Grammar Pet Peeves

[spectre]

I have this grammar pet peeve. 

When writing dialogue, if your sentence continues after your dialogue is done, don't end it with a period. If you end it with a period, it means the sentence is over. A new sentence must begin, and new sentences start with capital letters. The following examples are all correct.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello!" he screamed, purple in the face.

"Hey!" His face was purple. "What are you doing?" he screamed.

"You're crazy, but..." He trailed off. "It just might work."

She stirred her drink. "You have no idea what you're talking about." 

She picked her nose and said, "What are you looking at?"

"The trick is," he began slowly, "to have as many dramatic pauses as you can."

Note: ellipses are not periods, but a different form of punctuation. With that in mind, remember: periods always end the sentence, and must be followed by a capital letter. Quotation marks do not alter a sentence's structure on their own. Question marks and exclamation marks are not periods, and do not necessarily end the sentence. To do that without a quotation mark, however, while correct is considered archaic. The sentence below is actually also considered correct.

Was she really doing the best she could? was the question.

So it follows that the same will always be true of dialogue. 

The following sentence is incontestably incorrect and if you crack open your nearest book, I promise you'll never see it, despite it being logical at first thought.

"Hello." He said.

So is this:

"Hello to you too, stranger." she blinked up at him as she spoke.

"I love the way you say hello to me, baby." he professed.

The issue with doing this wrong is that, apart from being a lil ugly to look at capital letters in the wrong places, it really messes with your flow. You've worked hard to create an epic story -- don't fall at the flow hurdle! Grammar is there to streamline communication. Etc...

What are your grammatical pet peeves?! Or, dare I be arrogant and say, do you have any grammar questions? I would love to try to answer them for you.