Here's something that's been driving me barmy and I can't seem to find any advice in Fowler's.

You want to write someone performing some action at the same time as speaking, like so:

He said, 'Yes, Humperdink, that is completely correct, but you forget' - he pointed to the whiteboard - 'everything you see there is assumption. So your deductions are utter tosh.'

What is the correct grammer/punctuation for constructing the break like this? Are there full stops, hyphens inside or outside the quotes? Capitalisation?

Thanks for any pointers.

Use commas, not hyphens:

He said, 'Yes, Humperdink, that is completely correct, but you forget,' he pointed to the whiteboard, 'everything you see there is assumption, so your deductions are utter tosh.'

alternatively:

'Yes, Humperdink,' he said, 'that is completely correct, but you forget,' and he pointed to the whiteboard, 'everything you see there is assumption, so your deductions are utter tosh.'

or:

'Yes, Humperdink, that is completely correct,' he said, pointing to the whiteboard, 'but you forget, everything you see there is assumption, so your deductions are utter tosh.'


I think there is supposed to be a comma before So, not a full stop.

Hi there,

Sorry to disagree with you NM, but personally I like the way it sounds with the hyphens, H. If you imagine reading it aloud, too many commas could make it a very breathy chunk to get through, perhaps? Whereas the hyphens lead us on seamlessly.

If it was me, I'd stick with the original version, with the full stop before So.

NM, please forgive me! :-) I'm not trying to be disagreeable, honest!

I see why the dashes (they're not technically hyphens) seem to make sense, but I'm sure they're not correct. You only use dashes when speech actually breaks off, like this:

'What,' he said, 'is the meaning of - ' He waved a hand, as if words failed him.

So I think in your example, Naomi's second version is the correct one - no dashes.

However, I see why you want to do this, and in a more complicated example, it is tempting. I think then they're parenthetical dashes round the non-speech, not cut-off-speech dashes in the dialogue

'What,' he stuttered, 'is the meaning of this' - he waved a hand - 'this outrage?'

Hence I think your first example is correct.

He said, 'Yes, Humperdink, that is completely correct, but you forget' - he pointed to the whiteboard - 'everything you see there is assumption. So your deductions are utter tosh.'

It may be just my fetish, but I think you're feeling it's awkward because you've kicked of the sentence with 'He said', which so often reads awkwardly, instead of tucking it in after the first part of the speech along with the action.

Emma

Why not use the natural break in the sentence, ie

He said, 'Yes, Humperdink, that is completely correct,' then he pointed to the whiteboard, 'but you forget: everything you see there is assumption. So your deductions are utter tosh.'

You can have a certain degree of licence with this. Even though the chronology of the action and dialogue isn't precisely what you are after, the chances are the reader, once they've read the line, will automatically see it in the correct order. We only really need pointers, not details, which is why I didn't write it

He said, 'Yes, Humperdink, that is completely correct,' then he pointed to the whiteboard and added 'but you forget: everything you see there is assumption. So your deductions are utter tosh.'

because it's obvious that he's added the extra speech, and every extra word you have defining action stems the flow of the dialogue.

Colin M

No worries, Mermaid
I fight in comma hell every day, and dashes are a welcome change. However the writer would have to be consistant throughout the text, and a load of dashes in the place of commas, may get distracting.

<Added>

oops, a couple of stray commas have found their way in there ;)

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts on this. The original dialogue which was causing me indigestion was the following, although I often feel the need to throw an action in the middle of sentence. As you can see, I played safe and opted for separate sentences, which worked here just fine.

“She’s a nice girl, Earl, and I won’t hear a bad word said about her. Although, truth be told, she doesn’t yet realise her life is nothing but limitation. Back to the topic, didn’t you ever wonder about that? How come everyone agrees what this is?” God sketched out a square in mid-air with a finger. “A rectangle, right? How do you know this freehand shape is a rectangle? Every ‘rectangle’ is different.”

I would write:

"Yes, Humperdink, that is completely correct. But you forget," he said, pointing at the whiteboard, "that everything you see there is assumption. So your deductions are utter tosh."

I think getting the punctuation right can make such a difference to the reading experience. When we read we want punctuation that we don't notice, so it does the job without intruding, and getting it "right" usually does that. Usually you only notice it if it's wrong, and it can spoil the writing if bad enough (which IMO your version isn't, BTW).

I recently read some lovely unpublished fiction (in terms of storyline, images, descriptions, wording) which was spoiled by completely wrong punctuation around the dialogue, which tripped us up as readers and jarred, and broke the flow of the prose. So IMV well worth getting right.

However, on the other side of the coin check out Roddy Doyle, who uses very weird speech punctuation. I bought "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors" on a recommendation and am put off reading it because I know his weird punctuation will be intrusive for me. Yet he's published and very successful.

I'd say aim for the normal correct version, since it will be least intrusive, but above all be CONSISTENT.

Deb