Georgia Writers Association - Serving a diverse writing community

Capitalizing Seasons and Attributing Dialogue

Q: I read an article in the newspaper that referred to the season of autumn, which we also refer to as fall. In the article, the word “fall” was not capitalized. I have always wondered about this issue, usually capitalizing it, but never feeling sure of what’s right.

A: To answer your question, I'll quote from my own book doctor's desk reference book, Purge Your Prose of Problems. It is available through my website, www.zebraeditor.com.

Autumn, Fall, Spring, Summer, and Winter

Seasons of the year are not capitalized unless they appear at the beginning of a sentence or in a headline. Examples: I’ll see you in the spring. Fall weather dries my skin. The headline said Save Now on Winter Coats. Aren’t the autumn leaves beautiful?

By the way, you’re not alone in your confusion. Many writers incorrectly assume that seasons should be capitalized, and when no editor is on the staff to correct the error, the mistake makes its way into print. Others see it in print and assume it’s correct, if it’s in print. No wonder people get confused!

Q: I have noticed that in a lot of books, whenever you see a conversation, not every response ends with something like John said, John asked, John replied, etc. Sometimes the characters just talk, and that part is omitted. Many times there is a mixture. Could you please explain to me how this works?

A: Creative writers avoid any type of repetition, including patterns. When every piece of dialogue begins or ends with words that attribute the dialogue to that person (these words are called attributions or tags), the writing grows repetitious and boring. Some writers avoid repeating the words “said” or “asked” by using other attributions, such as replied, responded, requested, retorted, denied, agreed, and such, but those words stick out even worse than “said” does.

Attributions ensure that readers know who spoke. Because correct dialogue format calls for a new paragraph for each new person who speaks, when only two people are in a scene, writers need to attribute only the first couple of pieces of dialogue. After that, the format (each new paragraph) indicates that the other person is responding, so no attributions are necessary. Below is an example of a two-way conversation. Notice how the first two pieces of dialogue are attributed to the speakers, but after those first two attributions, readers clearly know who is speaking. Notice, too, that I put one attribution after the dialogue and one attribution before the dialogue, to avoid placing the attribution in the same place in both sentences.

“John, would you please take out the trash?” Mary asked.

John said, “I took it out yesterday. It’s your turn.”

“I just cleaned the whole house, while you read the newspaper. The least you can do is take out the trash.”

“Can I please finish reading this article? Why do I have to jump up instantly and perform every command you make?”

Another great way to reduce the volume of attributions is to use action that shows who is speaking, and again, correct format puts each person’s actions in a separate paragraph. Below is the same conversation using action for the attribution. Notice how the use of “asked” and “said” is no longer necessary, because we clearly see who did and said what, by the format.

“John, please take out the trash.” Mary pointed to an overflowing trashcan.

John dropped his newspaper into his lap. “I took it out yesterday. It’s your turn.”

“I just cleaned the whole house, while you read the newspaper. The least you can do is take out the trash.”

“Can I please finish reading this article?” John threw his hands into the air. “Why do I have to jump up instantly and perform every command you make?”

When three or more people are speaking in a scene, each piece of dialogue must be attributed to a specific speaker, so some form of attribution is required. In that case, interspersing tags with action keeps the repetition down. Below is an example.

“John, please take out the trash.” Mary pointed to an overflowing trashcan.

John dropped his newspaper into his lap. “I took it out yesterday. It’s your turn.”

Five-year-old Sammy walked into the living room with tears in his eyes. “Please don’t fight, Mommy and Daddy. I’ll take the trash out.”

Mary turned to her son. “You’re a dear, but I just cleaned the whole house, while your father read the newspaper. The least he can do is take out the trash.”

“Can I please finish reading this article?” John threw his hands into the air. “Why do I have to jump up instantly and perform every command you make?”

Bobbie Christmas, book editor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at www.zebraeditor.com.

Word Counts, Capitalizing Song Titles, Plurals, Credit Cards for Book Sales

Q: What formula do agents and editors use to come up with the word count?

A: The word count is estimation, not exact science, so almost any formula will work, especially once your manuscript is in standard manuscript format. I can’t speak for each agent and editor, for they differ in opinions, but usually any one of the following methods will work well enough to give agents and editors an idea of the length of your manuscript:

The easiest method is to use your word-processing program. Go to Tools and select Word Count.

The next most common method is to rely on standard manuscript format to give you an estimate. Your manuscript should be in standard manuscript format already, which is 12-point Courier type, double-spaced, with margins of about an inch on all sides. In this format, each page averages about 250 words. If your manuscript is 200 standard manuscript pages long, you multiply 200 pages by 250 words to get the estimated word count.

Other methods rely on character count, dividing by an average length, and so forth. You don’t have to go to that much trouble, I assure you. The people you deal with only want to know if your manuscript is too short or too long. A close estimate is good enough. An exact count won’t change that vital piece of information by much.

Q: When mentioning an album name in my book, like song titles, do you lowercase conjunctions (and), prepositions (of, for), and articles (a, the), even when they appear capitalized on the album covers?

Actual cover: Wheels Of A Dream

In my book: Wheels of a Dream

A: You have hit on a style issue. Advertising, labels, and such often capitalize things at will. Advertising style is not the same as Chicago Style.

Chicago Style, the standard for the book publishing industry, has specific rules for when things should be capitalized, written out, abbreviated, or punctuated. It says, in part, the following: “In title capitalization, the first and last words and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that) are capitalized. Articles (a, an, the) and coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor) are lowercased unless they are the first or last word.

What you have in your manuscript, Wheels of a Dream, is correct as far as capitalization goes, but I'm not sure if it is an album or a song title. Chicago Style calls for putting quotation marks around the title of a song, but it calls for italicizing the title of a long musical composition, such as an opera or an album.

Q: When it comes to plurals for last names, which is correct? Hueys or Huey’s or Hueys’? The Robersons or Roberson’s or Robersons’? Microsoft Word always flags these as misspelled. I can never tell the difference.

A: Microsoft Word probably flags them because the words themselves, Hueys and Robersons, are not in the dictionary, plus the computer program cannot decipher whether the name is plural or possessive.

If it is strictly plural, it takes no apostrophe. Examples:

We ate dinner with Joe Huey and the rest of the Hueys.

Mike Roberson said all the Robersons are visiting next week.

If it is plural possessive, it needs an apostrophe. Examples:

We ate dinner at the Hueys’ house.

The Robersons’ dog is visiting, too.

Note that if the name ends in an s, the plural possessive for book style is to add an apostrophe and an s. Examples:

The Jones’s house is painted white.

I agree with all of the Samuels’s suggestions.

Q: When I bought your book at a recent seminar, you used a credit card company that notified me via e-mail of my charge going through. Can you tell me about the company? Who are they, and how do I contact them? I need to have the ability to accept credit card payments when I sell my books, so I am shopping around.

A: The company I use is ProPay, and it can be found at www.propay.com. A colleague highly recommended ProPay, and I have been completely satisfied with the service I get. Through ProPay I can take almost any credit card by e-mail, phone, or in person and later transfer those funds to my own bank.

Bobbie Christmas, book editor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at www.zebraeditor.com.

Ask the Book Doctor: About Writing for the Market and Avoiding Plagiarism

Q: I've written a short story [synopsis deleted]. I had three people--one fellow writer and two avid readers who are not writers--read this story and provide feedback. They all love the story, except each one told me that she doesn't like the ending. Each offered suggestions for alternative endings that range from fairy tale to Barney the Dinosaur endings. (I love you; you love me; oh, how happy we will be.)

I ended it the way I did because it made more sense to me. [The protagonist] grew up a little and learned that sometimes it's okay to assert himself, even if it brings conflict. Our hero was content with the way the story ended.

I know I'm writing for a market, and I want my stories to entertain and satisfy readers. But I don't feel right ending a story in a way that I personally think is a cheesy cliché. Should I write something I wouldn't read myself, just because others like it? Can I even trust the response of such a small sample of readers, even though their independent feedback concerning the ending is resounding and consistent? I know this is a terribly subjective question, but I'd like to know what you would do.

A: You may be asking the wrong person. To be able to make a living writing, I have made it my motto that "I'll write anything for money." As a result I have written and/or edited many things that did not reflect my personal opinions.

Examine your motives. If indeed you are writing to sell your work, you do have to consider the market, and if you consider the market--your focus group sounds like a small but good specimen--you will change the ending to suit the market. If you write for yourself without hope of selling your work, you can write anything you want, including gibberish, and it won't matter. In that case, you can make the ending as unpleasing to the public as you wish, because in reality the public will probably never see it.

You are the god who created your story. You can control the outcome, depending upon your goals. As you know, the endings of many movies have been changed when focus groups did not like the first ending. As a result, some movies have become blockbusters that may have otherwise bombed, if the ending had not changed.

Q: With all the stories of plagiarism in the news, how do you keep honest when writing a researched article?

A: The plagiarism in the news tends to refer to fiction--stories allegedly created from thin air--not nonfiction, which is information gathered from various sources. In nonfiction, you can cite your sources within the article and reword information so sentences are not exactly as written in your sources. When you show where your information originated, you should be in the clear, as long as you do not copy information from another source and allege that you alone originated the material.

To clarify, in a nonfiction article, you may refer to other sources by writing something like this:

Has New Orleans recovered yet from its Hurricane Katrina devastation? Not according to the news and those who visited there a few months after the storm. In a Washington Post article, journalist Tom Calvert reported having seen a group of teenagers living without adult supervision under the Burlington Bridge in New Orleans.

Media Specialist David Baker with the Georgia State Public Library System attended a conference in New Orleans ten months after Katrina and said, "It looks like a third-world country that has been hit by a bomb. Nothing’s been done. I could just scream."

Bobbie Christmas, book doctor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at www.zebraeditor.com.

Typography, Italics vs. Underlines, Contracts, and More

Q: I want to ask about the TM symbol you use after your Find & Refine Method. How do I get this symbol high up in the copy? When typing in Word, when I add this to my copy, the TM symbol hits in the middle of the last letter of what I'm trying to indicate is trademarked, not at the top of the letter, like yours. I'm not computer savvy, so I can't figure it out.

A: I have several answers. On my Mac, I have to go to “insert symbol” and select TM, and it automatically is raised on the line when it appears. On my PC in Word, I type (TM) and when I type the second parenthesis, the computer automatically deletes the parentheses and changes the TM into the smaller superscript mark. I myself was shocked when it did it the first time. Yet another way on a PC is to type TM, highlight it, right click on it, go to Font, and choose Superscript. There may be other ways as well.

Q: When I first started on a novel in 1995, publishers wanted italicized words to be underlined instead, even though we had the capability of changing the font on our computers. Is this still the case? Can we now use the appropriate font, or must we inquire from each publisher? I have visions of having two manuscripts, one with and one without italics.

A: It’s always best to check with the publisher, but The Chicago Manual of Style says to use italics. If you do use underlines, tell the publisher your intent that underlined items are to be set in italics in the printed version.

Q: I plan to self-publish my book. Do you have a simple work-for-hire contract I can use with my illustrator?

A: The following Web site has a simple work-for-hire contract. It may be exactly what you need: http://www.aw-wrdsmth.com/FAQ/work_for_hire.html

Q: In Write In Style I did not see anywhere you may have addressed this directly, but when writing internal dialogue, I take it from your book that you would never say he told himself or I told myself something. Is that correct?

A: This conclusion might be drawn from the fact that in my book I say “thought to himself” is redundant, because we cannot think to anyone but ourselves. We can, however, tell other people things, just as we can tell ourselves things, so I have no problem with saying he told himself, she told herself, or I told myself.

What’s your question about writing or publishing? Bobbie Christmas, book doctor, author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), and owner of Zebra Communications, will answer your questions, too. Send them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Read more “Ask the Book Doctor” questions and answers at www.zebraeditor.com.