A Dash of Style (15 page)

• Do any parenthetical or double dash asides in your work contain too-long clauses? Look for any long asides and ask yourself if the main thought is compromised or weakened as a result. Can any be shortened? Cut? Given their own sentences?

•As mentioned previously, dashes and parentheses can be used to spice up sections of writing that feel too simplistic or straightforward. Are there any such areas in your work? Using a pair of dashes or parentheses, add an aside or two. Be less constrained. How does it transform the writing?

QUOTATION MARKS
are the most visible marks in the world of punctuation. They are raised above the text, dangling conspicuously; they come in pairs, offering twice the impact; and their presence often demands the indentation of a paragraph, allowing them to be roomily indented from the margin. As if all this were not dramatic and eye catching enough, they also often work in a pack, with one pair of quotation marks following another, cascading down the page, each demanding a new paragraph and new indentation. They add visibility to visibility until they dominate the page.

Quotation marks are also unique in that they indicate the end of one world (prose) and the beginning of another (dialogue), and as such are one of the most powerful tools with which to propel context into the limelight. Indeed, to discuss quotation marks —their presence, absence, overuse, underuse —is to discuss dialogue itself. And their usage, of course, is not just limited to dialogue: they can offset individual words or phrases to indicate irony, sarcasm, or a special meaning. Indeed, it is impossible to hear these siren calls and
not
pay attention. As such, they are the trumpets of the punctuation world.

HOW TO USE THEM

Quotation marks are more flexible than most writers assume. Often they are used in a merely functional way, which is a pity, because they can subtly enhance your writing. Some of the ways they can be used:

• To alter the pace. Dialogue is the great accelerator. Nothing has its power on pace, whether to speed a text or slow it down. Open any book and you'll find the reading experience accelerates greatly when you reach a stretch of dialogue; read a screenplay and you'll find yourself turning pages two or three times faster than with a book. Traditional dialogue cannot be indicated without quotation marks (in English, at least—quotation marks are not the norm for dialogue in Spanish, French, Italian, or Russian literature) and in this sense, the two are codependent.

Thus, creatively, the presence of quotation marks accelerates the pace of your work. This can be useful in places where the pace slows, for example, where there are long stretches of prose. Alternately, removing quotation marks will slow the pace significantly. This can be useful in places where the pace is too fast, where a reader needs grounding and time to process. Consider this example from Tobias Wolff's story "Mortals":

"So what happened?" the metro editor said to me.

"I wish I knew."

"That's not good enough," the woman said.

"Dolly's pretty upset," Givens said.

"She has every right to be upset," the metro editor said. "Who called in the notice?" he asked me.

"To tell the truth, I don't remember. I suppose it was somebody from the funeral home."

"You call them back?"

"I don't believe I did, no."

"Check with the family?"

"He most certainly did not," Mrs. Givens said.

"No," I said.

Notice how the abundant quotation marks accelerate the pace, keep it moving at a fast clip (of course, this effect is compounded greatly by the short lines of speech). It feels as if the dialogue fires back and forth, with little pause in between. The result is a much faster reading experience. Of course, one would not want to maintain this for an entire book, but after a long stretch of prose, a stretch of dialogue like this allows the reader a rest stop. In Wolff's case, it also evokes a clipped, matter-of-fact tone, which brilliantly captures the newsroom atmosphere.

• Quotation marks can allow a break from prose. Every book really offers two worlds: the world of prose and the world of dialogue. They do a dance, speeding up the work, slowing it down, setting the stage for a scene, letting it play out. Readers are subconsciously aware of this, and will sometimes scan the prose until they find a stretch of dialogue; when really impatient, as when caught up in a thriller, they might even first scan down to the dialogue to see what happens, then back up to the prose. It's as if prose and dialogue are two different entities living in the same book.

Dialogue allows the reader a visual break from prose, from sentences that can stretch across the entire page. Reaching a stretch of dialogue is like stretching one's legs after a long car ride: it gives readers the renewed vigor they need to get back onto the road, into the thick world of prose. Such a break would not be possible without quotation marks and their requisite spacing.

• Quotation marks can help indicate a passage of time. Most writers just routinely use quotation marks to open and close a line of dialogue; they rarely consider the placement of the marks
within
a line of dialogue. For example:

"I love you, don't you know that?" he said.

This is the standard usage, as it should be. But quotation marks needn't always be so straightforward. They can be rearranged within dialogue to create subtle effects. One such effect is to create the feeling of a passage of time. Watch what happens when we break up the quotation marks:

"I love you," he said, "don't you know that?"

Now there exists a slight pause between "I love you" and "don't you know that?" that might better suit the scene, depending on the writer's intention. This can be taken even further:

"I love you," he said. "Don't you know that?"

Here a period follows "he said" and "Don't you know that?" is begun with a capital, indicating a new sentence. This suggests even more finality after "I love you," and an even longer passage of time. Through the rearrangement of quotation marks, we have created a whole new feeling for the same line of dialogue. Of course, the quotation marks couldn't achieve what they do here without some help from the comma and the period. We are beginning to see how interdependent punctuation marks are (we'll explore this later).

Here's an example from John Smolens's novel
Cold:

"All right," she said. "You can come inside."

He began walking immediately, his legs lifting up out of the deep snow.

"Slowly," she said. "And put your hands down at your sides where I can see them."

By breaking up the dialogue with additional sets of quotation marks, Smolens makes us feel the pause within the speech, makes us feel time slowing down as she sums him up and decides what to do.

• Quotation marks can help create a feeling of revelation or finality to dialogue. For example:

He said, "I love you, don't you know that?"

Prefacing the dialogue with "he said" is a usage rarely employed, as it should be. It is not for everyday use, as it draws much attention. Still, there are times when you might want to have the option. Placing the quotation marks in this way suggests that the dialogue to follow will be more measured, more final, possibly even a revelation. The effect is subtle. If we insert a colon, its effect becomes more apparent:

He said: "I love you, don't you know that?"

Notice the feeling of finality that comes with this; it feels as if this line of dialogue will conclude a scene —indeed, it would be hard to continue dialogue in the wake of this.

Stephen Crane goes so far as to conclude his story "The Little Regiment" with a set of quotation marks:

After a series of shiftings, it occurred naturally that the man with the bandage was very near to the man who saw the flames. He paused, and there was a little silence. Finally he said: "Hello, Dan."

"Hello, Billie."

The colon preceding the first line of dialogue really makes us feel the pause, while the paragraph break before the final line makes us feel it even further. In context, the fact that these quotations come at the end of a paragraph makes us feel their weight even more. It is a powerful way to end a story.

• Quotation marks can help break up long stretches of dialogue. Just as long stretches of prose can be tiresome, so can long exchanges of dialogue. The pace can become too fast, causing the work to feel ungrounded. If you have a character who is long winded, for example, or prone to making speeches, his rants can grow weary on a reader. Consider:

"I can't see anything at night since my operation. The doctor said the glare would go away, but it hasn't. Big surprise. I've never met any doctor who told me the truth. Doctors are all alike. I swear,

I'd be happy never seeing one again. Care for a brandy?"

This is a lot for a reader to take in at once; more importantly, it is disconcerting, as the speaker changes topics without pausing. But by manipulating the quotation marks, we can provide a natural rest and give the reader the energy he needs to go on:

"I can't see anything at night since my operation. The doctor said the glare would go away, but it hasn't. Big surprise. I've never met any doctor who told me the truth. Doctors are all alike. I swear, I'd be happy never seeing one again," he said. "Care for a brandy?"

If you opt to break up the dialogue this way, the break must come at an instant when the speaker might naturally pause in his speech, for example, at a moment when he'd like something to sink in. In real life, few people speak in uninterrupted speeches; natural pauses abound in dialogue, when speakers shift in their chairs, cross their legs, sip coffee, or look out a window. It is your task to find them.

Breaking up dialogue with quotation marks serves another purpose: it can help clarify who's speaking, which might be necessary in a long back-and-forth between multiple characters. Consider:

Jack and Dave entered the room.

"Do you have any scotch? I could use a drink."

"I don't think so. Check in the cupboard."

You never want readers to waste their precious energy on trying to figure out who is speaking. Inserting a few extra quotation marks, though, can make all the difference:

Jack and Dave entered the room.

"Do you have any scotch?" Jack asked. "I could use a drink." "I don't think so. Check in the cupboard."

Alternately:

Jack and Dave entered the room.

"Do you have any scotch? I could use a drink."

"I don't think so," Dave answered. "Check in the cupboard."

Notice how you only have to break up dialogue once, and it clarifies everyone who is speaking. Either of these are acceptable, although it's preferable to identify who is speaking immediately so that the reader doesn't have to waste any energy deciphering.

• Sometimes quotation marks can have the greatest impact by not appearing at all. When dialogue is called for, quotation marks are expected; but if they are absent, it has a strong effect. To convey dialogue without traditional quotation marks, you need to either use some other mark, like a dash (which I don't recommend and which we'll explore in depth below), or paraphrase. For example:

She said she didn't want to talk to me anymore.

There are times when paraphrasing can be quite effective. For one, paraphrased dialogue is filtered through another character's viewpoint or recollection, which means it becomes equally about the character conveying it. For instance, in the above example, did she really say she didn't want to talk to the narrator, or was that his perception of it, or was he outright lying? It's like the game of telephone: by the time it gets to you, it is often changed in at least some way. Who changed it—and how—is often more interesting than the dialogue itself.

• Finally, quotation marks needn't only be used for dialogue. They have a creative usage outside the realm of dialogue, which is to couch individual words or phrases to indicate they are not meant to be read literally. They can alter the way you read a word or phrase in many ways, for example, to indicate irony or sarcasm. As Lynne Truss says in
Eats, Shoots & Leaves,
quotation marks "are sometimes used by fastidious writers as a kind of linguistic rubber glove, distancing them from vulgar words or cliches they are too refined to use in the normal way." For example: