🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Nov22.230654.45607@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> randal@pylon.physics.colostate.edu (randal rheinheimer) writes:
>I've come across a problem in my all-too-amateurish writing and am asking those  
>more experienced (or just more imaginative) for help.  There is a certain flow  
>I wish to maintain in putting a thought or a description inside a spoken  
>sentence, but no particular construction seems right to me.  Here is an example  
>of the sort of thing I'm working with:
>
>She said, "I'm posting you about my problem--" Her hands became clumsy on the  
>keyboard. "--and I hope you're able to help me."
>
>That's the best construction I had come up with, so I knew that it was past  
>time to get help; it's just not right to put a complete sentence in the middle  
>of the spoken phrase.  Possibly the dashes could be placed outside the  
>quotation marks:

No, the punctuation is ok. I've seen this construction in the work
of excellent writers. But in this case you might want to try
different arrangements to get it to "sound right". On the other hand
sometimes the saying is more important than the sounding.

Nigel