Liz here. Back when I first moved to Denver, I saw a sign that was an inspiration for a post on proper quotation use. And now it's time for the second installment of proper quotation usage.
We know that quotations are used in dialogue. But what happens when you have a pair of really long-winded characters engaged in extensive conversation?
Let's say you're writing the final scene of a mystery in the style of the classic mystery writers: Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Your detective has identified the murderer, and now they're about to tell all parties present how they figured it out.
Clearly, this is going to be a lengthy explanation. Grab a sandwich.
When one character speaks for multiple pages at a time, opening quotations are still used at the beginning of paragraphs, but the ending quotations are omitted from the end of the paragraphs. For example:
“…You can see, Ms. Crabtree, that Mr. Cotton had planned this very thoroughly.
“When Mr. Cotton first arrived in London, he ensured that his sister would be on holiday so that he could use her flat as an operation hub. …”
When your character has finished their monologue, close your quotations.
PRACTICE
Take fifteen minutes and write a detective wrap-up monologue of your own. Insert paragraph breaks for your detective to breathe.
“I should have known who did it. There was only one person who had access to digitalis, who knew she had heart trouble, who was not at the concert before the reception, and who had the most compelling reason to poison Emma.
Leonard knew she had heart trouble, after all he had lived with her for ten years. He grows foxglove along the side of their cottage. It’s the tall plant with pendulant, bell like flowers, pink with freckles of maroon. You’ve seen it if you’ve ever been there in spring. It causes the heart to beat frantically and then stop.
Leonard was not at the concert because he was overseeing the tables being set up for the reception. That is when he crushed the digitalis leaves and put them in her salad.
His one error was in telling the waiter that she was to have the salad without tomatoes because she didn’t care for tomatoes. He didn’t think of her complaining to the waiter that tomatoes were left off of her salad. And he didn’t realize that I know she loves tomatoes and that I would be sitting right beside Emma. When I heard the waiter say that Leonard had insisted that Emma be given the tomato free salad, I suspected but I couldn’t understand why he would murder her. I thought there marriage was a happy one.
What is so sad about this murder it that, she loved him without restraint. He was her muse. She had written all of her beautiful music for him. Her fame was the result of a long love song, written for the man she loved. But he was not happy with being a muse. He wanted to be an artist and when it didn’t happen he became bitter, and he became angry, and he decided he would rather not have her there to remind him of what he thought of as failure.
I wonder if he realized how hard her heart would beat and how it she would feel when it seemed to burst from her chest. I wonder if she was looking at his face when she died”.
Marianne, this was wonderful. I think you will have to write a whole detective story just so you can put this at the end.
The only problem is that you didn’t use your quotation marks correctly. Here’s how the first three paragraphs should look:
“I should have known who did it. There was only one person who had access to digitalis, who knew she had heart trouble, who was not at the concert before the reception, and who had the most compelling reason to poison Emma.
“Leonard knew she had heart trouble, after all he had lived with her for ten years. He grows foxglove along the side of their cottage. It’s the tall plant with pendulant, bell like flowers, pink with freckles of maroon. You’ve seen it if you’ve ever been there in spring. It causes the heart to beat frantically and then stop.
“Leonard was not at the concert because he was overseeing the tables being set up for the reception. That is when he crushed the digitalis leaves and put them in her salad.
And then on that last paragraph, you would close the quotes, just as you did.
However, this piece is so wonderful. I love the attention to detail, the way you know the plant name and it’s effects on the body, and the way you knew already what the murderers one mistake was. And that last paragraph, Marianne, takes this story out of the realm of normal murder mystery and into poetry. Beautifully done.
Love the whole tomato aspect of this story. That the narrator noticed this mundane detail–the victim’s love of tomatoes–is such an authentic touch.
“I should have known who did it. There was only one person who had access to digitalis, who knew she had heart trouble, who was not at the concert before the reception, and who had the most compelling reason to poison Emma.
Leonard knew she had heart trouble, after all he had lived with her for ten years. He grows foxglove along the side of their cottage. It’s the tall plant with pendulant, bell like flowers, pink with freckles of maroon. You’ve seen it if you’ve ever been there in spring. It causes the heart to beat frantically and then stop.
Leonard was not at the concert because he was overseeing the tables being set up for the reception. That is when he crushed the digitalis leaves and put them in her salad.
His one error was in telling the waiter that she was to have the salad without tomatoes because she didn’t care for tomatoes. He didn’t think of her complaining to the waiter that tomatoes were left off of her salad. And he didn’t realize that I know she loves tomatoes and that I would be sitting right beside Emma. When I heard the waiter say that Leonard had insisted that Emma be given the tomato free salad, I suspected but I couldn’t understand why he would murder her. I thought there marriage was a happy one.
What is so sad about this murder it that, she loved him without restraint. He was her muse. She had written all of her beautiful music for him. Her fame was the result of a long love song, written for the man she loved. But he was not happy with being a muse. He wanted to be an artist and when it didn’t happen he became bitter, and he became angry, and he decided he would rather not have her there to remind him of what he thought of as failure.
I wonder if he realized how hard her heart would beat and how it she would feel when it seemed to burst from her chest. I wonder if she was looking at his face when she died”.
Marianne, this was wonderful. I think you will have to write a whole detective story just so you can put this at the end.
The only problem is that you didn’t use your quotation marks correctly. Here’s how the first three paragraphs should look:
“I should have known who did it. There was only one person who had access to digitalis, who knew she had heart trouble, who was not at the concert before the reception, and who had the most compelling reason to poison Emma.
“Leonard knew she had heart trouble, after all he had lived with her for ten years. He grows foxglove along the side of their cottage. It’s the tall plant with pendulant, bell like flowers, pink with freckles of maroon. You’ve seen it if you’ve ever been there in spring. It causes the heart to beat frantically and then stop.
“Leonard was not at the concert because he was overseeing the tables being set up for the reception. That is when he crushed the digitalis leaves and put them in her salad.
And then on that last paragraph, you would close the quotes, just as you did.
However, this piece is so wonderful. I love the attention to detail, the way you know the plant name and it’s effects on the body, and the way you knew already what the murderers one mistake was. And that last paragraph, Marianne, takes this story out of the realm of normal murder mystery and into poetry. Beautifully done.
Love the whole tomato aspect of this story. That the narrator noticed this mundane detail–the victim’s love of tomatoes–is such an authentic touch.
Confession–this took me longer than 15 minutes. Hard assignment!
Miss Lily surreptitiously adjusted her corset while her audience became quiet. They’d had enough suspense—they looked to her to make things finally clear.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Middletown’s librarian-turned-sleuth began, “I’m here this afternoon to bring some long-awaited justice to the case of the purloined pie and, more important, to reveal the truth behind the untimely demise of your neighbor.
“As you know, I have uncovered evidence, circumstantial and real, that has shown a clear and indisputable link between the person or persons who removed the Christmas pie from its cooling rack on Annie Beasley’s back porch and the cunning devil who followed up the theft of the pies by murdering Mrs. Beasley in cold blood.
“At the outset of this case it was difficult to prove a connection between the missing back-porch pie and the present but deathly cold Mrs. Beasley, who was found deceased under a blanket on the front porch swing the evening of the very day the pie was stolen.
“How was I able to make the crucial connection? Well might you ask.”
Here Miss Lily cast her eyes modestly downward.
“When Annie Beasley’s niece, Sarah Teasley, came to pick up the pie from the porch on Tuesday morning and found it missing, she was annoyed but not alarmed. She knew that her aunt, after cooking the pie and leaving it on the porch to cool and be picked up by Miss Teasley, had planned to leave Middleton on the three o’clock stagecoach to nearby Mountain Valley, where she would spend three salubrious days visiting her elderly sister.
“The mystery might never have been solved, except the murderer made the mistake of stealing and eating the pie before depriving Mrs. Beasley of her life. After examining the crime scene, I was able to identify the red stains on the swing’s blanket, which was used to smother Mrs. Beasley, as matching the stains on the towels in the Beasley kitchen—towels that were blotched with red from being used in the making of cherry pies.
“From here, it was a simple matter to go clothesline scouting by way of the alley running behind all the neighborhood houses until I came upon the clothesline of Harriet Tubblemeyer, on which flapped an oversized large white apron bearing faded but visible red stains across the front.
“Despite Miss Tubblemeyer’s claims that she had been eating pomegranates, I was able to appeal to her conscience and elicit a confession that the stains were, as I knew all along, from Mrs. Beasley’s pie. When confronted with the evidence, Harriet Tubblemeyer broke down sobbing, and seemed almost as appalled as I was that her jealousy of Mrs. Beasley’s cooking skills could have led her to commit such an unspeakable act. Upset as she was, she tried to justify her actions by describing how Mrs. Beasley had lorded her cooking skills over all the other neighborhood ladies.
“I felt compelled to tell her that her actions could not be justified in my eyes, but that perhaps her maker would in the long run prove to be more compassionate. Privately, I doubt this is so, but I felt that under the circumstances offering a wretched murderer a little hope could cost me nothing”
Ha! This is so fun, Elaine. The case of the purloined pie? The librarian-turned-sleuth? I can’t decide which is more ghastly, the stealing of the Christmas pies or the murder of poor Mrs. Beasley. Probably the pies.
Love this part, “How was I able to make the crucial connection? Well might you ask.” Just perfect.
In a real murder mystery, you might drag this out a bit more, delve more deeply into Harriet’s motives. But for the purposes of this exercise, it’s a job very well done. Thanks Elaine!
Oh and well done with the quotes!
Thanks, Joe. I’m doing my best to stay within the 15-minute limit–hope to get better at that. And thanks for this blog. It provides a good daily nudge to move me toward what I really want to do, that is, write.
I’m so glad Elaine 🙂 Yes, the time limit is your friend. But, of course, it’s great if you go over the time limit because that means that you’ll have practiced longer!
Elaine I love it! I like the part when she tries to explain the stain as pomegranate. The sequence of events is funny, the pie being eaten, the stain and then the finding the apron on the line. I can see her trying to resist eating the pie and then giving in. Mrs. Beasley must have been such a good cook that Mrs. Tubblemeyer just couldn’t resist. It’s also funny and I like mysteries that have a humous touch.
Thanks Marianne. I was afraid I was verging on slapstick!
Confession–this took me longer than 15 minutes. Hard assignment!
Miss Lily surreptitiously adjusted her corset while her audience became quiet. They’d had enough suspense—they looked to her to make things finally clear.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Middletown’s librarian-turned-sleuth began, “I’m here this afternoon to bring some long-awaited justice to the case of the purloined pie and, more important, to reveal the truth behind the untimely demise of your neighbor.
“As you know, I have uncovered evidence, circumstantial and real, that has shown a clear and indisputable link between the person or persons who removed the Christmas pie from its cooling rack on Annie Beasley’s back porch and the cunning devil who followed up the theft of the pies by murdering Mrs. Beasley in cold blood.
“At the outset of this case it was difficult to prove a connection between the missing back-porch pie and the present but deathly cold Mrs. Beasley, who was found deceased under a blanket on the front porch swing the evening of the very day the pie was stolen.
“How was I able to make the crucial connection? Well might you ask.”
Here Miss Lily cast her eyes modestly downward.
“When Annie Beasley’s niece, Sarah Teasley, came to pick up the pie from the porch on Tuesday morning and found it missing, she was annoyed but not alarmed. She knew that her aunt, after cooking the pie and leaving it on the porch to cool and be picked up by Miss Teasley, had planned to leave Middleton on the three o’clock stagecoach to nearby Mountain Valley, where she would spend three salubrious days visiting her elderly sister.
“The mystery might never have been solved, except the murderer made the mistake of stealing and eating the pie before depriving Mrs. Beasley of her life. After examining the crime scene, I was able to identify the red stains on the swing’s blanket, which was used to smother Mrs. Beasley, as matching the stains on the towels in the Beasley kitchen—towels that were blotched with red from being used in the making of cherry pies.
“From here, it was a simple matter to go clothesline scouting by way of the alley running behind all the neighborhood houses until I came upon the clothesline of Harriet Tubblemeyer, on which flapped an oversized large white apron bearing faded but visible red stains across the front.
“Despite Miss Tubblemeyer’s claims that she had been eating pomegranates, I was able to appeal to her conscience and elicit a confession that the stains were, as I knew all along, from Mrs. Beasley’s pie. When confronted with the evidence, Harriet Tubblemeyer broke down sobbing, and seemed almost as appalled as I was that her jealousy of Mrs. Beasley’s cooking skills could have led her to commit such an unspeakable act. Upset as she was, she tried to justify her actions by describing how Mrs. Beasley had lorded her cooking skills over all the other neighborhood ladies.
“I felt compelled to tell her that her actions could not be justified in my eyes, but that perhaps her maker would in the long run prove to be more compassionate. Privately, I doubt this is so, but I felt that under the circumstances offering a wretched murderer a little hope could cost me nothing”
Ha! This is so fun, Elaine. The case of the purloined pie? The librarian-turned-sleuth? I can’t decide which is more ghastly, the stealing of the Christmas pies or the murder of poor Mrs. Beasley. Probably the pies.
Love this part, “How was I able to make the crucial connection? Well might you ask.” Just perfect.
In a real murder mystery, you might drag this out a bit more, delve more deeply into Harriet’s motives. But for the purposes of this exercise, it’s a job very well done. Thanks Elaine!
Oh and well done with the quotes!
Thanks, Joe. I’m doing my best to stay within the 15-minute limit–hope to get better at that. And thanks for this blog. It provides a good daily nudge to move me toward what I really want to do, that is, write.
I’m so glad Elaine 🙂 Yes, the time limit is your friend. But, of course, it’s great if you go over the time limit because that means that you’ll have practiced longer!
Elaine I love it! I like the part when she tries to explain the stain as pomegranate. The sequence of events is funny, the pie being eaten, the stain and then the finding the apron on the line. I can see her trying to resist eating the pie and then giving in. Mrs. Beasley must have been such a good cook that Mrs. Tubblemeyer just couldn’t resist. It’s also funny and I like mysteries that have a humous touch.
Thanks Marianne. I was afraid I was verging on slapstick!
As soon as I saw Grace walk onto the crime scene, satisfaction flooded my itchy trigger finger. I knew she’d want to be here if I was returning to the scene. I told my boss yesterday I needed to stop by with CSI again knowing the snaky princess would show up.
“I’m glad you here.” I said to both of them especially to her and she flinched.
“Why are we here babe? Tell her to pack up the crew and move on.” Grace pouted at him them turned her attention to me.
“It so obvious. How can you miss it! The window was broken from the outside Detective. It was a robbery gone bad. There was no premeditation. You’ll probably never find the killer. This isn’t your first case is it?”
My boss stood next to her his eyes occasionally resting on her rear then back to my mouth. This caused my tongue to flatten inside my mouth holding back my lunch.
“You can smile your pretty face off Grace,” I said standing up straight. “It’s not going to matter. You won’t discredit me in front of my superior or whom ever you have slept with in the department. I know you have a key. You forgot a loose end. You missed the maid.
“She was there cleaning his office when he gave you the key. She was on her hands and knees wiping up the coffee he spilled behind his desk. She told me you didn’t see her.”
“Why would Charles Van Wallace the richest and smartest man in our country give me, a nobody, a key to his private office? Oh detective, you are reaching. I have no connections to the man.
“You see John, women shouldn’t be allowed to join the police department. We are too emotional when it comes to the hard stuff. She is jealous of us. I think she has a thing for you babe.”
Ignoring her, I pushed the mahogany desk a bit revealing a small blood stain. I swabbed the stain then smirked up at her.
“You see this stain. The broken coffee cup grazed your naked ankle in high heel. Probably not something you noticed till you got home, especially with what you where planning but the maid noticed and she didn’t have the proper cleaner. She moved the desk over to the left covering your one loose connection to Mr. Wallace.”
Grace’s face went from soft and warm to skeletal, eyes bulging and her hands grabbed for my throat. She knew she had lost and her last free move was revenge, but my training had her on the floor flat on her back.
“Women are in the police department to catch sociopaths just like you.” I cuffed her with my pretty smile on and it was a smug one.
Nicely done, Hazel! This is certainly an interesting twist on the classic. The younger female police detective with the police chief boss who has a loose zipper. Very interesting.
You accomplished the quotation mark exercise beautifully. Of course, I’m not surprised about that. However, I did have a bit of trouble understanding who was speaking when. You might put one or two more speaker tags in there.
I like this very much. I could see lots of opportunities to explore these characters. I think you’ve got something here 🙂
This is really helping me. Thanks for reading and giving me feedback. : )
You’re so welcome, Hazel. Glad it helped!
“How could you miss it! The window was broken from the outside Detective. It was a robbery gone bad. There was no premeditation. You’ll probably never find the killer. This isn’t your first case is it?”
My boss stood next to her his eyes occasionally resting on her rear then back to my mouth. This caused my tongue to flatten inside my mouth holding back my lunch.
“You can smile your pretty face off Grace. It’s not going to matter. You won’t discredit me in front of my superior or whom ever you have slept with in the department. I know you have a key. You forgot a loose end. You missed the maid.
“She was there cleaning his office when he gave you the key. She was on her hands and knees wiping up the coffee he spilled behind his desk. She told me you didn’t see her.”
“Why Charles Van Wallace the richest and smartest man in our country give me, a nobody a key to his private office? Oh detective, you are reaching. I have no connections to the man.
“You see John, women shouldn’t be allowed to join the police department. We are too emotional when it comes to the hard stuff. She is jealous of us. I think she has a thing for you babe.”
Ignoring her, I pushed the mahogany desk a bit revealing a small blood stain. I swabbed the stain then smiled up at her.
“You see this stain. The broken coffee cup grazed your naked ankle in high heel. Probably not something you noticed till you got home, especially with what you where planning but the maid noticed and she didn’t have the proper cleaner. She moved the desk over to the left covering your one loose connection to Mr. Wallace.”
Grace’s face turned skeletal, eyes bulging and her hands grabbed for my throat. She knew she had lost and her last free move was revenge, but my training had her on the floor flat on her back.
“Women are in the police department to catch sociopaths just like you.” And with that I cuffed her with my pretty smile on and it was a smug one.
Nicely done, Hazel! This is certainly an interesting twist on the classic. The younger female police detective with the police chief boss who has a loose zipper. Very interesting.
You accomplished the quotation mark exercise beautifully. Of course, I’m not surprised about that. However, I did have a bit of trouble understanding who was speaking when. You might put one or two more speaker tags in there.
I like this very much. I could see lots of opportunities to explore these characters. I think you’ve got something here 🙂
This is really helping me. Thanks for reading and giving me feedback. : )
You’re so welcome, Hazel. Glad it helped!
“You understand, Dr. Pepper, that there was no ransom.” Inspector Crosbaugh’s thin upper lip turned up ever so slightly in what was almost a smile.
“So, what do you suppose was the contents of the satchel that Chapman had deposited at the window sill?”
“It was no true ransom; it was, in fact, worthless–a bag of old deutschmarks, Weimar rubbish, dated 1923. The kidnappers had expected–and thought they had demanded–a king’s ransom of gold, but they received instead a satchel of outdated fiat money, the nominal value of which was equivalent to one million pounds’ value of the bullion they had sought to extort, and two clay bricks within it. Crukshank had grabbed it hurriedly from the window sill. In three quarters of an hour, the time it takes for a bus ride from Knightsbridge to Stepney, he could not have had time to recover and conceal the bloodied black shirt, so he decided to get the ransom first, and then dispose of the evidence. But when he was constrained unexpectedly to reverse his plan, the scoundrel was caught unprepared when the bus collided with the lorry, and so he tucked the shirt away under a rubbish bin, anticipating that he would later recover it under cover of darkness.
“Fifteen minutes later, after Crukshink had caught another bus for East London, the ship’s cook from the Olavian happened upon the shirt while disposing of his empty pint-bottle, and submitted it to the ship’s security officer because of its bloody condition. Mr. Heathrew then obtained from the shirt-pocket a blue-glass vial of the suspect substance.”
” …the very same substance that I later identified as arsenic,” affirmed the Doctor.
The seasoned inspector paused, breathed an uncharacteristic sigh. He looked out the window, downward at Embankment and southward at Westminster Bridge where, three weeks before, the two detectives had first considered the meaning of the phrase, ‘John Bull’s ransom will smoke out the blackshirts tomorrow.’ “Precisely,” said the Inspector, “and the blue bottle was, no doubt, the same one that Mrs. Wallris had noticed in her kitchen drawer two days before her husband’s collapse on Haymarket.”
Dr. Pepper could see, for the first time since that day, Coronation Day, the weariness in his friend’s eyes. “The deathly effects of arsenic are cumulative, are they not, Inspector?”
“Indeed they are,” said Inspector Neville Crosbaugh. “…in this case, cumulatively fatal.”
This sounds like an interesting story, full of dark complexities. The tone feels film noir, maybe because of all the nighttime buses and because it takes place by the sea. Although the English are not known for film noir, which is interesting.
Have you written mystery, Carey? I think you’d have a knack for it. I could see you writing a wonderfully twisty and complex story.
“You understand, Dr. Pepper, that there was no ransom.” Inspector Crosbaugh’s thin upper lip turned up ever so slightly in what was almost a smile.
“So, what do you suppose was the contents of the satchel that Chapman had deposited at the window sill?”
“It was no true ransom; it was, in fact, worthless–a bag of old deutschmarks, Weimar rubbish, dated 1923. The kidnappers had expected–and thought they had demanded–a king’s ransom of gold, but they received instead a satchel of outdated fiat money, the nominal value of which was equivalent to one million pounds’ value of the bullion they had sought to extort, and two clay bricks within it. Crukshank had grabbed it hurriedly from the window sill. In three quarters of an hour, the time it takes for a bus ride from Knightsbridge to Stepney, he could not have had time to recover and conceal the bloodied black shirt, so he decided to get the ransom first, and then dispose of the evidence. But when he was constrained unexpectedly to reverse his plan, the scoundrel was caught unprepared when the bus collided with the lorry, and so he tucked the shirt away under a rubbish bin, anticipating that he would later recover it under cover of darkness.
“Fifteen minutes later, after Crukshink had caught another bus for East London, the ship’s cook from the Olavian happened upon the shirt while disposing of his empty pint-bottle, and submitted it to the ship’s security officer because of its bloody condition. Mr. Heathrew then obtained from the shirt-pocket a blue-glass vial of the suspect substance.”
” …the very same substance that I later identified as arsenic,” affirmed the Doctor.
The seasoned inspector paused, breathed an uncharacteristic sigh. He looked out the window, downward at Embankment and southward at Westminster Bridge where, three weeks before, the two detectives had first considered the meaning of the phrase, ‘John Bull’s ransom will smoke out the blackshirts tomorrow.’ “Precisely,” said the Inspector, “and the blue bottle was, no doubt, the same one that Mrs. Wallris had noticed in her kitchen drawer two days before her husband’s collapse on Haymarket.”
Dr. Pepper could see, for the first time since that day, Coronation Day, the weariness in his friend’s eyes. “The deathly effects of arsenic are cumulative, are they not, Inspector?”
“Indeed they are,” said Inspector Neville Crosbaugh. “…in this case, cumulatively fatal.”
This sounds like an interesting story, full of dark complexities. The tone feels film noir, maybe because of all the nighttime buses and because it takes place by the sea. Although the English are not known for film noir, which is interesting.
Have you written mystery, Carey? I think you’d have a knack for it. I could see you writing a wonderfully twisty and complex story.
Thank you for this Liz… Really appreciating your working on my request.
You are so very welcome. I appreciate you asking and providing me with inspiration for this week!
Thank you for this Liz… Really appreciating your working on my request.
You are so very welcome. I appreciate you asking and providing me with inspiration for this week!
Thank you, Liz, for comforting this old codger with the news that the rule hasn’t changed since I was in high school. I live in fear that all that Mrs. Leighton taught me in ninth grade will change and be replaced by “The New Grammar”. My characters haven’t sufficient breath to run on for paragraph after paragraph. So I will simply say my thank you and go.
Thank you, Liz, for comforting this old codger with the news that the rule hasn’t changed since I was in high school. I live in fear that all that Mrs. Leighton taught me in ninth grade will change and be replaced by “The New Grammar”. My characters haven’t sufficient breath to run on for paragraph after paragraph. So I will simply say my thank you and go.