punctuation

"We must look everywhere," he said, turned around and then added, "Let's start here."

Should the last sentence (Let's start here) start with lower case or upper case? Since the speech is interrupted, it probably should start with the lower case. However, it is a new sentence, not a part of the interrupted one.

I understand these examples:

• "If you want my opinion," John said, "this is ridiculous."

("If you want my opinion, this is ridiculous." — the whole sentence is interrupted in the middle, hence the lower case in the second part.)

• "He only had one drink," the bartender said. "Now look at him."

("He only had one drink. Now look at him." — two sentences, the second one starts with upper case.)

But if it is a combination of the two, what should one use?

Best Answer

In dialog, as in other text, every sentence, even a continuation of a previous, interrupted sentence -- if the continuation is a sentence -- should be capitalized.

"I want to," he started to say, before pausing for a long time, then continuing, "eat at McDonald's."

"I want to," he started to say, before pausing for a long time, then continuing, "I want to eat at McDonald's."

A comma before attribution is just a convention. It seems that sentences in dialog should end with periods, but if followed by attribution, periods would ruin the flow of reading:

"I feed bad." she said. (seemingly correct, reads wrong)

"I feel bad," she said. (Doesn't seem right, but reads right)

"I feel bad" she said. (Makes sense in some ways, but also reads wrong, in my mind at least. Maybe this will become standard some day)