A nit-picking question, but a fairly important one as this is paragraph three of page one, and I'd quite like to keep the reader on side.

I want this bit of speech to be interrupted by gestures, have done it according to one suggestion in a book, but it looks wrong. Any improvements very gratefully received.

‘On this side’ – he gestured behind him towards Hereford and the softer west – ‘The Celts. Over there’ – now he turned back towards the flatter lands they had driven through that morning – ‘The milk-livered English.’ A slight smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

I have absolutely no idea, but I'd love to see what other people say. If I'd written it, it would have come out as below, which is probably of no use to you at all.

"On this side, the Celts," and he gestured towards Hereford and the softer West. "Over there," and he turned towards the flatter lands, which they had driven through that morning, a slight smile crossing his face as he added, "the lily-livered English".

- NaomiM

I had a very similar thing in A Secret Alchemy, and the copy-editor corrected it to go like this

‘On this side - ’ he gestured behind him towards Hereford and the softer west ' - the Celts. Over there - ' now he turned back towards the flatter lands they had driven through that morning ‘ - the milk-livered English.’ A slight smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

To avoid a twinge of confusion I'd be inclined to replace the full stop after 'Celts' with an and, or a comma, or something that means you read it more as one sentence.

Emma

<Added>

In other words, think of the dashes as being the conventional way you indicate that a speech is interrupted, and it becomes clear.

Thankyou - that makes a great deal of sense. I had most of the bits, just in the wrong places.

And it's a real lesson for me about how getting something just slightly wrong really spoils the flow of the book.

What about losing the hyphens and using commas?

‘On this side,’ he gestured behind him towards Hereford and the softer west, 'the Celts. Over there,' now he turned back towards the flatter lands they had driven through that morning, ‘the milk-livered English.’ A slight smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

Colin M

Yes, commas certainly make it read more smoothly. I think it depends whether hat's the effect you're after, though: commas imply (partly just because conventionally that's how you'd do it) more that he gestures and speaks simultaneously, dashes perhaps have a little more feel of speaking, breaking off to gesture, speaking, breaking off, and so on. It's less smooth, but then that might be what you want.

Emma

I'd say that the dashes catch the feel of what you're aiming to communicate here. Using commas makes the sentences end up much flatter. They're far more appropriate for straightforward speech tags. The dashes don't simply achieve an effect of interruption, they also give the impression of being confidential asides that connect directly with us to let us know what's going on and that seem absolutely right for this section.

Chris

Unlke Emma's copy editor, mine doesn't use dashes with spaces - like you'd use parenthetically i the midle of a normal sentence - but those ones where there's no gap: i.e. to show an interruption but the sentence itself continuing without a punctuation break. Like this:

'It's not-' he plonked down his cup '-very likely, is it?'

I think that's different (more of an interruption) from the ordinary kind of break where you just put commas:

'Well, if you do go,' said Fred, 'you'll be the only one.'

Rosy

For me, that last example makes me think the dialogue is stilted, like there is a definite pause between "it's not" and "very likely".

I picked up a Roddy Doyle book the other day and noticed he's using speech marks now, where before he only ever used a dash to indicate speech. Does punctuation follow fashionable trends?

like there is a definite pause between "it's not" and "very likely"

Exactly, Colin. Where you'd want to indicate an interruption or sudden pause in the middle of a sentence seems to be where my copy editor uses the dash-without-a-space thingy.

Is this a time when you can have a non-speech tag in lowercase when they cut into sentences? he gestured/he plonked?