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Do I need a comma after "Go!" in the following sentence?

When I said, "Go!" all the children ran up to a card and picked it up.

Does the sentence look right (with a lowercase a) or should I reword it and use the following sentence instead?

All the children ran up to a card and picked it up when I said, "Go!"

tchrist
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BJ Dela Cruz
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    I'm not sure how all the children could pick up a card (singular) unless it was very large, but if you changed it to something like, [When I said, "Go!", all the children ran up to the front of the class and each picked up a card.] looks fine to me. The alternative sentence construction is OK but lacks the impact of the first. The use of a comma after "Go!" is a matter of preference and not a rule of punctuation, but it looks better to me to use it in this instance. – Mark Hubbard Jul 07 '16 at 15:06
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    And the formulaic pre-quote comma is not mandatory (I've found a recommendation licensing and recommending a choice between zero punctuation, a comma, and a colon here; I think this is a logical, sensible, and useful practice. Here, I'd go with 'When I said "G... '. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 07 '16 at 16:22

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