Writer, Editor, Helper

Is a Comma Needed to Introduce Dialogue?

Q.

Would you add a comma before the quotation marks in the following sentences?

Ellie finally admitted, “They look different from before.”

Kat set the painting on the windowsill, muttering “One more to go.”

It would be more accurate to say “I made it up” than “I exaggerated.”

Mimicking Hector’s level of sass to perfection, Bel said, “Try to keep up.”

Does Your Novel Need a Copyeditor before Submission?

In the writers’ groups where I hang out online, these queries are evergreen:

• How do I know if I need a copyeditor before I submit my work to an agent or editor?
• How do I find a good copyeditor?
• How much does copyediting cost?

The replies and comments are typically so head-spinning in their range and variety that no one could blame writers for being confused. And who can blame a writer for resisting an expense they aren’t convinced is necessary?

“Erg, no kidding?” Interjections in Creative Writing

Not all fictional characters are meant to be smooth-tongued and lyrical in their speech. Rather, just like us, they sometimes mumble or stumble. Giving a character flawed speech is a way to make dialogue more realistic. And this very human kind of talking often involves the use of interjections.

Exclamation Points in Creative Writing

Exclamation points are controversial. Writers can’t be blamed if they’re confused!

Exclamation has always announced straightforward shouting, alarm, surprise, excitement, amazement, disbelief, exasperation, or even just helpless flustering. In the eighteenth century, readers could expect melodrama:

And those were some of her last words! O how my eyes overflow! Don’t wonder to see the paper so blotted! (Samuel Richardson, Pamela, 43)

Exclamation points still serve in all those ways. But somewhere in the last century, the shouty little mark fell out of fashion in literary prose. Editors today frown on excessive exclaiming even in mainstream fiction, outside of books for young children and comic books. Plenty of passages worthy of alarm make do with commas, periods, or nothing:

When to Capitalize after a Colon

I don’t like to dither over style choices. At the beginning of a sentence, it’s routine to start the next word with a capital letter. But when I type a colon within a sentence, I often have to stop and think about how to write the next word: whether to cap it isn’t always obvious.

The Chicago Way

As I not-so-sneakily demonstrated above, Chicago style lowercases the first word after a colon within a sentence, even if the words after the colon are themselves a grammatically complete sentence (see CMOS 6.63):

They even relied on a chronological analogy: just as the Year II had overshadowed 1789, so the October Revolution had eclipsed that of February. [full sentence after the colon]

The watch came with a choice of three bands: stainless steel, plastic, or leather. [sentence fragment after the colon]

As always, there are exceptions.

When Friends Find Grammar “Errors” in Your Novel

Creative writers sometimes mangle grammar on purpose or get creative with punctuation. At the drafting stage, we keep a dictionary and style manual at hand. When slips are unintended, we count on our copyeditors to catch them.

But at some point, most of us get advice on punctuation or grammar from a friend, relative, or strangers on social media. Sometimes friends or beta readers read our draft and point out what they believe to be errors.

The problem is, they’re often wrong.

When to Delete “That”

A piece of bossy advice often given to creative writers is to sweep through your manuscripts before you submit them and delete certain words. “Just,” “so,” “very,” and “really” vie for the top target, but the most popular prohibition of all might be of the word “that.”

What’s wrong with “that”?

Nothing is wrong with the word “that.” It’s frequently essential to the grammar or clarity of a sentence (see below). Yet we’re often told [that] it’s “unneeded.” I sense the ghosts of Strunk and White here. “Omit needless words,” they tell us, declaring (for instance) that the sentence “His story is strange” is “more vigorous” than “His story is a strange one” and therefore better.

But is vigorous always better? Do readers demand vigor at all times, from every sentence? Creative writers especially must ask, Is this character or narration meant to be vigorous?

“Whoever/​Whomever” in Fiction: Which Should Your Character Use?

Recently, a question that went something like this appeared in a Facebook group for writers seeking help from book editors:

Help with this sentence please! “Some advice, for whoever/whomever is interested.” A friend said it should be “whoever” and my editor said “whomever.” How do you vote?

In the rollicking spirit of Facebook, grammar is routinely decided by ballot. The votes were all over the place. Some were based on the “feeling” of the voter. Some repeated what others had already said. There was at least one claim that the choice depends on whether you’re American or British or Australian. (It doesn’t.) And there was the requisite insult, causing an admin to throw down a caution.

Mainly, there was confusion. Not even the professional copyeditors knew for sure, although it didn’t stop them from holding forth. Two or three cited a source, evidently unaware of social-media etiquette.

Jack Hart Talks about Wordcraft

Jack Hart has spent five decades helping writers succeed, working shoulder-to-shoulder with journalists in newsrooms both big and small and with students at five universities. Writers who’ve worked with him have written national best sellers and won prizes that include five Pulitzers and a slew of other national awards.

Hart is the author of Storycraft, now in its second edition, and the newly published Wordcraft, both available from the University of Chicago Press.

CS: Wordcraft is primarily geared toward journalists and nonfiction writers, but almost everything in it applies to fiction writing as well. Could you say something about that overlap? You’ve written novels yourself.

Very Long Sentences in Fiction

Recently, I was listening to the audiobook of James McBride’s Deacon King Kong, and at some point it struck me that we’d been in the middle of a sentence for quite a while. But it wasn’t just long—it was lyrical and purposeful. Pretty early on in the sentence, I began to realize it wasn’t primarily about an annual infestation of ants.

Gender-Neutral Pronouns in Creative Writing

People sometimes worry about honoring the personal pronouns of those who don’t identify with the gender binary. They’re concerned that using (for instance) “they/them” in place of “he/him” or “she/her” will be complicated or confusing. Some aren’t sure about the grammar (“They are” or “They is”?).

Overcoming entrenched speech habits to use the right pronoun consistently takes practice. But in writing, it’s easier. Plenty of creative writers use “they/them” pronouns (among others) for nonbinary characters.

The Chicago Way

How Grammar “Goofs” Work in Creative Writing

I’ve written before to caution copyeditors against scrubbing voice and character out of fiction manuscripts by adhering too closely to a style manual.

Each novel or story is unique, of course. Some feature dialect and colloquialisms, and others pretty much stick to formal English as laid out in The Chicago Manual of Style. Many, many novels and stories mix it up, using formal English for the narrative while their characters speak in a more casual idiom. Keeping all those voices straight is one of the primary tasks of a writer; monitoring and protecting those distinctions is a primary task of an editor.

To make good writing and editing choices, it’s helpful to know what’s considered standard or formal in the first place, not in order to apply that knowledge indiscriminately, but to use it to create or edit narration and dialogue that’s consistently natural, real, and believable. That’s where a good dictionary and style guide come in. They help us determine what’s “grammatical” so we can choose when to reject it for the best effect.

To see how these intentional grammar “goofs” work in creative writing, let’s look at a few issues commonly faced by writers.

Commas between Adjectives in Creative Writing

Do you sometimes dither over whether to put a comma between two or more adjectives?

a polished, spherical stone or a polished spherical stone?

a nice, big check or a nice big check?

Although the guidelines for deciding at CMOS 5.91 and CMOS 6.36–37 work well for any kind of writing, there are times when creative writers prefer to ignore them.

Style and Grammar in Promotional Copy

Anyone familiar with the grammar and style rules and guidelines in CMOS knows they come with a lot of qualifiers: normally, in most cases, in running text, in regular prose, depending on the context—I could go on and on. In life, very few rules are meant to cover every situation. The same is true in CMOS.

This is especially so when it comes to writing and editing marketing copy, something more and more authors are doing for themselves. Indie authors often design their own book covers and ads and write their own press releases. A few weeks ago we looked at the liberties we take when writing or editing blurbs. This week we’ll consider more visual types of promotion.

“Had had”? Flashbacks and the Past Perfect

Novelists are sometimes urged to eliminate the past-perfect tense from their sentences, and copyeditors are sometimes trained to search out those auxiliary “hads” and lop them off from their verbs. What exactly is the past perfect? And what’s wrong with using it?

Sure, You Got A’s in English—But Do You Know Where Commas Go?

A few months ago in a conference session, a group of novelists digressed into good-natured complaints about being copyedited. One writer drew a lot of laughs saying, “I mean, I got A’s in English! I know where the freaking commas go!”* Others nodded in recognition and comradery.

I bit my tongue. I really wanted to say—as gently as possible—I’m sorry dear, but you freaking don’t.

“Hazel and I’s puppy”? When Fiction Meets Bad Grammar

 

 

“Hazel and I’s Puppy. The. Cutest. Ever.”

In editing formal prose, we fix nonstandard English without hesitation. But in editing creative works, we often need to throw out the stylebook so a narrator or character in a novel or play can abuse grammar to good effect. The guideline is “believability”: would a character naturally use such a phrase, or would they speak more formally?

Fiction+ for Creative Writers and Their Editors

Although I officially retired from my work at the Chicago Manual in December, I couldn’t say no to an opportunity to continue hanging around the CMOS Online Shop Talk blog when Russell Harper—the new editor—invited me to share a new corner of the blog with him called Fiction+. There we’ll focus on how to cope when Chicago style rules don’t quite seem to fit the creative context of a novel, story, poem, or play.

Russell kicked things off last week with a post on comma splices; today I interview Janet Burroway, author of the classic textbook Writing Fiction, a staple in creative writing classes that has just been issued in a new 10th edition.

If you’re interested in creative writing or editing, be sure to check out Fiction+. You can sign up for alerts if you want to be sure to catch new posts, and I’ll continue to give you a heads-up here.

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Photo: Woman Writing, by August Macke (1887–1914), courtesy Wikimedia Commons

 

Who’s a “Lazy” Copyeditor?

I’m blogging today at The Chicago Manual of Style Shop Talk blog:

Like all professional copyeditors, I try to keep up with news in my field, which means browsing the posts and articles of editors, grammarians, linguists, and lexicographers online. I do this through RSS feed subscriptions—Feedly is my reader of choice—and by bookmarking posts of interest into an “unread” folder, which I . . .

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Photo courtesy of Clker-Free-Vector-Images.

But Is It Wrong?

I’m blogging today at The Chicago Manual of Style Shop Talk blog:

One of the primal joys in life is to do good work. When the suit fits, the accounts balance, or the pie crust is flakey, someone takes pride in it.

In editing, it feels good to make corrections, tidy things up, and serve the reader. It feels good to put knowledge into practice. And—admit it—it feels good to spot an error! . . . Problems arise when

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Photo: Deliberate Mistake, courtesy of Neil Turner.