One ! per 50,000 words. This was the first editing/writing advice I scribbled in the notebook I had started as a dumping ground for my ideas and observations. I checked the ten chapters I had completed by that point to discover they had over 100 exc...
I admit, I struggle with punctuation. Some rules about commas are still a mystery. I plan to tackle those later on this year.
This month I started on dialogue punctuation. Oh, my! Three sources later, I think I've got them figured out. Very exciting development.
I may post a full guide on them as I understand them, later. But today I am sharing the cheat sheet I came up with for myself.
Hope it helps.
"Xxx," xxx xxx. "It's over there," he said. A speech tag, thus a comma.
Xxx xxx, "Xxx xxx." She said, "It's over there." A speech tag, thus a comma.
"Xxx xxx." Xxx xxx xxx. "It's over there." He pointed to the right. Not a speech tag.
"Xxx," xxx xxx, "xxx xxx." "It's," he said, "over there." Speech tag breaks the sentence up.It's and over there are not complete sentences by themselves.
"Xxx," xxx xxx. " Xxx xxx." "It's over there," he said. "Go straight and then left." It's a speech tag, thus a comma in the first "". But "It's over there," is a complete sentence, and "Go straight..." is a new complete sentence, that's why you add a period after he said and capitalize Go.
"Xx"—xxx xxx—"xxx xxx." "It's over there"—he pointed to the right—"by the bushes." Action tag breaks up a senetnece. The full sentence is "It's over there by the bushes." So you put em-dash (the longest of the dashes) outside of the quotation marks and no punctuation inside the quotations marks after there and before by, because if you take "—he pointed to the right—" away, you'll have a sentence that needs no additional punctuation or capitalization.
"Xxx xxx—" xxx xxx. "It's over—" he said. "There?" She spoke over him. The em-dasg (—) indicates interrupted speeach here, but he said is a speech dialogue tag, so it is always not capitalized.
"Xxx xxx. . ." Xxx xxx. "It's over..." He scratched his head. The ellipses (. . .) shows trailing thought.He scratched his head is an action bead, so it starts a new sentence and is capitalized.
"Xxx. . ." It's. . ." Three dots (ellipses) in American English: the first one touches the word (no space) then space between 1 and 2, space between 2 and 3, and no space between 3 and "
". . . Xxx." Quotation mark, no space, 1st dot, space, second dot, space, third dot, space letter.
Xxx. . . Xxx Last letter, no space, 1st dot, space, second dot, space, third dot, space, first letter of the next word (low case if the same sentence, capital letter if a new sentence).
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