Grammar question.
I have a sentence like so.
“I think,” the deep-voiced man paused as if considering, “that one will do nicely”
My overriding thought is that this is a parenthetical expression offset by commas. However, my dialog punctuating thought is that you can't pause speech so I should have full stops. My third thought is that I should use ("I think..." the deep-voiced etc.) but in that case maybe it should be ("I think... that one will do nicely.") since the pause is there in punctuation.
Any opinions?
The way it's structured, the action would be set off from the speech with em dashes. Or you could indicate the pause with the ellipses, like you said.
Em dashes are fine if you want to use them; it's in the Chicago Manual of Style and everything. Like so:
“I think”--the deep-voiced man paused as if considering--“that one will do nicely.”
I like your original method, Gud. I know I've used it. I used to go with the dashes, but they're visually very abrupt, and I think it interferes with the musing quality of the statement.
You can always punctuate anything however you'd like. But a copy editor will change it.
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