At 02:43 PM 11/19/2003 -0600, Gary Kleppe wrote:

Quoting Mark Shurtleff <gaijin@sfcmd.com>:

Depends entirely on the author, Gary. You make that bet with me and
you'd lose. :)

'sokay, winning ninety-five times out of a hundred is enough for me. :P

*snicker*

Relatively Absent, chapter 5: "You have quite a bit of 'other family',

Ranma-kun," Aiko smiled. "I'm sorry circumstances have prevented you
from
knowing anything of your Mother's family up until now, but I hope to
rectify that as soon as possible."

Done quite deliberately, since I got tired of using the "[character
name]
said with a smile" format as was done in previous chapters.

Um... what's wrong with:

"You have quite a bit of 'other family', Ranma-kun." Aiko smiled. "I'm sorry
circumstances have prevented you from knowing anything of your Mother's family
up until now, but I hope to rectify that as soon as possible."

-Gary

It's different in temporal sequencing and gives a slightly erroneous 
emotional connotation, since the smiling is intended to occur *during* the 
uttering of the first sentence as opposed to before or after. The closest 
equivalent using your form requires the "Aiko smiled." to be placed at the 
beginning of the sentence after merging the two quote blocks.

There's nothing actually wrong with that - stylistically. Unfortunately it 
still does not describe the exact sequence of events. The only truly 
accurate alternative is "Aiko said with a smile" as a replacement in the 
original's current location, the very form I was getting a might bit weary of.

I have a fairly consistent style of putting scene action breaks in the 
middle of conversation quote blocks, with only the occasional use of pre- 
or -post break forms. It conveys a specific synchronicity that does not 
occur when the action break is made a separate entity.


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