Blog Archives

The Editing Podcast S3E3: Think it’s American? Think again!

27/11/2019

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise chat about 4 features of written language that are often thought to be Americanisms but aren’t!

The Editing Podcast with Louise Harnby and Denise Cowle

Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 3

Other ways to listen
STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE
Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform.

Listen to find out more about ...

-iz- spellings
serial commas
em dashes
which/that in restrictive relative clauses

Mentioned in the show

Lexico/Oxford: ‘The Differences Between British and American Terms’
Lynne Murphy on British and American English (video)
Free PDF booklet

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD PDF

Ask us a question
The easiest way to ping us a question is via Facebook Messenger: Visit the podcast's Facebook page and click on the SEND MESSAGE button.

Music credit
‘Vivacity’ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with independent authors of commercial fiction, particularly crime, thriller and mystery writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, or connect via Facebook and LinkedIn.

0 Comments

The Editing Podcast S3E2: Rob Drummond on grammar pedantry, peevery and youth language

20/11/2019

0 Comments

In this episode of The Editing Podcast, Denise and Louise talk with linguist Rob Drummond about grammar pedantry, peevery, youth language, and non-standard language in context.

Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 2

RATE AND REVIEW

Other ways to listen
STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE
Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform.

Listen to find out more about ...

Correct or conventional – a linguist’s perspective
Better versus standard
Zombie rules, and what we can ditch
Youth language – dumbing down English or enriching it?
Young people's language in relation to identity and language change
Varieties of English in written communication: globalization, national and cultural identities
The internet’s impact on pedantry and peevery
The relationship between knowledge and pedantry
The difference between preferences and judgements
Recognizing our own pedantry and respecting contextually appropriate style
Stepping outside our linguistic comfort zones

Mentioned in the show

Radical Copyeditor blog
‘The Business of Being a Writer, with Jane Friedman’
Rob Drummond Linguistics
TED Talk: 'John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!'
Rob's graph: Linguistic knowledge versus linguistic pedantry

0 Comments

The Editing Podcast S3E1: A question of question marks in writing

13/11/2019

2 Comments

Denise and Louise talk about how to use question marks in fiction and non-fiction according to convention.

Click to listen to Season 3, Episode 1

Other ways to listen
STITCHER | APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | CAPTIVATE
Or check out the show via your favourite podcast platform.

Listen to find out more about

Direct questions
Indirect questions
How-to statements
Idiomatic phrases and question marks
Double punctuation
Uncertain dates and date ranges
Indicating uncertainty

Mentioned in the show

But Can I Start A Sentence With “But”? by Carol Saller
Making a Point: The Pernickety Story of English Punctuation by David Crystal

2 Comments

How to use quote marks in fiction writing

4/11/2019

2 Comments

Here's how to use quote marks (or speech marks) according to publishing convention in your fiction writing. The guidance covers both US English and UK English conventions.

In this post, I cover the following:

What quote marks are used for
Omitting a closing quote mark in dialogue
Whether to use single or double quote marks
Whether to use straight or curly quote marks
Where the closing quote mark goes in relation to other punctuation
When not to use quote marks

What quote marks are used for
Quote marks are used in 3 ways in fiction:

Character dialogue
To distance the narrator from what's being reported
To denote song titles and other works

Character dialogue
Quote marks show that we’re reporting what someone else is saying or said.

Each new speaker's dialogue should appear on a new line and include opening and closing quote marks.

That puzzled me. ‘What do they need them for?’ I asked Hawthorne.
‘Latent footprints,’ he replied. ‘They need to eliminate you from the enquiry.’

The Word is Murder (p. 208), Anthony Horowitz, Arrow 2018

To distance the narrator from what's being reported
The tone of the distancing rendered by the quote marks will depend on narrative intent. Perhaps the voice is sarcastic. Or the author might want the reader to suspend belief by indicating that a character considers a word or phrase unreliable.

Imagine the character is saying so-called or supposed or allegedly before the word in quotes.

'What about your friends? Didn't they help?' Molly said.
Peter almost laughed. The last time his 'friends' had phoned or visited had been over six months ago. Two had wanted money, Another needed business advice. A fourth had spent the evening flirting with his now ex-wife.

A word of caution: Don't be tempted to differentiate distancing terms in the narrative from dialogue by using an alternate style. If there are double speech marks around the dialogue, there should be double marks around the distancing words.

NON-STANDARD (USING DOUBLES AS BASE STYLE)
"What about your friends? Didn't they help?" Molly said.
Peter almost laughed. The last time his 'friends' had phoned or visited had been over six months ago. Two had wanted money, Another needed business advice. A fourth had spent the evening flirting with his now ex-wife.

STANDARD (USING DOUBLES AS BASE STYLE)
"What about your friends? Didn't they help?" Molly said.
Peter almost laughed. The last time his "friends" had phoned or visited had been over six months ago. Two had wanted money, Another needed business advice. A fourth had spent the evening flirting with his now ex-wife.

To denote song titles and other works
Quote marks are also used to identify certain published works such as song titles and book chapter titles.

So, for example, if a writer is referring to an album or book title, this is rendered in italic. However, when it comes to a song on an album, or a chapter in a book, it's conventional to use quote marks.

Jamie pulled the vinyl from its sleeve. The White Album. His favourite. Well, 'Back in the USSR' anyway. He'd never admit it but he didn't much care for the other songs.

Omitting a closing quote mark in dialogue
There's one occasion where it's acceptable to omit the closing speech mark in dialogue: same speaker, new paragraph.

So, if you want your dialogue to take a new paragraph while retaining the current speaker, use a quotation mark at start of the new line but omit the closing one at the end of the previous paragraph.

‘[…] My father described the regular pom-pom-pom of the cannons and the increasingly high-pitched wails of the planes as they dived. He said he’d heard them every night since.
‘The last day of the battle he was standing on the bridge when they saw a plane emerging. […] Then he jumped overboard and was gone.’

The Bat (p. 251), Jo Nesbo, Vintage, 2013

Single versus double quote marks
There’s no rule, just convention.

There are lots of Englishes: US, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, etc. Each has its own preferences and idiosyncrasies.

Focus on which English your audience will expect, and punctuate your writing accordingly. Whichever style you choose, the main thing is be consistent.

In the UK, it’s more common to use single quote marks. And if there’s a quote within the quote, that’s a double. You might hear quotes within quotes called nested quotes.
In US English it’s conventional to use double quote marks with nested singles.

Ray studied his drink and narrowed his eyes. ‘You can be cruel sometimes, you know. I don’t know where you got it from. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth …” Your mother didn’t have a cruel bone in her body.’

Sleeping in the Ground (p. 261), Peter Robinson, Hodder & Stoughton, 2017

“I had no idea why he was bringing that up now. So when I asked him he said, ‘Remember when the going got tough, who was there for you. Remember your old man was right there holding your hand. Always think of me trying to do the right thing, honey. Always. No matter what.’”

The Fix (p. 428), David Baldacci, Pan Books, 2017

If you choose double quote marks, use the correct symbol, not two singles.

Straight versus curly quote marks
Curly quote marks are more conventionally known as smart quotes.

It’s conventional in mainstream publishing to use smart or curly quotation marks, not unidirectional ones.

Changing straight quotes to smart quotes is one of the initial clean-up jobs an editor will carry out when they start work on a file. To prevent the problem occurring from the minute you begin typing:

Go to FILE and select OPTIONS
Select PROOFING, then click on the AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS button
Choose the AUTOFORMAT AS YOU TYPE tab
Make sure there’s a tick in the "STRAIGHT QUOTES" WITH “SMART QUOTES” box
Click on OK

If you’ve pasted material into your book from elsewhere, or you didn’t check autocorrect options before you began typing, there might be some rogue unidirectional marks in your file. To change them quickly, do a global find/replace:

Select CTRL+H on your keyboard to open FIND AND REPLACE
Type a quotation mark into the FIND WHAT box
Type the same quotation mark into the REPLACE WITH box
Click on the REPLACE ALL button

The closing quote mark in relation to other punctuation
In fiction, punctuation related to dialogue is placed similarly whether you're writing in US or UK style: within the quote marks.

Here are some examples:

"Don't move a muscle," Stephen said.
"My God! Is that Jonathan? He looks fabulous."
“Maybe you don't think we've met but I can assure—”
Dave glanced at the signature tattoo on the Matt’s hand. ‘That looks familiar. Who inked you?’
‘Never.’ I sized up the door and the window. ‘I love you ...'

However, there's a difference when it comes to distancing or cited works. Note the different placement of the commas and full stops in the US and UK examples. In US English, the commas come before the closing quotation marks; in UK English, they come after.

US English convention: Peter's "friends," the ones who hadn't bothered to find out if he was okay after his wife ditched him, seemed oddly keen to get in touch now that he'd won the lottery.
UK English convention: Peter's 'friends', the ones who hadn't bothered to find out if he was okay after his wife ditched him, seemed oddly keen to get in touch now that he'd won the lottery.

US English convention: "Favourite Jimi Hendrix songs? 'Foxy Lady,' 'Hey Joe,' and 'Purple Haze.'"
UK English convention: 'Favourite Jimi Hendrix songs? "Foxy Lady", "Hey Joe", and 'Purple Haze".'

When not to use quote marks
There are 2 issues to consider here:

Thoughts
Emphasis

Thoughts
CMOS at section 13.43 says you can use quote marks to indicate thought, imagined dialogue and other internal discourse if you want to. However, I recommend you don't. For one thing, I can’t remember the last time I saw this approach used in commercial fiction coming out of a mainstream publisher’s stable.

But the best reason for not putting thoughts in quote marks is because it might confuse your reader. The beauty of quote marks – or speech marks – is that they indicate speech. Let them do their job!

Emphasis
It can be tempting to use quote marks in your writing to draw attention to a word or phrase, but it’s rarely necessary and could even have the opposite effect to what you intended. It works instead as a distancing tool, as discussed above.

If you’re tempted to use quote marks for emphasis, imagine saying the sentence out loud, and making air quotes with your fingers as you speak. Would your character/narrator say it like that? If the answer's no, leave out the quote marks. Italic will work better. Or recast your dialogue so that the reader can work out where to place the stress themselves.

Summing up
If in doubt about how to use quote marks for your book, consult a style manual. I recommend the Chicago Manual of Style, the Penguin Guide to Punctuation and New Hart’s Rules, all of which offer industry-standard guidance.

Fancy listening instead?
If you'd prefer to listen to the advice offered here, Denise Cowle (a non-fiction editor) and I chat about how to use quote marks in all types of writing on The Editing Podcast. You can listen right here or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform