In manuscript format, does each speaker's dialogue get it's own line, and also, does the response from the listener(s) get its own line. Is there a good reference regarding dialogue? if so please share it with me.
Ernie
Posted by genevive42 (Member # 8714) on :
Here's an excerpt (13 lines) from one of my manuscripts. Unless someone tells me otherwise, I believe it is formatted correctly. Hope this helps.
quote:Marie started filling her bottles. When Josh got close he held a stick out to her. That was when she realized there was freshly roasted meat on it. “What’s that?” She didn’t reach to take it. “Jackrabbit.” “Your trap worked.” “I actually caught Maisy a long time ago. I wanted to breed her for food but I could never catch a male.” She cut her eyes at him. “Why eat her now?” “It seemed a waste to let a perfectly good rabbit go just because we’re leaving.” He pushed the kebab toward her, more insistent. “We?” She put the last bottle in her pack and sealed it.
[This message has been edited by genevive42 (edited June 27, 2011).]
Posted by Osiris (Member # 9196) on :
quote:does each speaker's dialogue get it's own line
Yes.
quote:does the response from the listener(s) get its own line.
Yes.
Genevive's post, as you can see, alternates between Josh and Marie. You'll notice the lack of 'he said' and 'she said'. Because of the way she set up the dialog with action, she didn't need to use what we call 'dialog tags', and opted for 'action tags' (when the action in the paragraph draws attention to the person that is speaking).
Posted by Ken S (Member # 9010) on :
I had always thought that if you change speakers, you've got to start a new line, paragraph, etc. I've seen loads of "Inserts" where Bill says "Wow," he then goes off and does something else and then the dialogue picks back up with Bill continuing his thought. I cant remember ever seeing 2 speakers speaking in the same paragraph.
Posted by Osiris (Member # 9196) on :
@Ken, that is perfectly fine, as long as the focus is staying on Bill.
I think of it like a camera in a movie (for better or worse). If the camera were to change who it was focused on, you'd start a new paragraph.
I don't think it is an exact science, though, or at least I don't have the experience yet to be exact with it.
Posted by RoxyL (Member # 9096) on :
Okay, so if I can ask an extension of this. When you add a dialogue tag in the middle of someone speaking, what comes after 'he said' a ',' or a '.' or does it depend? For instance:
"Yeah," he said ('.' OR ',') "that's exaclty what I meant."
Or does it matter if the first part is a complete sentence?
"That's just the way it should be," he said ('.' or ',') "Don't you think?"
Thanks, and I hope this isn't a hijack.
Posted by Osiris (Member # 9196) on :
Roxy, the correct punctuation would be a period, like so:
quote: "Yeah," he said. "That's exaclty what I meant."
"That's just the way it should be," he said. "Don't you think?"
Posted by JB Reese (Member # 9552) on :
When one asks a simple question, body armor should be at hand, wow, like it. Really refreshing, now I need to put all these remarks on a sheet of paper so I can refer to them from time to time. Thanks guys. Ernie
Posted by Brendan (Member # 6044) on :
Hmm, I was taught that if you cut it off mid-sentence, you can use a comma to continue the sentence. Wiki seems to say the same.
quote: "Well, um," John said, "not quite yet."
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Yes on each individual speaker's dialog getting its own line, be it call or response. Wish I had a reference book on dialog to tell you about, but I don't. The last book on dialog I remember reading dealt with writing better dialog, not how dialog should be formatted.
Posted by genevive42 (Member # 8714) on :
Brendan, that's right. But if it's a new sentence then you treat it as such. It really depends if you're truly breaking mid-sentence or between them.
Posted by Osiris (Member # 9196) on :
Yup, my apologies, Brendan is correct. It does depend on whether or not you are truly interrupting the sentence or if you really have two sentences.
Posted by Wordcaster (Member # 9183) on :
I do all I can to avoid breaking mid-sentence. The pause to read the dialog tag is worthy of a period break (ie a new sentence) in my mind -- though I agree with the formatting mentioned by Brandon et al.
"Well, um, not quite yet," said John. "I need to get ready first."
(Actually, I maybe would even use elipses after "um")
Posted by RoxyL (Member # 9096) on :
Thanks so much. I love all the expertise on here, down to the very nitty gritty. You guys are great.
Posted by Crystal Stevens (Member # 8006) on :
I like to make a break in a sentence of dialog where the one speaking might hesitate to search for the rest of the sentence or remember something to add to that sentence that will continue it:
1) The hesitation: "You mean the world to me," John said, "but what you did was wrong."
2) Afterthought: "I think she's beautiful," John said, "and smart too."
If you ran that all together with the tag after the fact, it wouldn't read the same:
1) "You mean the world to me but what you did was wrong," John said.
2) "I think she's beautiful and smart too," John said.
Posted by babooher (Member # 8617) on :
As much as I hate to write this, I've seen plenty of published works with two speakers in the same paragraph. I know I was taught to only have one speaker in a paragraph, but I remember in high school asking my English teacher how Robert Jordan could put two speakers in one paragraph. I still prefer what I was taught, but I've seen the reasoning for more than one speaker in a paragraph. It ran along the line that if a paragraph is supposed to have one main idea, and if two characters are basically talking about the same main idea, then they could share a paragraph.
To me, one speaker per paragraph is never wrong, so why use anything else?
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
The thing is that if you are going to do something against the conventional way of doing it, you need to have a REALLY, REALLY GOOD reason for doing it differently.
"Just because I want to" is not a good enough reason. (I don't know why Jordan did it. From what I've heard from those who got tired of some of the other unconventional things he did, he may not have had a good enough reason. <shrug> )
Posted by genevive42 (Member # 8714) on :
babooher, I think, and I may be wrong, but I think the two speaker paragraph is an old-fashioned thing. Kind of like liberal use of adverbs, omniscient pov (though I know there are still uses for it) and rounded black lacquer frames. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. One speaker per paragraph is never wrong, why mess with it?
Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :
Two speakers can share a paragraph, but it has to seem logical *as dialog*, not just be squished together because it's all one subject. Otherwise it can become hard to keep track of who's speaking, unless there are a LOT of cues and attributions.
Frex, in one case I have a character rattling on and another interrupts him with a minor correction -- rather than break for a new paragraph, I just insert the single word and keep going, because it's not really a switch to another speaker, but rather is speech imposed on top of the current speaker:
quote:"Better?" Azarra asked Rikon, who relaxed somewhat as the Skai went out of sight.
"Yeah. Thanks." That his flaky cousin would know of and try to alleviate his phobic reaction to Skae came as a surprise, but maybe it went with her diplomatic career. "You said Bran Carrick sent--" She corrected, "Requested," and he rephrased it to, "--that you come here and settle this?"
Two people talking at once, neither being the POV character nor sufficient to justify a dedicated paragraph (which would tend to separate their remarks more than is intended):
quote:Prism and Avery took that as their cue to return. "You're sick," said Prism, countered by Avery's "Nice work."
Special cases, not something to be done routinely.