A small question related to writing.

[uncreative]

So my new teacher has the entire damn class write several pages worth of analyses, reviews and everything between about and related to the texts we devour every week, and I've stumbled across to a question. From what I've read of writing speech in short stories etc you can for example do like this:

"I hate eggs," he exclaimed.

His eyes darkened, "I hate all you egg-ish people."

But can you do this:

"Do you hate eggs?" he asked.

"I hate eggs!" he exclaimed.

Or do you need to write the "he asked/exclaimed" in the last examples with a capital H, since the speech ends with a ! or a ? rather than a ,?

Probably a bad place to ask this, but both "ask oxford" and wikipedia are failing me at this. I'll lock the thread when I get an answer.

 

[Archonsod]

No, you'd only capitalise the H if 'He' was being used as a proper noun since there's no sentence break between the quotation and the rest of the line.

In general, anything enclosed by quotation marks is supposed to be a direct quote, so you can treat it as kind of a sentence within a sentence.

 

[Elenmmare]

Yep, exactly. Although, to me, I usually don't like sentences with that. It sounds sort of awkward.

Also, you don't have to narrate everything, actually. Sometimes just the dialogue is enough.

 

[Pharaoh Llandy]

But can you do this:

"Do you hate eggs?" he asked.

"I hate eggs!" he exclaimed.

Or do you need to write the "he asked/exclaimed" in the last examples with a capital H, since the speech ends with a ! or a ? rather than a ,?

You should leave them as lowercase h's, which indicates the question/exclamation relates directly to what was said in the quotation marks before it. Changing it to a capital would indicate the "he asked/he exclaimed" relates to something after, because it is a new sentence, and therefore your sentence is unfinished.

It's also bad practice to write "he exclaimed" after a !, because unless your audience are complete morons, they can already see he's exclaimed.

 

[Elenmmare]

Good points.

For example,

Spoiler

"To the gates!" he screamed, and pointed his blade towards the walls.

=!=

"To the gates!" He screamed and pointed his blade towards the walls.

In example 2, he's not screaming "To the gates!", he's just screaming - for whatever reason.

 

[uncreative]

Thanks for all the answers, been kinda hard to find answers on stuff like this. I sure don't know where to look.

It's also bad practice to write "he exclaimed" after a !, because unless your audience are complete morons, they can already see he's exclaimed.

Yeah but it wouldn't be all too dramatic if I didn't use a !. "Oh no, they ate her. And now they're gonna eat me." he exclaimed. I guess there's a reason it's called the "exclamation mark" though. Now that I think about it, I've read something about someone urging people to reduce the amount of exclamation marks in normal texts, and that they were more at place in cartoons etc.

 

[Elenmmare]

Exclamation marks have their uses. Its true, though, that I don't use them much. A sentence like

"Get down!" the marine barked, pulling the pin on the grenade and letting it fly.

would definitely need one.

What Llandy means (I think) is that don't just put "He exclaimed" and leave it. Throw it in if you must as something like:

"And now they're gonna eat me!" he exclaimed, tearing off his arm and hiding behind it.

In other words, include it if you're going to add another action as well.

 

[Pharaoh Llandy]

Exclamation marks have their uses. Its true, though, that I don't use them much. A sentence like

"Get down!" the marine barked, pulling the pin on the grenade and letting it fly.

would definitely need one.

What Llandy means (I think) is that don't just put "He exclaimed" and leave it. Throw it in if you must as something like:

"And now they're gonna eat me!" he exclaimed, tearing off his arm and hiding behind it.

In other words, include it if you're going to add another action as well.

Of change the "he exclaimed" to something else. Exclaiming does not tell you a mood or context. So he could keep the ! (which tells the reader that the character has exclaimed) and change 'exclaimed' to something more informative... such as "And now they're gonna eat me!" he cried, tearing off his arm and hiding behind it. Or "Wow, that's huge!" gasped Kobrag as Pavlov unzipped his pants.

 

[Elenmmare]

Except, we all know that Kobrag isn't so easily impressed.

And Pavlov doesn't wear pants.

 

[Rabid Potatoe]

"And now they're gonna eat me!" he exclaimed, tearing off his arm and hiding behind it.

That's a warped mind you got there.

 

[uncreative]

Ah thank you for the answers, most englightening. The statistics of mentioned penors in these forums aren't going down, good to know. Locking time then.