Is this proper use of quotation marks?

Question

I have to write a story for my class and I was wondering if this was correct ...

Ex.

"What do you want?" His voice was cold and lifeless. "I can't help you anymore ..." I tried to ignore his attitude. " ... just leave me alone." he moaned.

Is that proper? To have a conversation in one big paragraph? Any grammar problems?

and another ex.)

" No ..." he pondered. " ... go away."

Is the go in the continued quotation supposed to be capitalized?

Answer 1

When the dialog changes characters you need to start a new paragraph,  It helps the reader keep things sorted out. 

You do not need to capitalize the "go" because it should all be in one sentence.

"No," he pondered, "go away."

Your use of quotations is excellent, however, the extensive use of the elipses (...) is not a good idea.

As a screenplay writer I use them ALL of the time because actors are too stupid to pause when needed, they will just rush right through dialog if I don't use the elipses.  You should not do that in a normal book or story.  Use other devices to pause and space the comments, such as you have done.

Excellent work, I can tell you are a creative writer.

Answer 2

"What do you want?" His voice was cold and lifeless. "I can't help you anymore."

I tried to ignore his attitude.

"Just leave me alone," he moaned.

"No," he pondered as his voice trailed off. "Go away."

You can use "as his voice trailed off" (for example) instead of the ...

Yes, the G would be a new sentence.  Same speaker same paragraph.

No spaces between the begin quotes and the sentence.  Same with the end quotes, no space between the punctuation and the end quote.  The punctuation always comes before the quote.  

Answer 3

I doubt the ellipsis ("...") is correct unless there are other words that go before this. I think in a conversation it wouldn't be correct to use them considering you'll never talk like that because the other person would never understand what you're saying. As for a conversation in a big paragraph it would probably look neater in separate lines, but I guess with the right punctuation it shouldn't hurt. Just toss out the ellipsis.

Answer 4

i don't think that all of the... are necessary but no the go is correct but I'm pretty sure that you have to hit enter when someone new starts talking

Answer 5

First piece of advice: cut out the ellipses (the ...'s). They really shouldn't be used in writing like this except in the rare case for stylistic reasons. For the most part, hesitations can be implied in your dialogue, so you don't actually need to write them out.

As for your quotation marks, it's not really clear who's speaking so it's hard to say. FOr your second example, you're basically right but it shouldn't have the ellipses and "No, go away" isn't something he's thinking about so "pondered" is the wrong verb. So it should be like this:

"No," he ______, "go away."

Now, in the first example, is someone else saying "I can't help you anymore"? If so, it should be another paragraph because when you switch to another person speaking, they should have a new paragraph. If it's the same person, though, the same paragraph along with the "I tried to ignore his attitude" is okay. Just end "I can't help you anymore" with a period (.) not an ellipses (...). Also, write "Just leave me alone," (with the comma and no ellipses) because the sentence ends with "he moaned" not "me alone".

That make sense?