I am writing speech such as:
"There is just one problem" said she "I don't think my friend will
like it."
What is the correct way of punctuating this? I could put up to three full stops in the text but I am not confident.
Answer
This is a matter of style, like all issues of punctuation, and as such you should consider adhering to the the rules of your manual of style. Since you've already decided to confuse your reader by salting your prose with "a little poetry," you may well decide to adopt your own idiosyncratic standard of punctuation. I, myself, prefer the Chicago Manual of Style, which recommends ending a quoted first declaration with a comma and the speaker-identifying clause with a period:
"There is just one problem," she said. "I don't think my friend will like it."
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