Splitting dialogue

[Writer61]

On my recently published story, Casual Wednesday, I received this comment:

I liked the story, but had a little trouble reading it. In a conversation, a change of paragraph generally indicates a change in person talking. Several times, I had to stop and reread in order to get enough context to determine which lady was speaking. It disturbed the flow of enjoying the story.

On checking the text, I realised the person was referring to breaks in dialogue where, although it was the same person speaking, I had started a new paragraph to indicate a pause. I was taught to indicate this by not closing the preceding paragraph with a double quote, which is what I had done. I posted a comment pointing this out.

This morning, I had another comment:

I wonder how many people (at least younger ones) are unaware of the convention about a paragraph with a missing " at the end.

How common is such ignorance? Did you know this convention? Do you avoid splitting dialogue to avoid this?

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I do split dialogue into paragraphs. I will use a phrase like, "Joan continued, 'And another thing! I hate watermelon, stop wearing watermelon cologne!'"

 

[usable001]

Do you avoid splitting dialogue to avoid this?

No, quite the opposite. I tend to break up dialogue with action, but have a personal rule against doing that twice in a single paragraph, so always split those paragraphs into two (or more, as needed).

The video file began with an old clip of himself from many years ago. "Why do you want to contact me?"

He remembered the interview. He had been talking about how people only contacted him because they wanted something selfish from him.

The clip cut to a woman sitting in a chair. Her business suit was fashionable, but designed for a completely different body build than the woman who stretched it in unflattering ways. Her posture was terrible, too. She sat on a barstool like the one he had used in the original interview, but slumped over like a turtle ready to retreat back into her shell. "I want to see something exist, and I can't make it on my own-"

Christopher paused the video, then pulled out a piece of stationery to send his assistant an angry note. This woman—this stranger—had the audacity to ask for something she wanted, and was so clueless as to include a clip of him complaining about the exact same thing? The gall.

He uncorked an ink pot for his pen, then glanced up at the paused video, while he calmed long enough to write coherent sentences. Past the selfishness and lack of self-awareness, there was something in the woman's eyes… Fear.

Whoever this stranger was, her expression wasn't hopeful or even desperate. She was terrified.

Clean calligraphy pen still in hand, Christopher restarted the video.

"-not for myself, you understand," she continued. "I want this to exist whether I'm attached to the project at all."

Did she mean it? People said all kinds of things if they thought the words would get them what they wanted.

"I have this… design for a… for a whipping booth."

 

[BeechLeaf]

I know about it; I doubt however I've ever used it in my normal writing. I don't think it's at all common in modern fiction, so many readers might not be aware of it.

To avoid using this convention, I split up speeches with bits of action, or speech tags like 'continued' or 'went on'. In any case I try to make sure speakers alternate in paragraphs even if I have to force it by slightly extraneous matter.

One of my stories used it abundantly (in a parody of Frankenstein), got rejected for dialogue formatting, and I resubmitted pointing out the convention, so it was accepted. But be aware there may be an automatic rejection if you do this too much.

 

[Writer61]

I should add that I was taught to start a new paragraph when the subject changes. I feel that should apply whether the text is dialogue or not.

 

[Voboy]

I wonder how many people (at least younger ones) are unaware of the convention about a paragraph with a missing " at the end.

How common is such ignorance? Did you know this convention? Do you avoid splitting dialogue to avoid this?

I am well aware of it and I have often used it... in lengthy nonfiction quotes (usually using the quoted author's paragraph breaks) that aren't quite long enough to indent and put into italics.

I would NEVER use that construction in a fiction piece merely to indicate a pause. Honestly, I'd have been as confused (and annoyed) as your commenter was.

 

[TheLobster]

How common is such ignorance?

These days, probably very common. It strikes me as an old-school technique that is not very popular in this literary day and age.

Did you know this convention?

I only learned about it once I started writing myself.

Do you avoid splitting dialogue to avoid this?

I split dialogues all the time, but using speech tags, and almost never more than once per paragraph, just like @usable001.

More to the point, though... Since I was curious, to see a Literotica story with a really long and sprawling dialogue that'd require this rarely-used technique, I went to your story and saw a few instances like this:



And honestly, I don't think you should do it this way. This isn't a long speech that warrants spanning multiple paragraphs, you are just inserting a needless whitespace break that could either be removed or turned into a tag-break, for example like this:

"Honestly, I don't know," she replied, with a bit of hesitation in her voice. "I have seen you, and other members of team, (...)"

 

[Writer61]

This isn't a long speech that warrants spanning multiple paragraphs, you are just inserting a needless whitespace break that could either be removed or turned into a tag-break,

I was trying to indicate her hesitation before continuing to speak.

But since the original comment, I have been using other ways to indicate such a pause. However, my current WIP has some pieces of dialogue with a change of subject that I am finding harder to dodge around.

 

[EmilyMiller]

On my recently published story, Casual Wednesday, I received this comment:

I liked the story, but had a little trouble reading it. In a conversation, a change of paragraph generally indicates a change in person talking. Several times, I had to stop and reread in order to get enough context to determine which lady was speaking. It disturbed the flow of enjoying the story.

On checking the text, I realised the person was referring to breaks in dialogue where, although it was the same person speaking, I had started a new paragraph to indicate a pause. I was taught to indicate this by not closing the preceding paragraph with a double quote, which is what I had done. I posted a comment pointing this out.

This morning, I had another comment:

I wonder how many people (at least younger ones) are unaware of the convention about a paragraph with a missing " at the end.

How common is such ignorance? Did you know this convention? Do you avoid splitting dialogue to avoid this?

I only use the multi paragraph dialog punctuation very seldomly. It’s typically reserved for some rallying call by the protagonist in a supernatural story. People seldom talk that way IRL.

 

[BeechLeaf]

I think it could still be used* if you had one person telling a long story, continuous and uninterrupted. But outside that, I would avoid it, even if what the person said would work better as two paragraphs than one. Put some wrapping around it so that you don't have to choose this old-fashioned and literary convention.

* and mention it in the admin note

 

[TheLobster]

I was trying to indicate her hesitation before continuing to speak.

Breaking a dialogue into paragraphs doesn't indicate that. It's purely a visual aid to make long speeches more readable.

So if you want something else, then either use a speech tag, or punctuation (ellipsis / em-dash), or just let the dialogue words themselves indicate to the reader the way the character is speaking.

 

[usable001]

my current WIP has some pieces of dialogue with a change of subject that I am finding harder to dodge around.

Perhaps, think of it this way...

If you had two people with a similar style of speech talking back and forth, each using only short sentences, you could technically get away with putting a dialogue tag on the first two paragraphs and then never again. With only two people in the room, each new, properly formatted paragraph would indicate who was talking simply by its position relative to those first few lines.

In reality, however, readers would get lost after going back and forth only a few times. Although not technically required, the reader needs more from the author to avoid getting lost.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Yeah, exactly: my rule of thumb is a speech tag about every four speeches, even if there's only two people and their styles are different. I know, because when I read my own writing months later, and there are eight speeches without a tag, I have to go back up and count, work out who said what, and put a tag in.

The paragraphing question is like that. In theory you could have one speaker speaking multiple paragraphs. In practice, find ways of avoiding this.

 

[usable001]

Repeated, with pauses in speech in mind...

"If you had two people with a similar style of speech talking back and forth, each using only short sentences, you could technically get away with putting a dialogue tag on the first two paragraphs and then never again." Refusing to stay behind the lecturn, Mr. Penn paced back and forth across the stage. "With only two people in the room, each new, properly formatted paragraph would indicate who was talking simply by its position relative to those first few lines."

"In reality, however, readers would get lost after going back and forth only a few times." Penn paused for effect, then pointed dramatically at Writer61. "Although not technically required, the reader needs more from you, the author. to avoid getting lost."

Doing it that way also avoids the "talking heads in a white room" problem.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

So if you want something else, then either use a speech tag, or punctuation (ellipsis / em-dash), or just let the dialogue words themselves indicate to the reader the way the character is speaking.

Or just indicate the pause.

Janet was ranting now. "No! You do not get to tell me how I feel, jackass!" She took a deep breath. "You are devaluing my identity when you insist that I have to feel the way you would feel in this situation. I'm me. Not you."

 

[usable001]

In theory you could have one speaker speaking multiple paragraphs. In practice, find ways of avoiding this.

One of my favorite pieces from my own writing, years ago, is a two-page-long rant with only one person talking the entire time.

I decided to place the rant in the castle kitchen. The noble lady in question decides to take out her frustrations on a stack of dead chickens while she talks. She hacks away with a big cleaver while she yells at the protagonist, and servants skurry around, trying to keep meat in front of her without getting cut, themselves.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Oh yes, a huge rant, by all means. Just like narration in classic literature, Frankenstein or Heart of Darkness. There it just goes on and on, and the reader can see what's going on.

 

[Writer61]

One of my favorite pieces from my own writing, years ago, is a two-page-long rant with only one person talking the entire time.

I decided to place the rant in the castle kitchen. The noble lady in question decides to take out her frustrations on a stack of dead chickens while she talks. She hacks away with a big cleaver while she yells at the protagonist, and servants skurry around, trying to keep meat in front of her without getting cut, themselves.

Great, but did you break it up?? If so, how?

 

[usable001]

One of my favorite pieces from my own writing, years ago ...

A better example than anything I have ever written is when a character's mouth says one thing while their hands and body say something completely different, and both are important to the story. Count Adhemar explaining the rules of jousting in the movie A Knight's Tale is a great example.

Imagine how much of the meaning you would lose from that scene if you only wrote down what Adhemar said.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

I've done it. Rarely though, and I think about it a bunch and wonder if people will miss it. But when I think it's necessary, I split it on longer dialogue where there's a change in topic without it needing feedback.

So far I've not received negative comments on it.

 

[liliput1]

On my recently published story, Casual Wednesday, I received this comment:

I liked the story, but had a little trouble reading it. In a conversation, a change of paragraph generally indicates a change in person talking. Several times, I had to stop and reread in order to get enough context to determine which lady was speaking. It disturbed the flow of enjoying the story.

On checking the text, I realised the person was referring to breaks in dialogue where, although it was the same person speaking, I had started a new paragraph to indicate a pause. I was taught to indicate this by not closing the preceding paragraph with a double quote, which is what I had done. I posted a comment pointing this out.

This morning, I had another comment:

I wonder how many people (at least younger ones) are unaware of the convention about a paragraph with a missing " at the end.

How common is such ignorance? Did you know this convention? Do you avoid splitting dialogue to avoid this?

I haven't posted a comment of the sort you mention but I've thought it a handful of times.

In your head you know which voice you've assigned to each line of dialog, but here nobody puts "Agnes said." at the end of a line of text. Someone here (THBGato perhaps?) suggested that leaving out the conversational markers like, "she asked" and "he replied" is an affectation that started in YA fiction quite some time ago and has worked its way here.

Where I usually get tripped up on this is when one of the people in the conversation only reacts with body language and no verbal response. Then the next three lines of dialog are ambiguous about who is who, and suddenly you find dialog that must belong to one character and you've read it in the voice of the other, and now you have to back up and figure out when you swapped them. It's kinda jarring, and I think you need stage directions for that.

"Am I right?"

Sarah stared at the floor. Jane continued,

"If that's really how you feel, then [...]"

That's how you fix nonverbal communication skips. And I almost never see it here. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

 

[usable001]

Great, but did you break it up?? If so, how?

Pretty much the way I described earlier: ranting lady waving a knife around.

I looked up the passage, and it was one page long instead of two, but that novel was published seven years ago, so a little brain fog is expected. The rant is toward the tail end of a fantasy novel, so Lady Elise throws out a lot of terms the reader would understand by this point.

"What are you doing to my barony?” Lady Elena said without greeting when Jeb was shown, still dirty from the trail and stable, into the castle’s kitchen. The Lady of Thesscore was shorter than any lord Jeb had met, nearly as short as Jeb, but thick and curvy and dressed in the finest fabric. As she spoke, she attacked a pile of vegetables before her with savage efficiency. The knife she wielded was as long as Jeb’s forearm. Guards circled Jeb, but the kitchen staff was making an effort to be elsewhere.

“Lord Ravnos and I just arrived. I’m afraid I don’t —”

“First, my husband returns from the capital and tells me he's bringing some tart home.” She swiped the eviscerated vegetables into a pot, her rings leaving a streak of gold in Jeb’s eyes at the speed of her movement. A servant deposited a stack of plucked chickens beside his lady then scurried for safety. “Then, the Gray itself shows up in my barony, warning of an attack from Cormeum — which Duke Vinchell says isn't happening if he has anything to say about it, by the way.”

“You went to Vinchell, in Cormeum?”

“Don’t interrupt!” Lady Elena pointed her knife at Jeb and then chopped a thigh from the rest of the bird with a single swipe of her blade before attacking the other limbs.

“Then, my personal guard starts babbling about a shade telling them that the Winter Prince is arriving — a fact the Gray didn’t see fit to mention.”

“And finally …” Lady Elena chopped hard, her body jiggling with the blow and the chicken was halved from breastbone to spine. “I start getting reports that the Baron himself is picking fights with his own villages instead of collecting the harvest the way he usually does. Immediately after meeting you!”

Jeb stood silent while Lady Elena dismembered and halved another bird.

“Well?” The Lady set down the knife and held out a hand to her side. The servant reappeared with a towel.

Jeb fought to contain all the emotions thundering through his head. She was here! The body was different, the voice different, but Jeb would have recognized that fire anywhere. Finally, his roiling emotions boiled down to one thought. “For hundreds of years, I've always loved you. Even when you've hated me.”

Lady Elena’s face turned nearly purple. “Get. Her. Out.”

“Him. I'm a him.” Jeb had no clue why he was grinning like an idiot.

“Out! Take her to Baron Ravnos room, lock her in and put Nonse with him … Her ... It.”

***

Jeb was still grinning when he was shoved, rather unceremoniously, into a well-appointed guest room where [Lord Inius Ravnos] and Gerge, his manservant, waited.

“How did it go?” Inius asked, suspicion thick in his voice but a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I think I’m in love.”

Inius sighed and the smile disappeared. “Just when I get used to you being a seven hundred year old king, you go and act like a sixteen year old girl with a crush.”

Jeb frowned, his mood spoiled. “And how would a sixteen year old boy act?”

“Pretty much the same,” Gerge replied, still smirking.

Compare that to the stripped-down version below. Even with a lot of the scenery and action removed, I retained enough below for who is speaking to remain clear. The words below have dialogue tags at least every three or four sentences; Jeb interrupts every couple of sentences, breaking things further apart; and the way everyone speaks is distinct enough to be recognizable.

"What are you doing to my barony?” Lady Elena said without greeting when Jeb was shown, still dirty from the trail and stable, into the castle’s kitchen.

“Lord Ravnos and I just arrived. I’m afraid I don’t —”

“First, my husband returns from the capital and tells me he's bringing some tart home. Then, the Gray itself shows up in my barony, warning of an attack from Cormeum — which Duke Vinchell says isn't happening if he has anything to say about it, by the way.”

“You went to Vinchell, in Cormeum?”

“Don’t interrupt! Then, my personal guard starts babbling about a shade telling them that the Winter Prince is arriving — a fact the Gray didn’t see fit to mention. And finally, I start getting reports that the Baron himself is picking fights with his own villages instead of collecting the harvest the way he usually does. Immediately after meeting you!”

Jeb stood silent.

“Well?”

“For hundreds of years, I've always loved you. Even when you've hated me.”

“Get. Her. Out.”

“Him. I'm a him.” Jeb said, with a grin.

“Out! Take her to Baron Ravnos room, lock her in and put Nonse with him … Her ... It.”

Jeb was still grinning when he was shoved into a well-appointed guest room where [Lord Inius Ravnos] and Gerge, his manservant, waited.

“How did it go?” Innius said.

“I think I’m in love.”

“Just when I get used to you being a seven hundred year old king, you go and act like a sixteen year old girl with a crush.”

“And how would a sixteen year old boy act?”

“Pretty much the same,” Gerge replied.

 

[Duil2]

I avoid it completely but then again my characters rarely have long speeches that would need changes in paragraphs.

Honestly, I also hate reading it. I'd much prefer the speech to be interspersed with action.

I also think using plain 'he said', 'she said' dialogue tags is much better than the reader having to notice that the writer didn't close the quotation marks and so it's the same person speaking.

And then you have readers who wouldn't know what this meant.

I only came across it here on Lit and that's after years of writing and taking a few writing courses. It was never mentioned.

 

[Writer61]

Pretty much the way I described earlier: ranting lady waving a knife around.

I cannot see any split other than switching to a different speaker for a moment.

 

[liliput1]

Compare that to the stripped-down version below. Even with a lot of the scenery and action removed, I retained enough below for who is speaking to remain clear. The words below have dialogue tags at least every three or four sentences; Jeb interrupts every couple of sentences, breaking things further apart; and the way everyone speaks is distinct enough to be recognizable.

A lot of the color gets drained out, but here is where things got janky:

“For hundreds of years, I've always loved you. Even when you've hated me.”

“Get. Her. Out.”

“Him. I'm a him.” Jeb said, with a grin.

In a movie, two characters standing in a dark room never get confused because we always hear the dialog in the correct voice. If a third voice is heard we know to scream.

In text there are no actors. No voice in our heads to take the line which misgenders the only non-she in the conversation. So then we first read the line in her voice, decide we must have lost the plot somewhere, because who the fuck is "Her"? Then read it again in his voice only to discover we had it right the first time as we read the next line and have to back up and re-interpret it all again. And how far back should we go? Was it just the two lines or did we fuck it farther up?

You're jostling around in people's short term memories and each jostle makes something else fall out.