Month: September 2019

Punctuation and Quotes, Logical or Not?

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This topic falls just shy of the Oxford Comma in raising intense discussion amongst editors: Where does the punctuation go relative to quote marks? Yet another issue where the US and the rest of the world differ. Fortunately, it only affects commas and full stops (periods). Everyone agrees with how colons, semi-colons, and dashes are placed, and question and exclamation marks are fine, so we’re going to only touch on those, then tackle the tough stuff.

Everything Except Commas and Periods

As rare as colons, semi-colons, and dashes are, they always* go outside the quotes:

  • Alan loved to quote from the TV show “Star Trek”: “That’s not logical.”
  • Betty’s favourite poem was “The Jabberwocky”; she spent weeks memorising it.
  • Carolyn leaned out of the treehouse and said, “It’s sturdy enough”—right before the branch creaked.

Question and exclamation marks go where they belong—if part of the quote, then inside. If part of the whole sentence and not the quote, then outside:

  • David whined, “Can I have an ice cream now?”
  • Mom waved her wooden spoon at him. “Not right before dinner!”
  • The professor opened the lecture with a question: Who said, “I came, I saw, I conquered”?
  • You have got to see the show “Alien Artefacts”!
  • You actually like the show “Mystery Hunter”?

Fairly straightforward—no problems here.

Logical Punctuation

In the US style, commas and periods always goes inside—a simple rule but less logical. In the British style (also known as Logical Quotation), they go where they belong (same as question and exclamation marks)—inside if part, outside if not, similar to many other languages.

It’s that simple.

Of course, there’s a big exception to the US style: If the quoted material is technical, then the punctuation goes outside (same as the Logical style).

  • My user name is “All.for.it”. (final period not part)
  • Did you use the password “it,is.a;BIG!1”? (question mark not part)
  • To put a non-breaking space in HTML, use “ ”. (period not part)

So Why Do We Do It?

Some of the arguments for why we’d want punctuation inside the quote mark are based on a quote from The Elements of Style: “typographical usage dictates the comma be inside the marks, though logically it seems not to belong there”—to avoid an unsightly gap? These days, with digital fonts, it isn’t needed.

Another contention, also based on typographic issues but a physical one, says that the small pieces of metal were delicate and could break. That may have been true at one time, but the British switched over when they wanted to make it more logical and less mechanical.

Either way, the typographic reasons no longer apply, so we are free to put punctuation in the logical place.

*When I say “always”, please keep in mind that there are exceptions to every rule, but the exceptions in this case are so rare, that I can’t think of any, so I feel justified in using that term. As we’ve noted, there are two words you should always remember to never use: always and never.

Font Choice

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There has been much discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of various fonts since the printing industry began. Researchers have written entire books on the topic, following months and even years of research at various institutes of higher learning. If you ask the experts, they will generally agree…at least that there’s a difference—the details are still a matter of debate.

For a fuller discussion of Typography in detail, consider reading Matthew Butterick’s online book: Practical Typography. If you have the time and inclination, it’s an excellent explanation of how things work. We’re not going to go into that much detail here—rather we’ll be pointing out a few helpful ideas of font choice.

Two Types

We will focus on two different types of fonts: Serif and Sans-serif. There are also Script and Decorative (including Fancy, Stencil and Handwritten), but typically they aren’t used in books. We also aren’t going to spend much time on monospaced fonts. Looking as if they were typed on an old typewriter, they are almost exclusively used to highlight computer coding examples, so if you’re writing a book about that, you probably already know how to format your illustrations.

Serif fonts are amongst the oldest fonts created, based on Roman carvings. The serifs are the extra tails that extend from the ends of each stroke of the letters. The serifs ease the identifying of letters and guide the reader’s eye along the lines of text, and so help make reading easier and more pleasurable. (We don’t want a good story to be ruined by a poor reading experience.)

Sans-Serif fonts don’t have those tails, ending with flat or square lines. Usually used in headings or titles to help them stand out, they keep your reader oriented in your wealth of information—an important objective. You’ll also see plenty of sans-serif fonts used in books aimed for a younger audience…think about those early readers where the kids are still sounding out each letter.

Which to use where

The general suggestion these days is to use a clear serif font for the body of the book. We recommend Century Supra or Equity (both at mbtype.com), Charter (practicaltypography.com/charter.html), or Source Serif Pro (github.com/adobe-fonts/source-serif-pro). For headings and chapter titles, a complementary sans-serif font works well. For that we suggest Advocate (all caps) or Concourse (both at mbtype.com), Fira Sans (bboxtype.com/typefaces/FiraSans), or IBM Plex (www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/ibm-plex). Of course, because the titles of the chapters are usually short, some folks prefer to use a fancy font there, just to attract attention, so if that’s your preference please avoid Papyrus, Office Scripts, and of course Comic Sans.

Whatever you do, don’t use more than a few fonts in any one document…advert posters included! Once you start searching out new and different fonts, the more likely it will be that you catch font-itus.

Special Characters

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Sometimes you need to insert special characters into your ms, but these aren’t like the Symbols we discussed before…these are mostly invisible. Yes, invisible, yet very important.

Note: If you haven’t made non-printing characters visible yet, now would be a good time to do so. Remember, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl-Shift-* and you’ll see the pilcrow highlighted in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.

The first character is one that you’ve used hundreds of time but probably never thought about: The Paragraph Break. You get this invisible character by simply hitting the Enter key, which you do at the end of every paragraph. With non-printing characters visible, it looks just like the pilcrow on the button above: ¶ (Note: Stored inside this one character is a bunch of formatting info.)

Next is the Line Break. It is used when you want to end a line, but not start a new paragraph. It looks like a small arrow with a hook: ↵ and you enter it with Shift-Enter.

Then there’s the Column Break. Useful if you have a multi-column section and the text in the columns doesn’t break where you want. It shows as a bunch of dots with the words Column Break in the middle. You can enter it by typing Ctrl-Shift-Enter.

Finally, there is the Page Break. It forces the next text onto a new page. It looks similar to the Column Break, but the dots are a bit tighter. You can put it in your document with Ctrl-Enter.

Three more: first another invisible one, then one that’s half visible, and finally a fully visible one.

The invisible one is a space…but it’s a special kind of space: a Non-breaking Space. You’d use it between a title and a name, such as “Dr. Smith”, so it stays together, not coming apart if it falls near the end of a line. It shows as a small circle instead of the regular dot used for a normal space, and you type it with Ctrl-Shift-Space.

Now the half visible one. It’s an Optional Hyphen. If you have a word that might break in the wrong place at the end of a line, you can tell Word exactly where you want the word to break. In the first example to the right, the word “elements” breaks in a strange place, so we put an Optional Hyphen right before the ‘m’ as shown in the second example. In the third, you can see the Optional Hyphen before the ‘m’ because it’s not being used, so it shows as ¬ and is entered with Ctrl-Hyphen.

Finally the fully visible character we promised. This one combines the Non-breaking Space and the Optional Hyphen, creating a Non-breaking Hyphen! If you have a hyphenated word that you want to keep together, not allowing it to break at all when near the end of a line, then you’d use a non-breaking hyphen. When you have non-printing characters turned on, it looks like a skinny dash, but just a normal hyphen when off—entered by Ctrl-Shift-Hyphen.

That covers all the special characters we are going to do this time…we’ll get to Dashes later.

Story Elements (Setting)

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Where your story takes place is sometimes just as important as who is in it. In fact, some folks say that your setting is just another character, but remember, the where includes not only the location, but also the time and environment. Location can include the room they are in, the town, the region, the country, and in some cases, the entire world. Time involves time of day as well as time of year. When you consider the environment, remember to take into account the geography, culture, society, and weather.

We’ll tackle each of these now:

Location

Does the story take place in a small town or a large city? Is it a place we already know or will you have to describe everything?

Picking the right spot can affect the mood of the whole story. Consider the difference between a small, dark mining town, under the domination of a harsh taskmaster and a bright, airy townhouse in a skyscraper.

Time

Midnight in the middle of winter is different from morning in early spring but so is dinner on a fall evening. A story in 500 BC is going to be poles apart from one in the 19th century…and how different will the 23rd century be?

Again, the mood will change depending on time…early colonialism compared with interstellar exploration. What technologies will you be allowed to use, or even mention? Cell phones? Quill pens?

Also consider the passing of time throughout the story. Do we start in the Industrial Age and progress to visiting other planets? Or does the entire story take place in one afternoon? It makes a difference.

Environment

Are we on a beach? Or at the top of a mountain? Is it rainy or hot and dry? Do folks congregate socially? Or does the upper-class insist that the peons remain in their homes unless working?

How many folks live in this area? Are multiple families crammed into small apartments? Or do the children have to play with their siblings as the nearest neighbour is hundreds of miles away?

Do the characters hail from displaced natives? Or are they part of the conquering hoard?

World Building

If your story isn’t in a time or place that we all know, you may need to give descriptions that are more detailed. If your story takes place in a new and exciting world, one straight from your imagination, then you will need to spend some time fabricating everything before you even get started on the story (or stories!). Building a whole world can involve creating a new planet, a new city, a new society, even a new language. Maybe you will have to rewrite some laws of physics to make your story work.

Whatever it takes, spend some time creating a setting for your readers to enjoy.