Formatting Dialogue

    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. 
   

4 Things I Learned Digitalizing My Notebooks

So last year, as I was preparing to go off to college 3,000 miles from home, I undertook an effort to digitalize my notebook collection so that, should I require my notes while at school, I wouldn't have to lug a metric fuckton of paper cross-country, or *sticks nose in the air, places steepled hand on chest* send for them.

This meant that I was exposed, in a four-month period, to aaaaaallllll the writing I had done (read: kept) since late middle school. Also pictures I drew, but I didn't learn all that much from that. Some things I did learn are as follows:

1. Write down your scene ideas wRITE THEM DOWN

In digitalizing my collected notebooks, I came to find that there were A LOT of places where I obviously knew where I was going with something, but because I knew where it was headed, I didn’t bother to write it down because why would I and let me tell you, should I have ever!  I have no idea now where SO many of my stories were headed, huge plot points, entire scenes, choice juicy dialogue, all disappeared from the earth forever because I thought I’d remember those ideas in perpetuity. Or at least until I got to that point in the story.

Make sure you take lots of copious, fully-detailed notes, kids, especially if you’re about to move onto the next WIP.  

2. Don’t just toss things--you'll need it as soon as you do

RELATED:  Don’t throw out old ideas or notes until you’ve at least procured (and backed up) a digital copy.  You never know what you might need later.  Even if you think it’s trash, keep those old notes and scene corpses and half-started stories; you might be able to revive, reuse, or repurpose those bits and pieces later, and the minute you toss something is the minute you’ll have an AMAZING IDEA that requires that you have those pieces.  It’s a pain in the ass.

3. Too many dialogue tags muck things up

Dialogue tags are those little things like “said” and “insisted” and “proclaimed,” the parts of language that let you know someone is talking and how they’re doing it.  Most young writers start out wanting to use TONS, because you always want the audience to know how your character is saying what they're saying--are they yelling this line?  Whispering this other one?  Growling hissing demanding commanding interrupting?
 

And dialogue tags are great!  …  In moderation.  But it doesn’t take long before dialogue tags reach a point of diminishing returns.  They get in the way, start gumming up the works, slowly leaching all the fun out of the work and reducing the novel’s pace to a snail’s crawl.  

Most of the time, guys, said will do.  Said and Asked are the meat and greens of the meal, and the rest of the dialogue tags are spices.  You can use as many saids and askeds as you want, and it’ll be fine. A few more diverse dialogue tags are nice to keep things interesting and variegated, but if you use too many you’ll over-spice the dish and it’ll become unpalatable.

A good rule of thumb:  If the audience can tell from context how a character is speaking, use “said” or “asked.”  If they can’t, stick a spicy spicy dialogue tag in there for some flavor.

4. Make sure things are HAPPENING

I came across MANY points in my re-reading where chapters go by and just NOTHING is happening--it’s all just DESCRIPTION, and not even that interesting.  It makes my soul die a little.  But it’s okay, because I learn from my mistakes usually probably maybe. This time at least. Hopefully.

Don’t go too long without letting something important occur--conversations, action sequences, a montage of family activities, make something happen sooner rather than later, or you’ll lose the audience.  The audience who may just be future you, quietly shaking her head at present you's sad, boring tomfoolery.  

*waves nervously at future me*

Fixing Talking Head Syndrome

What it is:

     "Talking Head Syndrome," as it's known in literary circles, is a condition characterized by the metaphorical detachment of your character from a physical form during dialogue or monologues, especially if world-building or info-dumping is involved.  Essentially, the monologue or dialogue goes on for so long with so few indicators of what's actually happening in the scene that the reader gets lost and confused and, worst of all, bored.

Why it's bad:

     Talking Head Syndrome results in a couple different things, but most importantly, it's boring.
     When THS creeps in, all that's left is words, words, words--words that usually aren't that interesting, don't hold our attention, and make us want to skip over everything to get back to the action.  We lose track of what's going on with the characters, where they are physically, emotionally, etc, and you lose opportunities to really get in touch with the character, advance the plot further, or entertain the audience.

How to fix it:

     There are a couple things you can do to try to cure your MS of Talking Head Syndrome.

• Action Tags:  Action tags are essentially what they sound like; the action that goes on during and between dialogue, and they might be the simplest way to cure your THS.  Instead of saying, "she said," which is a dialogue tag, you cap the end of a sentence (or interrupt the sentence, when it flows that way) with action.  

  For example, instead of, "'I hate this,' she said," you'd use, "'I hate you.'  She put down the clock and crossed to Henry.  

  This is a relatively quick way to let your reader know what's going on while your characters are chatting, which, when done right, won't interrupt the conversation and will keep the details clear in your audience's heads.  Plus, it's more interesting to read.
• Dialogue Tags:  Dialogue tags ("she said," "he asked," "they inquired," etc) are the Action Tag's annoying cousin.  A necessary cousin, who isn't always annoying, but can be.  These don't help terribly much with THS (you can load your MS up with them and still have talking heads as far as the eye can see), but they do help the reader keep track of who's speaking at any given time.  And not knowing who's speaking is a dangerous side effect of THS.
• Slash and Burn:  Another solution is to cut down your dia/monologues.  Instead of having those long-winded passages of speech that take up six pages, you can make it more of a back-and-forth to break it down into more manageable chunks, which can help create space for action and narration.

      Talking Head Syndrome is tricky; it's one of those issues that just keeps coming back around and around and around.  I'm 99.99999% certain that there are talking heads somewhere in your first draft, because it's endemic, and it's natural; when you get in the dialogue flow it's hard to break out of it.  It's not spilled milk, it's nothing to cry about, just try to keep things interesting, and remember to balance your dialogue, action, and narration, lest you end up with more of a play than a novel.