Leaderboard

First, if this is in the wrong place I sincerely appologize. I’m knew here and also totally blind, forums aren’t my strong point. If you were writing a piece of dialogue where the speaker pauses between each word, how would you indicate that with punctuation? Would you use a comma “,” or elypsis “...” between each word? Or is it better to just say beforehand that the speaker is doing this and just write the dialogue as noral? Does it depend on the situation? The exact situation I have in mind is a spanking scene where someone punctuates each word with a slap.

As is being aptly demonstrated here, one problem with grammar talk is conflicting advice/rules. I’ve researched tonnes of grammar questions and no two sources seem to agree on anything but the most basic rules. Currently I’m using the elipses as a pause indicater where someone’s either trailing off or else nervous or unsure. As in: “But I… I can’t sit there.” It’ll be staying that way whatever anyone says because changing it now would be a humungous chore. I have an exceedingly shy unsure main character haha. In any case I’ve never seen that done any other way. Same with two spaces after a fullstop. I was taught to type that way and when writing something official I can’t break the habit. Again it seems changing that would be an utter nightmare, even though some now seem to be saying don’t do it. Another question that comes to mind is how you show that a character is emphasising a word or phrase. Usually I just use a tag, though sometimes that is clumsy. Some people use all caps, “I NEVER cook!” But I’m not sure if that’s amateurish, but I can’t be doing with italics and bolds and stuff I never worked out how to do it using the keyboard. I was supposedly taught word processing at school, but it was over the transfer from DOS, and with all the trouble getting the new Windows to work, and the early screen reader, our teacher spent far more time troubleshooting than teaching. As a result I’m still picking it up as I go along. Appologies also for the lack of paragraphs, as I can’t see what my writing looks like I do tend to forget, especially as some boxes don’t allow them. Too often I’ve pressed enter only to find myself posting before I’d finished. I’m more careful when I write, I like to think I’m improving slowly.

Proper grammer indicates that you use a period to indicate a pause. Ellipses are when things trail off. Like when someone ‘s voice drops to a mumble or you’re starting the dialogue in the. Example of the first. Paul turned on his heel, a hsi jaw firmly clenched as he stalked towards Rachelle. “If you come near my daughter again I swear I. Will. Kill you.” An example of the second. “...And that dear fellows is how I I lost my finger in a game of CHess with the Padishar of Iran” said Sir Reginald. ,, proudly displaying his maimed hand for effect. Tehcnically speakingyou can use whatever but the idea is to keep your punctuation style close to something the reader has already read. You can use whatever styyle uits your fancy but if it jars the user’s sensibilitries you’ll have a hard tiume getting them invested.

Oh wow! I’m so going to enjoy all the debates I can start here LOL. Seriously though again thanks all for your thoughts. I personally wouldn’t use the exclamation marks unless the person was shouting or particularly angry. It is a hard one to call though. One feels there should be some kind of pause indicator, but with it being every single word it really looks and sounds very odd if you do it that way. On the other hand, without them it’s sort of… not very effective. It’s an unusual situation anyway as in this particular instance it’s quite a long speech. 23 words! ATM I’ve changed it to no abnormal punctuation as per Bronx and Melrick’s advice.

It’s the example I point to as where my database helps, so I can track these things, because I had ages ago, listed a more generic shellfish allergy. This was after cursing Google for pushing diarrhea cures when I wanted to trigger it… go figure. When I do want to bring some significance to a character, I’ll roll the dice, effectively, and run a utility I have that picks random lines out of a file. I’ve got files for personality traits, hobbies, allergies, occupations, and phobias. So, I’ll pick, say 10, and see what makes sense, and create a character for that. I use the random thing, since although it’s easy to say “I want the character to have flaws”, trying to pick those traits while also not overusing a few favourites, that’s tougher.

I’d suggest using an introductory phrase, rather than trying to do it solely with punctuation and/or onomatopoeia. Maybe like this: “Punctuating every word with another stinging slap to her ass, he shouted, ‘You! Will! Behave!’”

Thank you Bronx and Melrick for your comments. @Bronx, oh yeah I’ve seen that too, with slap after every word, try having a speech synthersiser read it to you. I’ll take your advice I think, it’ll save my spell checker a headache anyway.

I use ellipses when a person is pausing in dialogue, but I’ve never had someone pausing after every word, so that would be a new situation for me. I would do the same as Bronx in that situation.

An allergy to oysters, but eats them anyways because they’re so delicious, that comes to mind.