscripts. Most of what I have to say here will apply equally to both sides of the pond.) (Tip: They’re not as different as many people seem to think they are. If you need UK rules, you can find them with an Internet search or in any number of style guides readily available at libraries and online. I’m a US editor, and while I have experience with UK style, I am writing from a US perspective and using US rules and guidelines. I think I’ll begin with the most obvious punctuation for dialogue: quotation marks. And I’m still deciding, as I write, just how to tackle this in the most meaningful, useful manner. There are too many variables, too many options, too many ways to correctly punctuate depending on other active factors. I’m breaking this into a series because, let’s face it, there’s just too much to cram into a single entry. But there’s plenty of terrible to go around.) Sometimes I see amazing things, uplifting things. So, I’m tackling this subject from the chair of a freelance editor who sees things. So, what's so important about this scene?Īccording to Worldbirds, encounters with blackbirds can represent the arrival of the unknown or mysterious, while dead blackbirds offer a different portent: They can be a sign of an impending death, either literal or symbolic. Since the scene takes place before Reece leaves for Operation Odin's Sword, the dead blackbird is an omen foretelling the shadowy conspiracy unfolding around an unknowing Reece and indicating that his life is about to undergo a tragic and irreversible change.Why write yet another series of posts about dialogue, when there are myriads out there already for the reading (if one bothers to search)?īecause a) many folks don’t bother to search, and b) I always have a slightly different take on subjects, a take that many people seem to appreciate. This scene is replayed multiple times throughout the show, from different perspectives, and with many added nightmarish layers of hallucination as Reece continues to lose his grip on reality. Reece is enjoying his last night with his wife and daughter before he deploys, when a blackbird flies into the window, breaking its neck and leaving an ominous crack in the window. One of these flashback/hallucinations involves a memory from right before Reece leaves for the doomed mission in Episode 1.
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