He/she asked? Is it redundant?

It's usually you who does the bogging down, friend.

The original question had nothing to do with grammar tropes or creative writing. It was a straightforward question about redundancy of a particular tag.

The Lonely One said:

Also, to get bogged down in these grammar tropes really does creative writing a disservice. .

Click to expand...

The correct answer is: Whatever the Chicago Manual of Style suggests, or whatever your publisher's house style says.

The Lonely One said:

My point was that both are clarifying marks that aren't needed when you don't need clarifying.

Click to expand...

Clarification is not the only reason to use a question mark. Dialogue is not just read; it is heard. The question mark tells us how to hear interrogative sentences.

Compare this:

"He said what?"

to this:

"Well, now. Isn't that interesting."

Both of those are interrogative sentences. The first one uses a question mark because of the rising inflection at the end of the sentence. The second has a period instead of a question mark to indicate that it's spoken flatly, not like a question at all.

Instances like the second one are probably going to be more rare, but they do occur. And it's fine to dispense with the question mark in cases like that.

However, to eliminate it entirely is to leave the reader with no clues about how to hear the question. Whenever I see a question with no question mark, my ear hears it with either flat or falling inflection.

So if the writer doesn't use question marks at all, then how will I know what the sentence sounds like? How will I know if a real question has been asked, or if the speaker is making questions sound like statements?

Bufty said:

It's usually you who does the bogging down, friend.

The original question had nothing to do with grammar tropes or creative writing. It was a straightforward question about redundancy of a particular tag.

Click to expand...

I think it's rather clear what I was getting at, and really I think you guys are over conflating it. Which is why I left AW to begin with a while back--because the arguments here gave me panic attacks since they so quickly digressed into a pointless surface-level, and became bogged down in little semantic side-arguments. It seems like people aren't wanting to even try to understand what others are saying.

The question mark gives an intonation, yes, I agree. Yet you can have a question without it. In fact, I looked through that book I was reading and noted that just about every question mark is replaced by a comma in conversations between two particular characters. Those questions with commas are answered by the other characters, who recognize the interrogatives despite the lack of question mark. So what makes these quotes not questions, if they are answered and recognized as such?

My argument is--or was, rather--related to the OP's question--I wanted to recognize that it is possible to write questions in a very pared down way, without 'asked,' without even a question mark, if it fits the tone.

If you look at my above posts, I definitely attempted to answer the OP as well as addressed what I thought was an incomplete argument on the basis of the question mark. The question was about redundancy, right? Well, I was making an argument that a question mark, while not necessarily redundant, can be removed and a question remains a question.

I don't need anyone to verify this, like I said, I've seen it before and I'm confident it's perfectly legitimate.

Language is and should be an evolving form of communication. Conventions are conventions, not hard and fast rules--not in fiction, in my reading experience. You just have to be aware of what your choices are doing to your narrative. And I wanted to present the OP this choice, if he or she wasn't already aware of it.

I'm not trying to drum up arguments, but it's hard not to get a little upset when you can feel the back and forth slipping past your intended thesis. I thought what I was saying made perfect sense. I guess not.

Sue-proof Armour said:

Yes, yes it is. You already have a question mark and when a writer does 'he asked, or 'she asked' I generally stop reading.

Click to expand...

Then you must stop reading an awful lot of books.

I was reading my daughter a Harry Potter book the other day and noticed the format used was:

"Blah blah blah?" he said.

Maybe that's what they think you should do, instead of "Blah blah blah?" he asked. Still seems weird to me to say someone said a question, but maybe that's just me.

To me, using it every single line can get redundant. Like this:

"what's the weather like?" she asked
"isn't supposed to rain today?" he asked
"who knows it the weatherman even knows what he's talking about?" she asked

The overuse gets old to read. Using it sparingly though, or to indicate who started the conversation would be great. And as someone else mentioned, if there are multiple people in the scene (3 or more) then it's needed to clarify who's talking.