Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime
I'm trying to figure out whether 'heaven' should be capitalized or not. I've trawled online but views seem conflicting and I can't find a source I trust enough to take as law. What do you do?
Comments
As ever, context.
Earth is usually Earth, so why not Heaven.
I can't imagine me writing anything about a heaven or the Heaven - maybe belief is also a factor.
I'll stop now - I'm not helping.
"Heaven and Hell are 'places'. Whether or not they really exist is debatable and yet to be proven (I don't believe either place exists and am not of any denomination of Christianity), but they would still be capitalized as they are proper nouns. Make-believe places in story books are also capitalized, although they do no exist.
That said, while I know this, I actually tend not to capitalize them most of the time. I wasn't raised Christian and I never have been Christian, and it feels strange to me to capitalize them. Like I'm giving them some sort of validation in my own life. If anything, I seem them as general ideas, a concept, an idea, a metaphor. It's never come naturally to me to capitalize them and I would have to think three times before doing so. I realize this can be seen as quite disrespectful. I guess I just don't use the words often enough to worry about it much."
The main problem is I'm editing stories for the next Running out of Ink, and two stories reference heaven - one references it once in passing but capitalizes it, and the other references it several times but never capitalizes. I don't want inconsistency throughout the issue but maybe I should just leave it with the authors own choices if there doesn't seem to be a clear right or wrong?
What I'm asking is, is what this writer has done wrong?
The speech mark question for me is simple - speech marks should be outside the punctuation.
I have not heard of British and American conventions in this but this is the way I have always known to do it.
Therefore
'Don't worry,' said Mike, 'It's not the end of the world.'
is correct.
This is as I've had it explained by several authorities on the matter (can't quote one off top of head, sorry).
'There should normally be a comma, full stop, question mark or exclamation mark at the end of a piece of speech. This is GENERALLY placed before the closing inverted comma(s).'
So how do you define generally? The book doesn't.
There are times when I find it infuriating. The convention appears to be governed by style, not grammar. I'll try and look up the examples I had.
Did Bill say, "I'll be there in a minute?" wrong
Did Bill say, "I'll be there in a minute"? correct
'Did Bill say, "I'll be there in a minute"?'
or
'Did Bill say he'd be there in a minute?'
I try to take in as much as I can.
Could this be the place to come for help in the future. I have so much to learn.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/03/
http://www.eng-lang.co.uk/ogs.htm
Edited to advise; in the second link you need to scroll down to 5.13 for Quotation mark opinion.
Thankyou Jan.