geekygenius
Full Member
Who knew Star Trek had so many feels? (or: damn it Janeway let yourself be happy)
Posts: 192
|
Post by geekygenius on Feb 1, 2015 6:53:39 GMT
Dialogue is a pretty important part when writing a story. The dialogue itself has to be well thought out to include sayings, habits, and the personality of different characters. And I can get that pretty okay. But when it comes to formatting, I generally forget what I am supposed to do.
Recently I have been reading a lot of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes, and the dialogue set out in those books is a bit different from today, although not by too much. What I sometimes end up coming up with is a cross between the both which just looks weird. Most of the time I generally try to avoid dialogue, because even if I know it is set out right I can't help but feel that it is wrong in some way. Are there any easy rules or anything when it comes to setting out dialogue? Should you indent the dialogue? I know that with some more practice I will become more confident. I just want to make sure what I am practicing is correct.
|
|
|
Post by Nikudou Natsumi on Feb 1, 2015 13:56:25 GMT
Hm, rules that I know about dialogue would be . . . 1) Always make another paragraph when there's a new speaker 2) Dialogue lines are still paragraphs, so yes, indent them (but in the RP, we end up not really indenting anything, so . . .) 3) If a speaker is saying sometimes so long that it can be divided into paragraphs, then at each paragraph division, on the paragraph you're on, don't put an ending quotation mark, but on the next paragraph, you still need a beginning one. Don't put an ending quotation mark until the speaker is done speaking. That way, you don't confuse it with another speaker. Example: "--------.-----------------------.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.---------------------------------------------. "---------------------------------------------------------------.-------------------------." 4) **This is my own opinion because I didn't understand when to put periods and when to put commas when there's a bit of narration in the middle of dialogue, but it looks better this way and makes sense, so I keep doing it** If the narration is in the middle of a sentence, end the narration with a comma. If the narration is between sentences, end it with a period. Example (where ". . ."s indicated further words that would be said but I'm not typing out): Comma: "I know you already understand this," he said, "but just to remind you, . . ." Period: "You do know what you're going into, right?" he asked. "I know that . . ."
I'm trying to figure out whether I have one more or not, but I can't remember right now, so that's all I have. Hope it helps!
|
|
|
Post by Nikudou Natsumi on Feb 1, 2015 14:07:46 GMT
Ah yes, also, I know that Doyle uses dialogue with single quotes/apostrophes, but in all the books I've read that aren't as old as that (or maybe it's just a thing where he lives?), for talking you use normal quotation marks, and then if there's someone repeating what someone else said or anything like that, then you use the apostrophe quotes. Example: Then he continued, "Yes, I know, but her card says, 'Come to meet me tomorrow at nine.'"
This is just what I've seen most of the time, so I don't know if it's are hard-set rule or not.
|
|
geekygenius
Full Member
Who knew Star Trek had so many feels? (or: damn it Janeway let yourself be happy)
Posts: 192
|
Post by geekygenius on Feb 1, 2015 22:02:16 GMT
Thanks for clearing that up The period vs comma thing is probably the most frustrating.
|
|
|
Post by Nikudou Natsumi on Feb 1, 2015 22:05:11 GMT
Glad I could help! ^-^
|
|
|
Post by ichthyophobia on Feb 2, 2015 4:18:56 GMT
One reason for the single quotes is because they're considered internal. The entire story is "told" by Watson, so all dialogue within the Sherlock Holmes stories is considered to be Watson quoting Holmes, and thus the single quotes. Luckily today first person stuff uses the normal grammar; luckily because I've always found the single quotes confusing and harder to spot. (Heart of Darkness, anyone?) But as far as I know, Natsumi, spot on on all counts! One thing you didn't mention, though, is the capitalization with those internal bits of narration. If it's a dialogue tag, the first letter isn't capitalized (excluding of course proper nouns), but if it's an action, it's treated as a separate sentence. So for example: "Good morning," he said. "How are you? versus "Good morning." He rubbed his eyes. "How are you?" In the first example, the dialogue and the dialogue tag are treated as a single sentence, where He is technically the noun, Said is the verb, and "Good morning" is treated as the direct object. Thus the lack of internal capitalization and the comma. In the second, they're not a single sentence, so it's all separated out. Hopefully I didn't just confuse things more.
|
|
|
Post by Nikudou Natsumi on Feb 2, 2015 4:30:35 GMT
Oh, that makes sense. I hadn't thought about that.
Ah, yes, I forgot about that.
|
|
geekygenius
Full Member
Who knew Star Trek had so many feels? (or: damn it Janeway let yourself be happy)
Posts: 192
|
Post by geekygenius on Feb 2, 2015 21:06:07 GMT
So basically if there is an action in between it is a full stop, and if it is just 'asked' or 'said' it is a comma. Right, I should be able to remember that. Thanks for your help! ^~^
|
|
|
Post by ichthyophobia on Feb 2, 2015 21:26:49 GMT
That rule holds in most cases. But not necessarily. Actions can be added to dialogue tags; it's the dialogue tag itself that requires the connection. For example: "Good morning," he said, rubbing his eyes. "How are you?" The action in that case is still part of the original "he said" sentence. The issue is that transitive verbs like "said" can't stand on their own; they require a direct object as something to modify. So you can't write "He said" as its own sentence unless the thing that he said is implied elsewhere. Same way you can't say "He wants" on its own and expect it to mean anything specific. However, dialogue tags like "said" and "asked" are only necessary to mark the speaker. If you can mark the speaker with an action, that works too. Dialogue tags, though, have the big advantage of being traditional. "He said" is pretty much invisible to a native english speaker; we'll register who's talking without quite realizing there was a break in the dialogue, just because we've seen it so much. It helps things flow faster. Which is one reason teachers recommend minimizing use of irregular dialogue tags like "mumbled", "yelled", or "whispered". They call attention to themselves, which you don't always want. But sometimes you do, so it's not a hard and fast rule. There I go confusing things again! But hopefully that makes some sense.
|
|
Finnian Donovan
New Member
Getting back into writing is the death of me!!!
Posts: 48
|
Post by Finnian Donovan on Feb 3, 2015 0:11:59 GMT
Adding my 2 cents to this. Coming from the fact that my childhood days had been spent poring over The Chronicles of Narnia, I believe that Brits of the past gravitated using single quotation marks for dialogue: eg: 'Wait, aren't you supposed to be in school?'
...and double quotation marks for quoting what other people said: eg. 'Didn't you tell me, "we're all in this together"? Where were you then when we needed you the most?'
If I remember correctly, I noticed this when I had both a British and American publication of Voyage of the Dawn Treader side by side and making comparisons for my year 9 English class.
|
|
geekygenius
Full Member
Who knew Star Trek had so many feels? (or: damn it Janeway let yourself be happy)
Posts: 192
|
Post by geekygenius on Feb 3, 2015 12:07:11 GMT
As someone able to quote most of the Choronicals of Narnia, that is really interesting. I think both my copies were published in either Britain or Australia, so they don't have any major differences.
It does make more sense that way, quotes being like two people talking (due to someone saying exactly what someone else did before). I guess with how different punctuation is used by different authors and countries allows us some libity of our own interpretation. As long as it makes sense and is consistent it doesn't seem to matter too much.
Hmmm. Well, I sure learned a lot. Thanks (again) everyone!
|
|