Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Capitalization after interrupted dialogue

+1
−0

I'm confused about proper punctuation, spacing, and capitalization when a character is speaking and is interrupted by actions without continuing dialogue.

"Maybe we could—" My phone rang.

"Maybe we could—" The dog started barking.

"Maybe we could—" He raised his hand to silence me.

"Maybe we could—" Was that a scream?

Was it correct to capitalize My, The, He and Was?

Also, when another person is speaking and is interrupted.

"This is one of the best—" She was interrupted by Danny.

"This is one of the best—" She didn't finish.

"This is one of the best—" Started Jim.

Is it correct to capitalize She and Started?

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/25517. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

2 answers

You are accessing this answer with a direct link, so it's being shown above all other answers regardless of its score. You can return to the normal view.

+1
−0

As a general rule, I tend to use dashes where the character is dramatically interrupted where as ellipses are used when it's a subtler interruption.

I.E.

Tony:"But at least Thanos doesn't know where the final-"

Steve: "OH CRAP!"

vs.

Tony:"But at least Thanos doesn't know where the final..."

Steve: "Oh Crap."

In the former, Steve has an immediate and very sudden realization that something has gone terribly wrong. In the later, it's a softer realization.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44484. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

+0
−0

It has nothing to do with who spoke or who interrupted. It only has to do with what is a sentence. Speech tags are part of the same sentence as the dialog the report. Separate actions occurring after the speech are separate sentences. Only the last of your examples is a speech tag, though an awkward one. The rest are separate sentences.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

0 comment threads

Sign up to answer this question »