How annoying is the lack of quotation marks to you?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Does that mean he is free to have dinner with me? I will buy.

Have at it!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I think it would be harder to read non-conventional stuff on an ereader. I don't have problems with double spaces between paragraphs (which happens for ereaders for some books or shorts and there are various technical reasons for it) but the lack of quotes might make it very unreadable for me on an ereader.

The books that didn't have quotes that I did read were back in the paper days. I haven't come across any on ereader.

Hi:

I do think it could be harder. When you're reading McCarthy, in print, and you get to the end of a paragraph, sans closing quotes, you can glance back and see where/who you are, and determine if the speaker is done speaking, or if the next paragraph should be inferred to be the next speaker, or a continuation of the previous, etc. If you're looking at the last half of a paragraph, on a recto (right-hand) page, for example. McCarthy's pretty clear, so he's likely not the best exemplar, but you know what I mean.

But if you have that same issue on an e-reader, you have to click-page back, to see where you are. I think it's the inability to do a quick glance at the previous "page," if I try to think about it; that glancing back is something most of us do so (almost) autonomically, like breathing, that we don't think about it until we have to click back to see the prior page.

That's not very clearly stated, but when I think about how I feel about lack of dialogue tags, quotation marks, etc., on an ebook, I definitely do have a more negative reaction than I do for print. And I believe it's due to the constrained reading space, vis-a-vis quick visual cues. It's one thing to keep glancing back a single page, to figure out who's speaking to whom, but if I have to keep clicking back...yes, that would eventually frustrate me enough to yank me out of the story/book/novel.

FWIW.

Hitch

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Haha. I think you have him confused with Charlaine Harris on the titles. The girlfriend who he can save but doesn't want to make into a vampire is a not an uncommon thing in Urban fantasy. Anyway I like him pretentions and all.

Helen

Already Dead? Yes, yes, it was that "can save/won't tell her" thing. It is common...and perhaps that is why it bugged me. But honestly I rarely like vamp stories. His were easily some of the best I've read. I generally don't read a lot of them. I liked Charlaine's series ... for one book. I read book 2 and maybe 3? Or I skipped to book 5? I don't know. That type of saga doesn't do a dang thing for me. It wasn't the vamps, it was the lack of a good mystery plot and the drama of "everyone loves Sookie - 95 boyfriends."

The whole thing about vamps is they are... dead. I dunno. Like I said, he did a good job and the story had me flipping pages madly. But I just didn't want to read the second one.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Already Dead? Yes, yes, it was that "can save/won't tell her" thing. It is common...and perhaps that is why it bugged me. But honestly I rarely like vamp stories. His were easily some of the best I've read. I generally don't read a lot of them. I liked Charlaine's series ... for one book. I read book 2 and maybe 3? Or I skipped to book 5? I don't know. That type of saga doesn't do a dang thing for me. It wasn't the vamps, it was the lack of a good mystery plot and the drama of "everyone loves Sookie - 95 boyfriends."

The whole thing about vamps is they are... dead. I dunno. Like I said, he did a good job and the story had me flipping pages madly. But I just didn't want to read the second one.

Indeed, I often wondered why the Sookie books and similar are shelved under mysteries at my library and Randy Wayne White and Harlen Coben are under general fiction. The ways of librarians are strange and mysterious at times

Ebooks are wonderful because we can pick and chose more easily what we want to read. Me, I try not to read too many in a series in a row, no matter how much I love them I get bored when I do.

I think that punctuation does not bother me as much as excessive sex or obscenity or derogatory writing. High swearing tolerance, but too old to care about the sex Couldn't do Chuck Palanuik at all as all the derogatory remarks depressed me.

It is a bit bizarre that I managed to read 3 books pretty close together though and not consciously notice the lack of quotes, but probably a good thing not to be irritated by it.

Helen

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Indeed, I often wondered why the Sookie books and similar are shelved under mysteries at my library and Randy Wayne White and Harlen Coben are under general fiction. The ways of librarians are strange and mysterious at times

Ebooks are wonderful because we can pick and chose more easily what we want to read. Me, I try not to read too many in a series in a row, no matter how much I love them I get bored when I do.

I think that punctuation does not bother me as much as excessive sex or obscenity or derogatory writing. High swearing tolerance, but too old to care about the sex Couldn't do Chuck Palanuik at all as all the derogatory remarks depressed me.

It is a bit bizarre that I managed to read 3 books pretty close together though and not consciously notice the lack of quotes, but probably a good thing not to be irritated by it.

Helen

I think the publishers generally submit the genre (look in the front of a paperback and you'll sometimes see the library filing) but in the case of Harris, she was known as a mystery writer long before she wrote Sookie. She had a cozy series and another series that wasn't quite cozy. I really liked the one series. Her cozy was a bit too cozy for me, but the other one, Lily Bard, I really enjoyed. The Sookie was good for a book but not so much after that and I LOATHED the graveyard book/series. That was far too creepy the way she wrote the whole brother/sister thing even after it was "cleared" up.

Hitch, I completely agree with your points.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I think the publishers generally submit the genre (look in the front of a paperback and you'll sometimes see the library filing) but in the case of Harris, she was known as a mystery writer long before she wrote Sookie. She had a cozy series and another series that wasn't quite cozy. I really liked the one series. Her cozy was a bit too cozy for me, but the other one, Lily Bard, I really enjoyed. The Sookie was good for a book but not so much after that and I LOATHED the graveyard book/series. That was far too creepy the way she wrote the whole brother/sister thing even after it was "cleared" up.

Hitch, I completely agree with your points.

Ahh, I liked Aurora Teagarden, Lily Bard I only read one. Was okay. I'm not so much into cozies now. And I still enjoy chick-lit almost mysteries like Evanovich's Stephanie Plum or Lois Greiman on occasion just because they are funny,

For me ebooks are easier to page back and forth in, although I had no problem with paper. It is easier to go back and forth between larger gaps in a paper book, you can just stick your thumb in the general area, I know I have done it but not often, and usually because I wasn't paying attention the first time through.

The only author I can recall having to go back more than once is Robert K. Tanenbaum. But that was because he has a lot of characters and subplots seguing back and forth, and I would sometimes miss a point of interaction. Nothing to do with punctuation. Now weird margins and double spaced lines, don't get me started on that

Helen

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Ahh, I liked Aurora Teagarden, Lily Bard I only read one. Was okay. I'm not so much into cozies now. And I still enjoy chick-lit almost mysteries like Evanovich's Stephanie Plum or Lois Greiman on occasion just because they are funny,

For me ebooks are easier to page back and forth in, although I had no problem with paper. It is easier to go back and forth between larger gaps in a paper book, you can just stick your thumb in the general area, I know I have done it but not often, and usually because I wasn't paying attention the first time through.

The only author I can recall having to go back more than once is Robert K. Tanenbaum. But that was because he has a lot of characters and subplots seguing back and forth, and I would sometimes miss a point of interaction. Nothing to do with punctuation. Now weird margins and double spaced lines, don't get me started on that

Helen

The double spacing between paragraphs never bothered me, although I prefer it without. With a reader, I don't like double-spaced lines because it just messes with the flow. There's not enough on each page.

I like Evanovich too--well, the early ones. I stopped reading at about 10 and probably should have stopped with 8. The last two I read were so-so.

I like Julie Moffet in that same vein and Karen Cantwell's Take the Monkey's and Run. Neither is high literature, but I am a geek and enjoy the laughs. Same with Elizabeth Peter's Vicky Bliss series. I know some didn't care for it, but I thought the series got better and better. The highlight is obviously characterization. When I went back after years and years and reread the first, I was amazed at how the mystery plot wasn't ... well, there were what I'll call resolution issues. I remember the series so fondly I had forgotten about Peters tendency to leave a few threads lying about the place.

[Julius Caesar]

Here's an idea. How about an eBook that could make quotation in one color like blue and non quotation in a different color like black? Would it be cool or would it be too distracting?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Julius Caesar

Would it be cool or would it be too distracting?

It would be neither on a b&w eink screen.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Julius Caesar

Here's an idea. How about an eBook that could make quotation in one color like blue and non quotation in a different color like black? Would it be cool or would it be too distracting?

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It would be neither on a b&w eink screen.

It would be easy enough to do, but as DiapDealer says, completely useless on an e-ink screen.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by avantman42

It would be easy enough to do, but as DiapDealer says, completely useless on an e-ink screen.

Actually, it would be kind of a pita to do, really. It's easy enough to say, oh, well, just find dialogue and make it BLUE, but not all dialogue starts at the left margin, so you'd have to do regex, and then span the sections that were dialogue, and you'd end up with some that looks like this:

Freddy reposed on the chaise. "Dahlink," he observed, "those silk stockings drive me positively wild."

...which, as a reader, would drive me positively wild. ;-) And, of course, as Diap said...bad news on an e-reader.

Hitch

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Actually, it would be kind of a pita to do, really. It's easy enough to say, oh, well, just find dialogue and make it BLUE, but not all dialogue starts at the left margin, so you'd have to do regex, and then span the sections that were dialogue, and you'd end up with some that looks like this:

Freddy reposed on the chaise. "Dahlink," he observed, "those silk stockings drive me positively wild."

...which, as a reader, would drive me positively wild. ;-) And, of course, as Diap said...bad news on an e-reader.

Hitch

I have to admit, I didn't give a lot of thought to how much work would be involved. I just figured someone better than me at RegExp could code one to do it

I'm reading this on my phone, and Tapatalk seems to have lost any formatting in your post, so I just see black text on white background :-)

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by avantman42

I have to admit, I didn't give a lot of thought to how much work would be involved. I just figured someone better than me at RegExp could code one to do it

I'm reading this on my phone, and Tapatalk seems to have lost any formatting in your post, so I just see black text on white background :-)

LOL! The irony in that is hysterical. The dialogue was blue, and the narrative was black. :-)

Hitch

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Hitch

LOL! The irony in that is hysterical. The dialogue was blue, and the narrative was black. :-)

Hitch

It amused me :-) I'll try to remember to look at it on a proper computer in the morning to get the full effect.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by avantman42

It amused me :-) I'll try to remember to look at it on a proper computer in the morning to get the full effect.

Well, at least we've had a proper beta test. :-D

Hitch