User blog comment:HerrMana/Reality Realized Round 1 - Results/@comment-1874924-20150728032636

On the question of capitalizing the first word of a quotation, the answer is, "It depends." If the quotation mark begins a line of dialogue, then yes, the first word should be in proper case. If the quotation mark resumes an interrupted line, e.g. one where the dialogue tag is in the middle (which the author might do to control pacing) then no, the first word wouldn't normally be capitalized.

Concerning the rule of ending quotations with a comma instead of a period: I'm not sure, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that this might be a U.S. vs. Commonwealth thing. Perhaps some of our Commonwealth residents could shed some light on this?