On Thu, 18 Apr 1996, Robert K Bentley wrote:

        >I've done that myself.  But that's no excuse for having "bad 
writing" in the rest of the story.  Example here:  Putting a quoted 
thought, followed by a sentence. [ "That's right," he turned around and 
put down the sword. ]  I've seen Bentley do that a lot in his stories.

    So....

    "That's right," he said. He turned around and put down the sword. 
or
    "That's right," he said then turned around and put down the sword.

Or, perhaps:

     "That's right."  He turned around and put down the sword.

Making it into two sentences is perfectly fine, and might even help it 
flow better.  It's just when you try to compress them into a single 
run-on that it gets awkward.

--
Scott Johnson |
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