I Want To See The Zoo, She Said, I Want To See The Zoo.

[rionaleonhart]

WHILST I'M BEING INSECURE ABOUT MY WRITING: for as long as I can remember, I have used "double quotation marks" for speech in fiction and 'single quotation marks' for all other purposes. No style guide will recommend this: in British publishing convention, single quotes are used for all purposes, including speech, with speech within speech the only context in which double quotes are used; in American publishing convention, the situation is reversed. Does this inconsistency bother you? (Alternative question: do you have similar stylistic quirks?) I just think there's something quite nice about drawing a visual distinction between speaking and 'setting a phrase aside'. If there are two different types of quotation mark, why not put them to use?


Regarding Supernatural: I rewatched 'Fresh Blood' a little while ago, and it reminded me of how awesome Bela can be. I love that she actually seems surprised and a little upset that Dean is so angry with her for telling a murderous madman where to find them. HONESTLY, DEAN, YOU'RE SO OVERSENSITIVE. And then she helps them track him down, because, hey, she didn't know Dean was going to be so unreasonable about the whole thing. I love her.

HERE IS SOMETHING I WOULD LOVE TO SEE: a rewritten Twilight, with Bela in the role of Bella. Edward may be ridiculously strong and fast, but if he can't hear Bela's thoughts he's doomed. She will seduce him, use him shamelessly and then run off with his sister to form an amazing con artist duo. It would be pretty great. And at least Bela's unsympathetic aspects are intentional, unlike those of Bella 'Stupid Unattractive Humans With Their Stupid Being Nice To Me' Swan.

(Jo is welcome to join Bela and Alice in their con-artistry.)

(Also, Ruby can flit between the three of them, although I have not yet decided whether she would assist with the cons or whether she would ruin them for her own amusement by possessing the team members at inopportune moments.)

Comments

[th-esaurus.livejournal.com]

True fact: I will not read a book (or a fic) if the speech is given in single quotation marks. It just peeves me. I do enjoy writing where the author has made a stylistic choice not to use any kind of quotation marks to signify speech, though.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

True enough. It's particularly intriguing to see it rendered in the French style, with indents and dashes and whatnot. It becomes more about the speech and less about the speaker, strangely.

[rionaleonhart]

Will you seriously not read a book if the speech is in single quotation marks? Do you import all of your books from America? I just took a random sample of ten novels, and all but one used single quotation marks for speech. Single quotes have the 'wait, is that a closing inverted comma or just an apostrophe?' problem, but beyond that they don't bother me on paper.

Single quotation marks in fic do strike me as a bit odd, though, perhaps because I've come to expect a certain type of punctuation on the screen.

(I always use single quotes when I'm writing by hand, but I suspect that may largely be due to laziness.)

[th-esaurus.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I don't read a lot of books anymore anyway, but I guess I am less strict about that with books rather than fics. It still peeves me!

[timydamonkey.livejournal.com]

I once read a fic where the speech was signified like this:

-Speech goes here. Action goes here. -More speech by the same speaker here.

It was really strange, but it actually just made me love the fic all the more as I really liked the very, very unusual style in which it was written.