Personal Disagreements with The so called Rules of Grammar

[brevdravis]

I do NOT like the current method of dialogue marking as stated by current English grammar rules.

"I think this rule is correct," he said.

The above is correct. It also looks dumb, and if you're reading it out loud, you're looking for the the sentence to continue AFTER the identifier. You expect the speaker to continue.

"I know that rule is stupid." He said.

It marks emphasis for a reader. A period marks a break, where a comma marks a pause. So, fuck you to all my English professors. I also like the oxford comma; because I would rather completely, utterly, and totally piss off my professors.

Emphasizing the pronoun specifies that it is a character speaking, not a random he. This is an important character, and shows that the character is more than just a random person spouting dialog.

Because here's my thought process. The rules of English are fluid, as shown by the current lunge towards the embracing of text speech in stories and novels. So, if they get to break the rules to make it stupid, I get to break the rules to make it smart.

 

[brevdravis]

Another thing. I do voices when I read out loud, as does every other person who ever read a book out loud to an audience. Quotation marks are my fucking dialog and I kinda need to know when to stop doing a voice. As a result, punctuation within quotation marks is stage direction. I like good stage direction, it helps me put on a decent performance.
Actor thing, English professors wouldn't get it.

 

[Haoro]

I'm pretty sure I've seldom seen grammar like your first example written anywhere and have definitely never used it myself, so if that's the correct way of doing things it's limited to a small number of grammatical purists. I worked as an ESL teacher for a little bit and it was absolute hell trying to learn the proper rules of English grammar that I otherwise just naturally take for granted in speech and writing as a native speaker. Especially since for every so-called rule there's about a million exceptions that make no sense and I had to tell my poor students that this is the way our silly language works and they just have to try and learn them.

I still would have said the second one was correct grammatically and taught my students to write that way. It just makes more sense in every way to have dialogue as a separate sentence with punctuation, but then English doesn't make sense anyway.

 

[MidbossMan]

I did the first way for years as a member of a third-person RP board, but now, I kinda shift and do it both ways as it fits. I kind of got to the point where I won't even write "x said" much of the times, unless the rest of the sentence is unclear without it. That was a tip I picked up from someone here that I think has helped a bit.

Another weird one I'll do lately- and I imagine this is not grammatically correct- is separating things with dashes like I just did. I could use parentheses for the same, but I like how it makes it look like a pause for breath is taken before and after. I don't know if anybody else likes it that way.

Only partially related, I have a character who speaks with grammatical errors and typos- because she's supposed to be a half-assed role-player on an MMO- and I often wonder how much her dialogue annoys people.

I'll end with a related video:

 

[Haoro]

I kind of got to the point where I won't even write "x said" much of the times, unless the rest of the sentence is unclear without it. That was a tip I picked up from someone here that I think has helped a bit.

Yeah, I think that's always good practice. 'Said' is just so bland and doesn't tell the reader anything, especially if it's repeated again and again. Better to leave it out if the tone is obvious, or use another speech word that actually 'says' something when you use it.

 

[gene.sis]

I think the Oxford Comma avoids ambiguity, so I prefer using that.

Emphasizing the pronoun specifies that it is a character speaking, not a random he. This is an important character, and shows that the character is more than just a random person spouting dialog.

I can't agree.

For me (as a non-native speaker)

"This is so stupid," he screamed.

and

"This is so stupid." He screamed.

have different meanings.
In the first, he screamed the sentence.
In the second he screamed after finishing the sentence.

I also feel that there would be a slightly longer pause with a period than with a comma.
So even if you read it out loud, the comma would fit, especially if you're using different voices for characters and the narrative. (And I think there is no difference in intonation within the quotation marks but after them.)

That said, there is still some ambiguity if you use a question mark or exclamation point followed by a character's name. Though I guess you could simply use the verb first when necessary.

(As far as I know, there are also different punctuation preferences in American English and British English.)

Actor thing

A story is not quite the same as acting. If you want to do a reading performance, you would either have to be very familiar with the content or the content must be edited to give you intonation orders before the quote even starts.
Like

(screaming angrily) "This is so stupid," he screamed.

I kind of got to the point where I won't even write "x said" much of the times, unless the rest of the sentence is unclear without it.

If you combine dialog and action in the same line without using dialog tags, the punctuation makes a difference. Sure, you could start a new paragraph, though then you have to establish who is acting and speaking once again, probably by using otherwise unnecessary dialog tags.

Another weird one I'll do lately- and I imagine this is not grammatically correct- is separating things with dashes like I just did.

I think it should be em-dashes (—) to be correct. (It should give the part between the em-dashes additional emphasis.)
I pretty much dislike parentheses in writing.

Better to leave it out if the tone is obvious, or use another speech word that actually 'says' something when you use it.

Well, that shouldn't be overdone as well. ("said-bookism")

 

[brevdravis]

Hey, lotta good material and responses, so gonna respond to em all, in one, and say thank you to everybody for chiming in.

Absolutely agreed on the "He Said" stuff. Further extrapolating from that, I seriously have always felt that the English/American literary convention of starting a sentence before identifying the speaker is a deliberate hook to grab attention. IMHO, it's better to use action and other words than said, but as that was the example I used, I go with what people heard rather than when I meant. I personally only really like to even identify in a dialog whenever it becomes ambiguous, and again, I like to use stage direction because I visualize my pieces in a theatrical bent, as that is my mindset.

I personally have always found live readings to be very similar to a performance in many respects, including rehearsal and run through, so... absolutely YMMV on that. Especially in the tradition of author's reading their own work, punctuation is personal notes for how a speech or line should be given. Of course some folks disagree, but as I read each and every one of my pieces aloud before I post it, complete with going through and changing things and punctuation for the pacing, I find many similarities.

I do note your example does provide a good example of something that a native speaker would spot as seeming odd, whereas a non-native speaker would see as a difference of meaning. Of course, a couple more words would be preferable, and I'd try to add them in proofreading, IMHO, such as adding the word "out in frustration." make the statement much more clear that it's a piece of dialog being screamed rather than two different actions.

Thanks to everybody for chiming in, even when you disagree! I love working out my thoughts, and I never feel more challenged than when somebody disagrees with you creatively and intelligently.

 

[insertnamehere]

I... don't think many of you understand what it means to "bend" the rules of grammar.

I want you to stand up, right now.

Grab the nearest book. Doesn't matter what, just has to be published in English.

Flip open to the first piece of dialogue in the format described.

I can 100% guarantee you it uses the lowercase form with the preceding comma.

It is indeed true that for experienced authors, grammar is not a ruleset, but a tool used in order to communicate effectively. If you're confident enough, feel free to throw in dependent clauses, random dashes, and wacky ellipses however you like. However, and as the Dunning-Kruger effect demonstrates, confidence often exceeds actual skill. There's a great deal of nuance and understanding involved in manipulating the rules of grammar meaningfully - far more than it takes to merely conform to them. Regardless of what tools you have available to you, you must use them to achieve the goal of good communication.

With that said, it is absolutely crucial for each of you to understand that no published author will ever write dialogue in the way you've described. There is absolutely no benefit to doing so: it is unclear, abrupt, and it ruins the flow of the dialogue. Genesis is correct: ""You should communicate effectively." He said." has a fundamentally different meaning to ""You should communicate effectively," he said." The former is stating two different things: first, that someone is saying "You should communicate effectively;" second, that a male character is speaking. You have essentially bordered up the two clauses by making the deliberate choice to use both a full stop (period) and a capital letter.

Nowhere in the writing world is this considered a real point of contention. Nobody is wasting their time debating this. If you make this mistake in a manuscript, the publisher will most likely blacklist you; failure to communicate your story clearly is considered the ultimate sin, and also publishers are kind of assholes. If being "unconventional" is like ripping a hole in your canvas for art, then what you've described is like eating the canvas, shitting it out onto a plate, and calling it... art.

There is a reason everyone with any degree of success in writing disagrees with this bizzare notion.

There is a difference between breaking the rules of grammar to suit your writing, and breaking them because you don't understand them.

 

[MidbossMan]

I'm just talking about something like this:

The lord weighed his sons long and carefully with his eyes. "Easy to say, and harder to do. I will not have you wasting the servants' time with this. If you want these pups, you will feed them yourselves. Is that understood?"

There are some places where you don't need to do x said (or x shouted, or x laughed, or etc.), if it's already that evident who's talking. You can still mix it around however you like or use more expressive words in place of said all you like, of course.

Not that I have any intentions of becoming a published author.

As for brev, A Special Hell is very nice and readable. I'd say he should go for it however he wants; the proof is in the pudding on that one!

 

[Haoro]

I... don't think many of you understand what it means to "bend" the rules of grammar.

I want you to stand up, right now.

Grab the nearest book. Doesn't matter what, just has to be published in English.

Flip open to the first piece of dialogue in the format described.

I can 100% guarantee you it uses the lowercase form with the preceding comma.

It is indeed true that for experienced authors, grammar is not a ruleset, but a tool used in order to communicate effectively. If you're confident enough, feel free to throw in dependent clauses, random dashes, and wacky ellipses however you like. However, and as the Dunning-Kruger effect demonstrates, confidence often exceeds actual skill. There's a great deal of nuance and understanding involved in manipulating the rules of grammar meaningfully - far more than it takes to merely conform to them. Regardless of what tools you have available to you, you must use them to achieve the goal of good communication.

With that said, it is absolutely crucial for each of you to understand that no published author will ever write dialogue in the way you've described. There is absolutely no benefit to doing so: it is unclear, abrupt, and it ruins the flow of the dialogue. Genesis is correct: ""You should communicate effectively." He said." has a fundamentally different meaning to ""You should communicate effectively," he said." The former is stating two different things: first, that someone is saying "You should communicate effectively;" second, that a male character is speaking. You have essentially bordered up the two clauses by making the deliberate choice to use both a full stop (period) and a capital letter.

Nowhere in the writing world is this considered a real point of contention. Nobody is wasting their time debating this. If you make this mistake in a manuscript, the publisher will most likely blacklist you; failure to communicate your story clearly is considered the ultimate sin, and also publishers are kind of assholes. If being "unconventional" is like ripping a hole in your canvas for art, then what you've described is like eating the canvas, shitting it out onto a plate, and calling it... art.

There is a reason everyone with any degree of success in writing disagrees with this bizzare notion.

There is a difference between breaking the rules of grammar to suit your writing, and breaking them because you don't understand them.

Wow, this is like I've just gone insane. My entire life I believed the other way was correct, like that was actually good grammar and I was arguing above based on that, not anything about actually breaking the rules of grammar. I was confused about the title to this whole conversation from the start. I even swear I saw it written everywhere like that and it made perfect sense in my head because the dialogue was like a sentence, and then the describing bit was another idea saying what was going on outside the quote. Now I've opened a book I read very recently and it's actually the first way and my eyes must have just glazed over that in every single thing I've read for years, seeing the commas as fullstops somehow or just not noticing. I just never even thought about it, and it wasn't something I actually taught when I was teaching English since I was doing conversation rather than writing.


I feel really dumb now, thanks for the clarification!

 

[brevdravis]

Publishers like their format. It lets them weed out quite a lot of manuscripts for cause without ever having to read them. I on the other hand, who am merely writing for myself and the enjoyment of others am a lot freer to experiment with formats, up to and including punctuation conventions.

I disagree with their format, but again, YMMV. It's very decent for skimming, and it allows quite a bit of dialog to go by without any action needing to be described. If I'm going to work like that, screenplay format might be more useful. A combination of motion and dialog, as in a play being performed is much more appealing to me as a performer, and in my opinion gives a better grasp of my thoughts than a mechanical recitation that sticks to a format. After all, since my thoughts are in that manner, why should they conform to a publishers arbitrary standard that I don't care for.

Now, would I Write a sonnet in this way, breaking all the rules and tenets, and call it a sonnet? Hell No, that's a very specific format and rhyme scheme.

Overall, I think it's a matter of preference on punctuation, and that it not only can be made to work in the opposite manner, and in fact works better that way. Of course, YMMV, and if you're trying to get published, it's a fast way to get a trip to the reject pile. IIRC they also reject for Oxford commas and sandwich jokes. ;P

 

[brevdravis]

I'm just talking about something like this:



There are some places where you don't need to do x said (or x shouted, or x laughed, or etc.), if it's already that evident who's talking. You can still mix it around however you like or use more expressive words in place of said all you like, of course.

Not that I have any intentions of becoming a published author.

As for brev, A Special Hell is very nice and readable. I'd say he should go for it however he wants; the proof is in the pudding on that one!

Thanks for the compliment, btw. Just a thing I noticed that I personally prefer in my writing, because I'm deliberately "Doing it wrong". I at least don't do another annoying childish habit of making elipses Twelve periods long. That one I still cringe over a little.

I have another one of those in one of my titles where I deliberately made a supposed "Typo" to get a reader to stumble over the word if it's read exactly as written. Writing is FUN, and if it doesn't work, IMHO, it's a good chance to try again, and improve next time. After all, everything has to be done BADLY before it's done well, IMHO

 

[insertnamehere]

I'm just talking about something like this:



There are some places where you don't need to do x said (or x shouted, or x laughed, or etc.), if it's already that evident who's talking. You can still mix it around however you like or use more expressive words in place of said all you like, of course.

Not that I have any intentions of becoming a published author.

As for brev, A Special Hell is very nice and readable. I'd say he should go for it however he wants; the proof is in the pudding on that one!

Yes, knowing when to use 'said', or nothing, or a variation of 'said' is an important writing skill. As always, you should use words that communicate in the most effective manner possible, and avoid superfluous words that only bloat your writing without adding meaningful information. What counts as 'meaningful' is a matter of preference. I will say that it is difficult to apply universal advice to word choice. I was once a never-saider, but really, word choice is a purely case-by-case issue. It's better to show rather than to tell, but sometimes telling is itself a form of showing - and sometimes the action in question just isn't important enough to devote more than a single word to.

 

[Deadedge]

On the topic of using 'said' specifically, I think people conflate how 'distracting' this word really is. To the point where trying to avoid using 'said' in a piece of text becomes detrimental to the meaning and pacing of a written conversation. Like @insternamehere said, pick up any published novel you have and look for any conversation with multiple characters speaking to each other. Authors will use 'said' often, and you might be surprised by how it is 'repeated' line after line. But when you're actually reading it, you don't notice anything being repetitive at all. If the dialogue and situation is compelling enough it's all completely seamless. People, most of the time, just say things. They might be said with a sheepish look. Or said under their breath. There are other ways to impart emotion to speech than swapping out the word 'said' specifically.

 

[brevdravis]

Authors also tend to repeat themselves. We can't help it. And if you don't believe me, I invite you to count the number of times Stephen King uses the phrase "Happy crappy" or references fifties radio and alcoholism. Or the number of times Michael Crichton has a doctor sit down and explain something nice and simply to the audience like a diagnosis.
Funny thing I find though, words repeated are much more noticeable if you read aloud. First noticed that as a kid in church, but it really is a major thing and you can tell when a piece has never been read out loud because of how often you'll see the same word used. Doesn't matter what the word is. Since most of what's here is porn, you'd be surprised how versatile and effective the word "fuck" tends to be when trying to get a aroused reaction.
Also, one last little thing that makes me smile a bit in a fun way. No AI would write books like this.

 

[insertnamehere]

On the topic of using 'said' specifically, I think people conflate how 'distracting' this word really is. To the point where trying to avoid using 'said' in a piece of text becomes detrimental to the meaning and pacing of a written conversation. Like @insternamehere said, pick up any published novel you have and look for any conversation with multiple characters speaking to each other. Authors will use 'said' often, and you might be surprised by how it is 'repeated' line after line. But when you're actually reading it, you don't notice anything being repetitive at all. If the dialogue and situation is compelling enough it's all completely seamless. People, most of the time, just say things. They might be said with a sheepish look. Or said under their breath. There are other ways to impart emotion to speech than swapping out the word 'said' specifically.

Continuing on from that - pick up any published novel you have lying around and just read it. If you have any burning questions about how to tackle a certain writing problem, you'll quickly become inspired. Read like an author, as they say, and think about why the writer did what they did.

 

[catfish27]

If you have two people going back and forth with their dialogue, I think it's perfectly fine to do it like this:

"I wish you had C-cup boobs," he said.
"Well, I wish you had an 8-inch cock," she said.
"D-cup boobs."
"9-inch cock."
"E-cup boobs!"
"10-inch cock!"
"I wish your boobs were so big you couldn't move!"
"I wish your cock was so big you didn't get any blood to your brain!"

Although once a third person gets involved, some kind of identification is usually needed (but as MidBoss indicated above, you don't always need to use "said" or its variants):

The genie grinned. "Well, this is getting fun."
The couple both turned to look at her, horrified expressions on their faces.
"I love it when people get linked like you two are, and you each have to make wishes for the other." She folded her arms across her chest, then laughed and uncrossed them. "Oh, don't worry. I don't have to grant every wish I hear. You might want to try an actual discussion before I do grant a wish and you regret it two seconds later."

 

[AlphaSpiritNY]

I think the Oxford Comma avoids ambiguity
In the first, he screamed the sentence.
In the second he screamed after finishing the sentence.

I also feel that there would be a slightly longer pause with a period than with a comma.


I think it should be em-dashes (—) to be correct. (It should give the part between the em-dashes additional emphasis.)
I pretty much dislike parentheses in writing.

I came to see what people's thoughts were on topics like this, and I was glad to see your clearly stated example about the Oxford Comma: It links dialogue verbs to the dialogue, while periods separate the two. Many arbitrarily cross them up (both reading and writing). Your second point about the longer pause with a period is also a pertinent observation. I had never truly thought about it, but, like you said, it does feel longer with the period.

Finally, dashes and parentheses. I think parentheses are fine; they feel a little more casual to me than commas, brackets, or dashes. That can fit, depending on the tone / style.

On your other point about the dashes, however, I just have to say this: I cannot stand how most keyboards (phones especially) and different apps all seem to have different input computations for the shorter dashes (which I always still think of as hyphens), the longer dashes (em-dashes), and dashes used in lists/as bullet points. I have almost stopped using dashes entirely because I would rather not fight with a machine about it. Could we just agree that there should always be one input/key for hyphens, and another for em-dashes?

 

[gene.sis]

Oxford Comma

For clarification: The comma in dialogs isn't the same as the Oxford Comma.
The Oxford Comma (Serial Comma) is used when you specify a series of at least 3 items/actions. The comma is placed before the "and" or "or" that separates the last two items. There are a few examples on Wiki.

Actually, you used it here

than commas, brackets, or dashes.

and here

dashes (em-dashes), and dashes used

I think parentheses are fine; they feel a little more casual to me than commas, brackets, or dashes.

In my perception, texts in parentheses feel further away from the content.
But that's mainly a matter of style. (I still don't like it ^^)

Could we just agree that there should always be one input/key for hyphens, and another for em-dashes?

Even not having to use ALT-key-sequences for em-dashes and en-dashes would be nice ^^

 

[insertnamehere]

I think the advice, "never use an Oxford comma," can be ignored along with all the other Bullshit Taught In Elementary School, such as, "never end a sentence with a preposition," and, "'i' before 'e' except after 'c'." (That said, if you try restructuring your sentences to avoid trailing prepositions, they'll often sound better - but it's not necessary.)

Parantheses are generally frowned upon, but there are places for them. For instance, you'd never see them in The Wheel of Time or The Girl on the Train, but perhaps in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (as it's old) or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (due to its style). When it comes to the flow of the story, they're like big walls. Broadly speaking, unless you're deliberately trying to give the reader the impression that the narrator is going off track or being overly detailed, dashes are the ideal subsitute for parantheses.

As for dashes, I don't think it's particularly important which variety of dash or hyphen is used. It's not a big deal in online writing, for much the same reason there's only one kind on the keyboard: most people hardly notice the difference. I think it's a matter of pedantry, where the logic is less, "This helps the text flow better," and more, "This is the standard set by publishers."