by

Two fences, three dogs, and one literary journal

It’s a holiday weekend, so I’ll keep this post light and breezy—like Spring. Speaking of breezy, it’s been more than breezy on this side of the valley lately. Unfortunately (for every reason except shade), we have two gargantuan sycamore trees in our back yard that love to drop sizeable limbs on our roof, so it’s been a boomrattleshake month.

Last month, we had a real guster that took down our ancient privacy fence. How weird to see our neighbors’ back yards. I grew up with back yards separated by waist-high wire fences. Neighbors had no outdoor privacy. They spoke to each other, which was good or bad depending on the neighbor. Anyway, we have a bright new six-foot high board fence now. Fort Lewis is secure once again.

The strong new fence comes at a good time because we are dog-sitting three dogs for the next week. Three. 3. The dogs are a family, so at least we don’t have to deal with canine territorial wars—though I suspect our cat is planning a bombing mission. When our Lizzie was still alive, we had two dogs in the house when we sat for our son’s dog, but three is a first. Let’s hope I survive this adventure.

If you were around here in January, you may remember that I announced Vine Leaves Literary Journal had published a vignette of mine—without the last line. The editors apologized, of course, and promised to reprint it in the next issue. Well, that issue is out now, and it’s a lovely mixture of vignettes, poetry, artwork, and photography, so check it out here:  Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Issue 2.

Happy Easter, however you celebrate it!

by

Seven Sentences

I owe an apology to my friend Darlene Foster. A couple of weeks ago, she tagged me for the Lucky 7 Meme. Then, with the twin punctuation posts followed by my absenteeism, that fact slipped into the often murky swamp I call my memory. So … I’m sorry, Darlene, and thank you for choosing me.

The rules of this fun meme require that you turn to page 77 of your work in progress. I have two WIPs, one I’m not leaking a word of in public yet, and the other is a collection of short stories. Those stories are in no particular order at the moment, so I don’t know which page will end up in 77th spot. Instead, I’ve chosen my 7 sentences from page 7 of one of those stories.

In this scene from “Better Left Alone”, a middle-aged and newly divorced woman, is on her way to have lunch with a man she hasn’t seen since high school.

Teresa left home early. Two blocks from the restaurant, she pulled over to check her hair and makeup one last time and to slow her breathing. What impression would she make if she arrived disheveled and hyperventilating? She restarted the car, but then sat for a moment wondering at her sudden insecurity. Yes, as a giggly girl, she’d had a crush on Mark, but life had tempered her in the years since high school. She’d raised three children, ran a small business, and—yes, she had—managed to keep a marriage solid for most of twenty-seven years. She was Woman, and could roar with the best of them.

Now then, the rules of the meme say I have to pass it on to 7 other writers, so here’s my list:

  1. Alannah Murphy
  2. Jennifer Neri
  3. Laura Best
  4. Kat Magendie
  5. Christa Polkinhorn
  6. Dana Mason
  7. K.S. Bowers

If these fabulous women choose to accept this meme, they must:

  1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP.
  2. Go to line 7.
  3. Copy down the next 7 sentences and post them as written.
  4. Tag 7 authors.
  5. Let them know.

If anyone else wants to play along, grab the logo and rules and post your excerpt. And don’t forget to let me know, so I can drop by to read your 7 sentences.

by

My decision to quit writing

Last week, I had lunch with two other writers and came home totally depressed. I don’t blame them. They didn’t do or say anything directly to bottom me out. As I listened to them speak, I realized I felt disconnected from their world. That night I told my husband I’d decided to quit writing. He told me to sleep on it.

For four days I didn’t write a word, not even a blog post. Instead, I read. And I played a lot of games on Facebook. At first, that felt weird. I was anxious. By the end of the second day, I relaxed. It felt right not to be writing. I could just walk away. Let it go.

On the third day, I realized I’d returned to the way I’d told stories for most of my life— in my head. I continued with the story I’d been trying to force into a novel for months. It flowed without effort. I enjoyed it. But not until late on the fourth day did I actually “hear” the story, and when I did, I knew why I’d quit working on the version for publication.

Let’s back up a bit.

I’d been writing that novel in my head for months before I sat down to begin entering it into a Word file, so I wrote the first few chapters quickly. I opened with a short chapter in third person past tense  and then moved to first person present tense (FPPT) for the next chapters because that was the way I “heard” the main character’s voice. I would use three short third-past chapters spaced throughout the book, but the bulk would be in first-present.

Then I read that most current novels for the adult market are written in third-past, and a first person novel is hard to write well, and present tense is tiring or boring or some other negative for the reader. I questioned my wisdom. I revised. I changed all the chapters to the “best” person and tense. I pushed on.

I wrote a couple of chapters more, and then got distracted by other projects. I wrote another chapter of the novel, and then I worked on something more pressing. I wrote a paragraph or two for the novel, and then I got this great idea and worked it into a short story. I wrote a few words on the novel, and then … and then … and then I gave up on it.

I stopped writing the novel. I stopped writing. Period.

Why? Well, it seems if you stop listening to your character’s voice, eventually that character stops speaking to you. She says, “You don’t like the way I’m telling this story? Fine. Tell it without me.”

Silly me.

Do over. Stop being a sheep. Revise the revision. Start listening again. Write.

by

How do you punctuate after a terminal ellipsis?

We tackled this question with the em dash in the last post, so this time let’s turn our attention to the terminal ellipsis. Like many writers, I use an ellipsis at the end of a line of dialogue to indicate the character’s voice trails off. Since this leaves the sentence unfinished, it seemed logical to me not to use any end punctuation. Like this: “I love you, but …”

As I read, I noted the terminal ellipsis used with and without punctuation. I’ve only recently begun to use punctuation with such an ellipsis, but I’m waffling. It just seems odd to punctuate an unfinished sentence.

The book that sparked my previous post also sparked this one. I thought I’d finally learned the rules about using punctuation after an ellipsis, but I saw something in that book, I’d never run across in reading. The author used a dialogue tag after the ellipsis, so she used a comma. Like this example:  “I love you, but …,” she said.

That looked odd to me, so I immediately started searching some of my work to see if I had omitted the comma in such instances. I discovered that apparently I’ve never used a dialogue tag after a terminal ellipsis. Of course, I pulled books off my shelves and continued my search.

One of the writers I checked used a dialogue tag without a comma. Another didn’t use dialogue tags, but did sometimes continue the sentence with an action after the trailing off speech, and in those instances, she did use a comma after the ellipsis.

What about the use of other punctuation with a terminal ellipsis? Some writers use the ellipsis to indicate trailing off speech with no punctuation. Some do use punctuation. One of the writers I checked, Anne Tyler, uses punctuation only sometimes—and I’m annoyed that I can’t figure out her rule for that!

To muddy the waters more, even writers who do use punctuation after the ellipsis don’t all agree on its placement—before or after the ellipsis. When I researched this in the past, I read a rule that said if the completed sentence would have been a statement, place a period before the ellipsis. If it would have been a question or an exclamation, place the appropriate punctuation mark after the ellipsis. (I don’t remember that they explained this difference.)

In my recent search, I found two authors who used punctuation with a terminal ellipsis when they used no dialogue tag. Anne Tyler, who used it only sometimes, placed the period before, but the question mark or exclamation point after the ellipsis. Joyce Carol Oates, who punctuated always, placed all marks before the ellipsis.

I know we should all be conservative in our use of the ellipsis, but when we do use it at the end of a line of dialogue, it seems the rule is up for grabs. We have:

“I love you, but …”

“I love you, but. …”

“I love you, but …,” she said.

“I love you, but …” she said.

“You love me, but …?”

“You love me, but? …”

Okay folks, surely you have an opinion on this one, so please share. Do you use an ellipsis to indicate trailing off in dialogue? Do you use punctuation with that? If so, where do you place that punctuation?

UPDATE: In the comment to this post, someone posted a link  to Grammar Girl’s advice on punctuation with an ellipsis. She quoted The Chicago Manual of Style, but the ellipsis use she cited was mostly to indicate words left out of quoted material. When I googled for the CMOS take on the trailing off ellipsis in dialogue, I found this in their online Q&A: If you use the ellipsis merely to indicate a voice or thought trailing off, you would not use the period with it: “I’m not sure . . .” [http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/Punctuation/Punctuation03.html]

(Remember, if your email address is registered with WordPress or Gravatar, please be sure you’re logged in before you type your comment, so you don’t risk losing it when you try to obey the login order after the fact.)

by

How do you punctuate after a terminal em dash?

A particular use of punctuation jumped out at me as I read a recently published book.

In general, I observe punctuation rules, so I’d like to know if the one used in this book follows an old rule, a new rule, or a house style. I question whether it’s a house style though–unless those change depending on the author—because I have books published by the same house in which this particular style is not used.

EM DASH — This author, as many of us do, used an em dash to indicate interrupted speech. But what struck me was a difference in the punctuation used after that dash. For instance, I would write such a sentence this way:

“I couldn’t possibly let you—”

“Let me? Let me!” His outrage jerked him to his feet. “Since when do I require your permission?”

But if those lines appeared in this book, the first would have been punctuated this way:

“I couldn’t possibly let you—.”

“Let me? Let me!” His outrage jerked him to his feet. “Since when do I require your permission?”

You’ll notice the period after the em dash. I’ve since pulled novels off my shelves searching for sentences with interrupted speech. I haven’t found one yet that duplicates this author/editor’s construction.

Am I behind the times or have I, and countless other authors, been doing it wrong all along?

Your turn: Please tell me, how do you punctuate after a terminal em dash?

(See my next post on using punctuation with the terminal ellipsis.)

(Remember, if your email address is registered with WordPress or Gravatar, please be sure you’re logged in before you type your comment, so you don’t risk losing it when you try to obey the login order after the fact.)