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Suzanne Adair, Author
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« on: February 07, 2012, 08:44:16 AM » |
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Are you using curly or straight quotes in your books? Are curly quotation marks still the hallmark of professional writing, or is that one of those styles that's passing into the "mists of time" with traditional publishing?
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Lexi Revellian
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« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2012, 09:01:44 AM » |
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I favour curly. Much more aesthetically pleasing.
Lexi
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Carradee
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« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2012, 09:16:49 AM » |
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I generally favor straight quotes, myself. Curly quotes cause many headaches when the word processor thinks you're wrong.
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Jon Olson
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« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2012, 09:17:00 AM » |
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If you're super cool and highly literary, you don't use quotes at all, ala Cormac McCarthy. But of course, I use quote marks myself.
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ChristinePope
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« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2012, 09:24:46 AM » |
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I always use curly quotes. Too many years of typesetting books prevents me from using any other kind.  |
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Seanathin23
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« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2012, 10:17:32 AM » |
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Word has little curly quotation marks so I use those, I don't care if they are straight or curly as long as they are there.
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Kathleen Valentine
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« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2012, 10:19:27 AM » |
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Word has little curly quotation marks so I use those, I don't care if they are straight or curly as long as they are there.
Me too. |
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Sean Patrick Fox
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« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2012, 10:23:09 AM » |
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Never even thought of that until reading this thread. Obviously I was familiar with the two different styles, but I guess it just never clicked in my mind.
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Joyce DeBacco
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« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2012, 10:39:26 AM » |
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I use whatever Word puts in. I don't know what they are; they're too small for my tired old eyes to see.
Joyce
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D a l y a
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« Reply #9 on: February 07, 2012, 11:02:00 AM » |
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Darn, I thought this was a post about hair!
When you type your documents in Word, it uses "smart" quotes, and so picks the right ones for the beginnings and ends of speech. These are called left quotes and right quotes, I think.
In html, there are no smart quotes, just up-and-down ones, like the ones you'll see here on this message board. " " "
Watch yourself: if you convert your document to an epub file and THEN go in to make text changes, you might be replacing some of your left-quotes and right-quotes with straight ones, because in the software I use, it doesn't see or make smart quotes and puts in the up-down ones.
*Apologies if I'm not using the correct terms.
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Sophrosyne
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« Reply #10 on: February 07, 2012, 11:12:46 AM » |
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I use straight, because the auto-correct quotes, dashes, etc will pepper your e-book with computer code.
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Angela Kay Austin
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« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2012, 11:26:26 AM » |
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Curly. I like the way it looks.
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Feenix
Status: Jane Austen
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Gender: 
MidMO
Posts: 267
Laugh it out, or it will come out another way
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« Reply #13 on: February 07, 2012, 11:52:48 AM » |
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Hey there! I had wanted to use curly for Betrovia but when I noticed that moving from wordpad to Word and then to OpenOffice caused some quotes to be curly while the rest were straight.  So I decided to go all straight. But the short stories and part 2 of Betrovia have curly. Dave King |
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 First of the trilogy  Book II! Fall 2012! |
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Suzanne Adair, Author
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« Reply #14 on: February 07, 2012, 12:09:13 PM » |
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Hmm. Seems about half and half on this issue. I went to straight quotes when I was creating ebook files so I could avoid those sneaky code headaches. Now I'm setting up my books in CreateSpace; I've used straight quotes there, too, and I think they look fine in the Georgia font. We're clearly not talking about "inch marks" here. I've also noticed a few other authors switching to straight quotes in their POD books.
However some people have told me that straight quotes are a sign of unprofessional typesetting. If you use straight quotes on your POD, has anyone ever commented that your material looked unprofessional?
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Rin
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« Reply #15 on: February 07, 2012, 12:26:36 PM » |
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Curly, straight just looks wrong. -_-
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D a l y a
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« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2012, 12:26:44 PM » |
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There are different types of "weird computer code."
There is garbage spewed out by a word processor converting to html or epub, and then there are nice, tidly HTML Characters, which are not weird at all, but the type of language an e-reader is designed to use.
I used to do html coding, so it doesn't seem so odd to me, though I admit I still don't know *exactly* how the epub format works. I use Sigil to make my epub documents, and I can switch between a plain view and a reveal-code view ... just like the olden days of WordPerfect. Hey, old people like me, remember that? WordPerfect!
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Sarah Ettritch
Status: Dr. Seuss
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« Reply #17 on: February 07, 2012, 12:45:36 PM » |
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Darn, I thought this was a post about hair!
Me, too! I use curly quotes. |
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smreine
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« Reply #18 on: February 07, 2012, 12:47:18 PM » |
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It doesn't really matter. But be consistent. Pick a type and use it throughout the entire book.
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telracs
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« Reply #19 on: February 07, 2012, 12:50:57 PM » |
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Darn, I thought this was a post about hair!
*giggle* me too. and i wondered why hair was a topic in the Wricters' Cafe. |
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Rin
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« Reply #20 on: February 07, 2012, 01:02:35 PM » |
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*giggle*
me too. and i wondered why hair was a topic in the Wricters' Cafe.
Well, I guess it could have been a poll regarding protagonists with curly hair vs straight hair... |
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Victorine
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« Reply #21 on: February 07, 2012, 01:16:47 PM » |
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I prefer reading curly quotes, so that's what I use. But the straight ones don't totally bother me when reading.  |
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Not What She Seems - A NYT's Bestseller | The Gathering - Free on Smashwords |
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Edward C. Patterson
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« Reply #22 on: February 07, 2012, 01:23:47 PM » |
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Are you using curly or straight quotes in your books? Are curly quotation marks still the hallmark of professional writing, or is that one of those styles that's passing into the "mists of time" with traditional publishing?
There's no question about it. Curly (I do nothing straight, but that's another subject  ). Technically the straignth thingamabobs are from the typewriter age, like 2 spaces after a period (which is a gigantic no-no). Quotes are a pair - open and close. Those straight things are ugly whatevers that neither open or close and is an amateurs mistake. Edward C. Patterson Just nominated for the Queen of Mean |
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NathanWrann
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« Reply #23 on: February 07, 2012, 01:27:54 PM » |
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My Microsoft Word: Mac 2010 won't let me do straight quotes. I've done every type of fix known to man but it won't make them straight. So it used to be straight for e-books, curly for paper. Now it's curly for both.
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telracs
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« Reply #24 on: February 07, 2012, 02:12:50 PM » |
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There's no question about it. Curly (I do nothing straight, but that's another subject ). Technically the straignth thingamabobs are from the typewriter age, like 2 spaces after a period (which is a gigantic no-no). Quotes are a pair - open and close. Those straight things are ugly whatevers that neither open or close and is an amateurs mistake. Edward C. Patterson Just nominated for the Queen of Mean Wait, why is 2 spaces after a period now a no-no? |
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