HMM, perplexed| Small Dialogue Help

Dex-chan lover
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Feb 16, 2023
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OI, So I've begun working on a story focusing around and on one of my Favorite Characters I've made. Currently I'm 8 pages into Chapter 2, but I'm stumped on the minor topic of wordage.

"‘What can we do?’ Punurim wondered. ‘We cannot have exhausted every facet, have we?’"

Now I know "Wondered" is simplistic, but, that's not the point here. It's the latter portion of his dialogue. "We cannot have exhausted every facet, have we?" It sounds odd, right? Should it be "Can we?" I don't know! XD
 
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Probably:
"We cannot have XYZ, can we?" or depending on tense, "We couldn't have XYZ, could we?"
Alternately:
"We haven't XYZ, have we?" or "We didn't XYZ, did we?"
As you have it phrased, the 'have we' would seem to be a more distinct question on its own than a clause:
"We cannot have XYZ." He paused, reconsidering his statement. "Have we?"
 
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"What can we do?" Punurim wondered. "Surely we haven't exhausted every option, have we?"
 

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