Secular Elation

When reading different novels, one notices that authors don't always follow the same format and style of writing in their prose. This is particularly true of dialogue from characters. I have seen four different styles of dialogue in novels.

The first is the standard quotation marks. (Most novels I've read)
The second is shortened quotations marks. (Some novels)
The third is a dash, without quotation marks. (Example is Cold Mountain
The fourth is basically an indentation, with no marks at all to indicate dialogue (example is Andersonville)
So, which do you prefer?

Monkeybot

I prefer the double quotes, I don't mind the single quotes, and I loathe the other two methods. Of course, as long as it's consistent, I can probably adapt to any of them.

Godless Wonder

I think the last two suck. They make it look like you're playing Zork, or are in an IRC session, which is fine, so long as that's what your novel's trying to acheive. Usually it isn't what your novel's trying to convey. Don't most "real" typeset books use an open quote and a close quote which are not quite identical? ``Something like this?''

Secular Elation

Well most all novels I've seen that use quotation marks use opposing marks at each end, in which the first mark points one direction and the other marks point the opposite way. In terms of size and font, they're the same. I can't demonstrate with the quotation mark on this computer because they aren't pointed one way or the other, they're totally vertical (")

Friar Bellows

�You mean like this?� asked Friar Bellows.

Deadbeat

I could be imagining things, but I find the single quotations more often in books printed in the UK - wonder if it's a 'British thing'?

On the other hand, I always use the double quotes in my own work, so my preference is pretty clear.

Hedwig

As an English major, I had to go with the standard.

femme piquant

I prefer the standard. I've also seen quotation marks <<like this>> in certain French texts, IIRC. Those aren't too bad once you get used to them.

Katarzyna

The ones I've seen are opposite of those, >>like this<<. They were also smaller.

Kat

spock84

I've read a couple of Discworld books, and they have those shortened quotation marks. I found it really difficult to read since occasionally would confuse them with apostrophes (which is what they really are).