(09-21-2015, 11:39 AM)Aya Wrote: My choice of /say and /em comes down to two factors: do I want the *Character Name* first in the resulting sentence, or is there any particular clutter reason to use one or the other. Otherwise I treat them identically when IN CHARACTER and will freely use prose in /say. Because of that, the quotation marks really are a necessity ^^
What a fun morning of "RP-Style" posts! It actually is an intriguing topic!
Unnamed Mercenary Wrote:I do break a "rule" of English grammar in all of this though. Putting the punctuation inside the quotes. Hate it. Perhaps that's the computer science influence, but it just seems so silly to do it within RP because I'm effectively just using the quote marks to denote spoken text. They're self-contained.The punctuation helps describe the tone and hence the sound of the dialogue, therefore it belongs within. The sentence containing the quotation may be a simple declarative: He asked a question.
Adding in the actual question does not change the tone of the original sentence, but the question itself should be indicated to mark its intent and spoken tone: He asked, "How was your weekend?" is a statement about what "he" asked. Whereas: He asked, "How was your weekend"? is a question about what "he" asked.
With regards to full stops, this is also another Europe vs US matter I think too isn't in? ^^
(I keep having to fix this, someone remind me not to discuss grammar before I have had my coffee please!)
I don't think I'd quite explained what I meant, but your post was a perfect reminder of that.
In my original post, I really only mean for the completion or continuation of dialogue. I'll try to provide better examples. When punctuation that would include a tone is used, I would DEFINITELY include it, despite having been taught that it's a big no-no.
What I prefer:
Franz said, "This is a thing".
Franz said, "This is a thing", as he did some other action.
Franz looked confused. "Is this really a thing?" he wondered out loud.
What I've been taught is correct:
Franz said, "This is a thing."
Franz said, "This is a thing," as he did some other action.
Franz looked confused. "Is this really a thing," he wondered out loud.
I've tried to bold the areas I'm talking about, but bolded punctuation's still tiny. It might be easier to say I prefer to encapsulate all aspects of the dialogue inside of the quotes, regardless of whether the punctuation is correct.