Ugh... Help! Dashes and interrupted dialogue

[Peter Ahlstrom]

This is really annoying me, and I can't find an authoritative answer.

If you've got some dialogue that is interrupted in the middle for an action rather than a dialogue tag, how do you punctuate it?

"I have to--" he looked over his shoulder "--get home before they find me."

"I have to--" he looked over his shoulder, "--get home before they find me."

"I have to"--he looked over his shoulder--"get home before they find me."

Etc. etc. Help...

[stacer]

I know! I know!

It's only in Chicago 15th edition, so you're out of luck with a previous edition. I even bookmarked it, I use it so often.  It's 6.90:

An em dash or a pair of em dashes may indicate a sudden break in thought or sentence structure or an interruption in dialogue....

If the break belongs to the surrounding sentence rather than to the quoted material, then the em dashes must appear outside the quotation marks.

"Someday he's going to hit one of those long shots, and"--his voice turned huffy--"I won't be there to see it."

NOTE: It took me several books to realize this, and then only when the copyeditor started doing it and I looked it up again--there is no space between the quote mark and the em dash.

[Shrain]

Oh, cool. I guessed right! I thought it was probably the third example. Hurray!

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Thank you, stacer. I was hoping you'd come through! Yeah, I still have only the 14th edition. Guess I should upgrade...

My other option was to look through some of my fiction books around here that I'm sure will have examples, but there aren't that many around the office.

Usually I don't have to deal with dialogue tags etc. at all, but today I was working on a Gundam Seed novel.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Looks like I need to update my reference library too. *sigh*

[Spriggan]

Why?  I don't have a "reference" Libra and I do quite fine thank you very much.

[Fellfrosch]

That's good to know. Like Ookla, I'm still lurking in the primitive pages of the 14th edition.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Stacer, help!!

Okay, I've got this sentence...

"And just to be sure you don't get too carried away, Yzak"--Creuset turned and faced Athrun--"Athrun will be in charge."

The problem here is that without the inserted action, the sentence would be "And just to be sure you don't get too carried away, Yzak--Athrun will be in charge." So the break DOES belong to the quoted material (indicating that Chicago's guidance in 6.90 might not apply)--or doesn't it?

The original has

"And just to be sure you don't get too carried way, Yzak," Creuset turned and faced Athrun, "Athrun will be in charge."

but I know that's wrong... *sigh*

Yzak--"--Creuset

Yzak,"--Creset

Yzak..."--Creuset

??

[stacer]

My solution: recast. But of course, I'm usually at an earlier stage of editing and can do that.

Chicago doesn't say anything beyond what I told you. I'd say to just follow that general rule anyway--use the dashes outside the quotes. That's how I do it.

i.e.--"And just to be sure you don't get too carried away, Yzak"--Creuset turned and faced Athrun--"Athrun will be in charge."

[stacer]

Either that or:

"And just to be sure you don't get too carried away, Yzak--" Creuset turned and faced Athrun. "Athrun will be in charge."

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Yeah, I'm going ahead with the way I wrote it at the beginning of my post... I'd prefer to avoid recasting, because when said out loud the sentence comes off as perfectly reasonable. And I'd rather avoid your second suggestion, since the two parts in quotes really are part of the same sentence.

Well, thanks for the help!  

Another punctuation instance that smacks of imprecision to me is something like

When she says, "Have you gone completely mad?" tell her that madness is in the eye of the beholder.

Even though the quoted material is the object of the verb "says," and in English we don't put commas between verbs and their objects, an exception is made for dialogue so that the object of a dialogue tag verb is almost always preceded by a comma. But if that question mark were not there, the sentence would be

When she says, "You've gone completely mad," tell her that madness is in the eye of the beholder.

In that case the commas are balanced, but in the first case a comma is balanced by a question mark, which just sits wrong with me. But saying

When she says, "Have you gone completely mad?," tell her that madness is in the eye of the beholder.

would be wrong as well. Annoying.

[EDIT:] Actually my example there was just me trying to remember what it was that annoyed me and not quite remembering. But now I've got it:

Her question, "Are you really that stupid?" was rude.

It's an appositive, so it's got commas around it, but the 2nd comma is missing because of the question mark. Annoying.

[The Jade Knight]

This may be non-standard, but I'd actually prefer commas over dashes in this context.

[Nessa]

This may be non-standard, but I'd actually prefer commas over dashes in this context.

I agree. It feels less abrupt...unless that's what you're going for.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Commas are definitely nonstandard in edited prose in cases like this. You can't write

"I wonder what Joe is doing," he scratched his head.

so you're equally unable to write

"I wonder what," he scratched his head, "Joe is doing."

Correct versions:
"I wonder what Joe is doing." He scratched his head.
"I wonder what"--he scratched his head--"Joe is doing."

Of course, Patrick O'Brien often writes stuff like

"I wonder what," scratching his head, "Joe is doing."

which would also be considered nonstandard--though I don't know how he punctuates it, since I've only listened to his books on tape. If it were like this

"I wonder what," he said, scratching his head, "Joe is doing."

that would be standard, but O'Brien leaves off the "he said" part a lot. But if you do say "he said, scratching his head," the ordering of events becomes unclear; is the headscratching going on between the two utterances, or is it happening during the entire utterance, or only during the first part, or at some definite time approximately in the middle of the utterance but being overlapped by same?

[The Jade Knight]

"I wonder what Joe is doing"--he scratched his head.   would also be nonstandard.

My point is that what is standard seems highly arbitrary in this case, and I prefer nonstandard usage.

Realize that, according to The Elements of Style using "people" as a plural for "person" is nonstandard (and unacceptable).

To me, it makes more sense to say "They're going to come from this direction," he pointed to the door, "and we need to be ready." than "They're going to come from this directoin"--he pointed to the door--"and we need to be ready."  I think the dashes strike me as particularly cumbersome here.

But then, British usage is considered nonstandard in the US, and I prefer British quote placement over American, so...