quotation marks

There are a few writers (including a couple of well-known ones) who don't use quotation marks. At best it's a personal idiosyncrasy; at worse it just looks affected.

In the US use double quotation marks (").

I'm not aware of many novels published in English that don't use quotation marks. Is it something they do in literary fiction more? I've never heard anyone say that they should be avoided because they make things look less cluttered. They're there for clarity and ease of reading, not to look nice.

As the previous poster said, in writing for an US publication, use the double quotes (single quotes only if a quote is nested inside another quotation). In the UK, I think you can still use either kind.

I thought you didn't read books.

And if you want to write a novel there are far more important things to consider than whether to use single or double quotes or no quotes.

Justin K said:

I'm seeing books with and without them for dialogue. It looks less cluttered to omit them, but it gets confusing. And if so, ' or "

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Roxxsmom said:

I'm not aware of many novels published in English that don't use quotation marks. Is it something they do in literary fiction more?

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Of the current writers who don't always use quotation marks, the most well-known are probably Cormac McCarthy, E.L. Doctorow, and Charles Frazier.

Jhumpa Lahiri did this in The Lowland. It was a break from her previous style, so I found it mildly annoying. It didn't prevent me from finishing the book, though.

If the book doesn't use quotation marks, it's probably written in the French style of using dashed to replace the quotation marks. There's probably one out there that doesn't do this, but I've never read a novel that didn't use one or the other.

And unless you are very, very famous, and are writing a literary novel, just stick to quotation marks.

Maryn said:

I just finished a UK-edition Jonathan Kellerman novel which used single quotes for dialogue. (All spelling was US, FWIW.) I don't recall him doing that in the US books in the same series, but it's been a while since I read one. I'm away from home and cannot check.

In general, the "rule" is that until you're a big enough deal to have some publishing clout, you follow the standard rules for grammar and punctuation. (Your characters can use terrible grammar in dialogue, of course--but you're the one doing the punctuation for them.)

Maryn, on the road

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Well, single quotes are the same as double quotes, if you live in the right country. Not everyone has the same punctuation, or uses it the same way, we do in the United States.

A lot of authors are using single quotation marks now. I don't see the point - why not use the standard double?

rchapman1 said:

A lot of authors are using single quotation marks now. I don't see the point - why not use the standard double?

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I kind of agree. Are single quotes acceptable when you are querying a MS?

Out of interest, I looked up the Australian Style Manual, as we tend to borrow randomly from US and UK styles.

In Aust. the standard is apparently to use minimal punctuation, therefore single quotations marks are used for speech. Double quotation marks are used for quotes within quotes.

The only time no quotation marks are used is when it is indirect speech, or in plays, transcripts etc where the name of the speaker precedes the speech.

rchapman1 said:

A lot of authors are using single quotation marks now. I don't see the point - why not use the standard double?

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It may be the publisher's house style rather than the author's preference, for all we know.

Add Roddy Doyle to the list of writers using en-dashes instead of quote marks. In his adult novels anyway - his children's/YA novels use quote marks, apparently at his publisher's insistence.

A famous past user of en-dashes rather than quotes was James Joyce, who once referred to quotation marks as "perverted commas".

I've said it privately, but let me say it publicly: please do not make digs at other people in this room because of what they said elsewhere. It doesn't actually help people clear up their grammatical and syntactic questions.

As I understand it, this would be your first novel. In that case, I suggest following the standard usage of double quotation marks. It's a clear signal to the reader that what is between the marks is dialogue. It's a stylistic choice not to use them, and one you can't really make until you've mastered the basic use.

Caveat: I am, of course, speaking of standard usage in written American English. If that's not what you're writing in, disregard.

British English uses a different convention for quotation marks than American English.

In British English, the main body of dialogue is enclosed in single quotation marks, and a "quote inside a quote" is in double quotation marks.

In American English, the usage is reversed. The main body of dialogue is in double quotation marks, and a "quote inside a quote" is in single quotation marks.

Who puts removes them/writes without them is immaterial: it's still affected and silly.

Roxxsmom said:

I'm not aware of many novels published in English that don't use quotation marks. Is it something they do in literary fiction more?

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Maybe. But there are a fair number of examples: James Joyce, Cormac McCarthy, Charles Frazier (Cold Mountain) come quickly to mind. Also, the punctuation conventions in other countries may differ. I seem to recall that South African Alan Paton uses what amounts to an em-dash to precede each line of dialogue, with no use of any form of quotation mark otherwise.

caw

Realspiritik said:

In British English, the main body of dialogue is enclosed in single quotation marks, and a "quote inside a quote" is in double quotation marks.

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Not necessarily. I'm British and I was taught double-quotes at school (starting in 1969) and that's what I use to this day. I've seen UK-published books that use double quotes too.

blacbird said:

I seem to recall that South African Alan Paton uses what amounts to an em-dash to precede each line of dialogue, with no use of any form of quotation mark otherwise.

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He did, as I remember too, though it's over thirty years since I read Cry, the Beloved Country.

In the sections narrated by Fred in John Fowles's The Collector, Fred's dialogue has no quote marks, while other characters' has.

And I'm currently reading a new YA novel (Meg Rosoff's Picture Me Gone) that doesn't use quote marks at all. It's not the only YA example of this I've read lately either.

Maryn said:

I just finished a UK-edition Jonathan Kellerman novel which used single quotes for dialogue. (All spelling was US, FWIW.) I don't recall him doing that in the US books in the same series, but it's been a while since I read one. I'm away from home and cannot check.

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I've been reading a series by a British writer, and I purchased the last one as an ebook instead of paper (they only just made this series available over here as an ebook on B&N). It took me about 200 pages to notice that the spelling and punctuation (including single quotes instead of double) is British style. I guess they took the nook ebook straight from the British edition. The covers are different from the US also. Don't find it terribly distracting (to my fuzzy old eyes double and single quotes look almost the same on a reader screen anyway), but no quotation marks at all might take some getting used to. I suppose I would eventually if there was some other way of making it clear that it was spoken and not narrative.

I haven't read all those authors mentioned up thread (though I always think I should try something by McCarthy), so it's just not an approach I've run across terribly often.

When you write without " you run the risk of confusion and thus your writing quality has to be higher. " works and people expect it. There would have to be a good reason to do otherwise.

My current WIP, i was naturally leaving out punctuation at the end of dialogue "I am happy" he said. <--note the lack of comma. I don't know why i got into the habit but i didn't mind it until people told me how annoying it was to read. So i changed it. Ultimately you have to be working towards making your story as engaging as possible. Strange punctuation destroys that.

eyeblink said:

Not necessarily. I'm British and I was taught double-quotes at school (starting in 1969) and that's what I use to this day. I've seen UK-published books that use double quotes too.

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I also learned double quotes from British education. But sadly, most British novels now use single quotes. Pity my poor copy editor who has to change everything, since I refuse to write with single quotes.

That said, I am about to self-publish a ms and it has double quotes. I will be converting it soon and I guess since it will be international, it's OK to leave the double quotes? It would be such a PITA to change it all, though I guess there is some simple find-and-replace system.

Monique Roffey is a British writer who apparently did away with quotation marks for one of her novels -- I read it in a review -- I listened to the novel on audio, and really loved it, and would have read it in print, but not without quotation marks. I am just annoyed by things like that.

As an American, I've noticed that the combination of single quotes and serif fonts sometimes causes me to miss the opening quotation mark when I'm reading a UK edition of a book. Especially when it precedes a capital "T", it seems to blend in with the letter.

I just thought this was interesting

I've found another example of a contemporary writer who doesn't use quotation marks - Tim Winton. I'm currently reading his collection The Turning.