All right motherfuckers, I wrote pretty much this entire entry once already but blogspot didn't fucking save it, and because I go through a mild depressive episode whenever I lose 1,000+ words of progress on a thing, the way I'm choosing to deal with it is by angrily rewriting what was lost and punching the fuck out of the save button every paragraph or so.
[SAVES AGGRESSIVELY]
So basically the impetus for this post was born of me reading fanfiction and, more specifically, me being unable to finish fanfiction because the fucking dialogue isn't fucking formatted fucking properly.
[SAVES AGGRESIVELY AND TAKES A SECOND TO BREATHE]
Okay, I'm gonna try to chill here. Just. Give me a second.
Okay. Okay okay okay alright alright alright alright alright. Allkay. Look: I get it. The public school system failed me, too. I had to learn everything I know about creative writing from copying what I read in books and looking up articles like this one on the internet. And the things they DID teach me about writing--things like, indent two finger spaces before each paragraph, and use the "hamburger method" of essay writing, and make every paragraph exactly five sentence long--was pretty much entirely bullshit that doesn't get you anywhere after the fifth grade.
(Even your middle school teachers won't accept an essay written on loose-leaf, wtf are they thinking, really?? I can open any book in the world and the chances that the first paragraph I poke at consists of exactly five sentences is so slim I can't even)
SO. BASICALLY. Let me help you, young writers, because let me tell you, improperly formatted dialogue is a great way to scare off your audience. Let's start with:
1. New Speakers
Every time a new character speaks, slap that enter button before you tickle those quotation marks. Why, you ask? Many reasons. Reasons like avoiding confusion as to who's speaking when, keeping your text away from block form, and creating lots of juicy delicious white space for your beautiful gorgeous readers (like you guys <3 <3 <3)
(I took a nap and ate some pizza, and because I am like unto a tiny cranky child I feel much more at peace with the world, and with yOUR BEAUTIFUL FACE. HA!)
See, when you have a bunch of characters involved in a conversation, and you're smattering in action tags every here and there, it gets hard to follow the train of thought--who's talking when? To whom? When does this person stop and the next person start? This way we can also dispense with some of the dialogue tags that clutter up the walkway, leaving everything more streamlined and aerodynamic.
Audiodynamic? Visiodynamic? Logodynamic? Bibliodynamic? Hmmmm.....
Anyway, gigantic blocks of text also tend to happen when we get multiple speakers in a paragraph, which can cause problems for dyslexic readers, give people headaches, and makes people lose their place far more easily.
We get enough block text from long descriptive and active paragraphs; when it comes to dialogue, we like to have a break from that, and allow our eyes to cascade smoooothly down the page.
2. Character Monologues
When a character goes off on a monologue that lasts more than one paragraph, there are a couple things you can do--literally, a couple. Two. Two things.
You can insert an action tag at the end of the first paragraph or the beginning of the second, or you can press enter, indent, and add another starting quotation mark.
Now to be clear: The entire point to reusing opening quotation marks is to indicate that the same character is speaking, so if you cap the first paragraph with ending quotation marks, everyone is going to assume that that character has had their say and that another character has started speaking. So don't do that (cough cough GINA *glares at friend*).
Anyway, this is a pretty common mistake that gets made all the time because no one fucking teaches it, so if you haven't figured it out don't get down on yourself. I only figured it out because I was a voracious reader in my younger days and I learn mostly via visual osmosis.
3. Dialogue tags
Dialogue tags, along with action tags, bookend spoken fragments of conversation within your narrative and give attribution to the text. Specifically, dialogue tags are the ones that say something along the lines of "they said," "they mumbled," "they whined," etc. They let you know who's talking, and sometimes how they're saying it.
The tag usually goes at the end of dialogue these days ("I hate the way this runs," he said), but can just as easily go before (he said, "I hate the way this runs."). That just depends on how you want the line to flow, and is up to personal taste. You can also chose between "they said" and "said they." "She said" is traditional, but there's a certain ring to "Said she" that isn't to everyone's tastes, but can really pack a whallop in the right time and place.
Generally speaking, "said" is the dialogue tag you want to use about ninety percent of the time--it's nothing special, but it gets the job done. Like water. Or salt. Or silica. But not poisonous like silica. Anyway, the more you use said, the more meaningful non-said dialogue tags will be.
Contrary to what public school may or may not have bothered to instill in you, you don't necessarily need to use a dialogue tag--once the flow of a conversation has been established, you can drop it until something happens--like the arrival of a new character or a change in tone--that requires clarification. You can also use
4. Action tags
Action tags, like dialogue tags, let you know who's speaking, but they elect not to add in any of those communication verbs like "asked" or "whispered."
Example:
Henry held a hand over his stomach. "I think I'm gonna puke."
Action tags are simple lines of action that follow, precede, or interrupt dialogue. They help you avoid Talking Head Syndrome, and if you're following the rule about slapping enter for every new speaker, it allows you to tell or remind your readers who's speaking.
Just try to make it clear which character is the main focus of the action tag if you make mention of more than one: "Jenny leaned against Martha and shook her head," makes it pretty clear that we're focused on Jenny. "Jenny and Martha leaned against each other," is extremely vague, and while it makes for a good line of action, it wouldn't be doing its job if it called itself an action tag.
Unless maybe both characters were speaking in tandem. Then it'd be fine, as long as that was previously established.
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