Fading out in dialogue.

[Mr Orange]

So over in critiques I posted up a section where the last sentence was dialogue, with the speaker fading out. I used diminishing font to try and give this feeling, which a couple of people flagged up as a no-no. So the question is, how would you show the speaker fading out in dialogue?

For reference the speaker was saying the following:

...and you should be good to go

 

[HareBrain]

Since your piece has nothing but dialogue (or monologue), your options are limited. Personally, I have nothing against a diminishing typeface, and I think if you're self-publishing, that's your best option. But from what I've heard, you shouldn't use such tricksiness when submitting to e.g. a magazine. In that case, I'd just stick an ellipsis on the end and explain, after they've accepted the story, that you think a diminishing font would work well.

 

[Ursa major]

If one is self-publishing, I guess it's up to you**. If one's work is going to be published by an imprint/magazine, they'll probably have their own ideas of how to do it.


** - Another way to do it would be to gradually grey out the letters until they can't be read.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

i wonder about and you should be good ... To ... Go....

Or breaking it up over lines

You should be




Good





To





Go.

I've seen that done. And i've done something similar myself for someone coming in and out of consciousness and no one blinked.

 

[goldhawk]

I can't remember which author said this but he ends dialogue that stops abruptly with a m-dash and dialogue that fades away with an ellipsis.

 

[Nick B]

i wonder about and you should be good ... To ... Go....

Or breaking it up over lines

You should be




Good





To





Go.

I've seen that done. And i've done something similar myself for someone coming in and out of consciousness and no one blinked.

I like this idea for it, maybe even add space between each word so the gap is longer each time ie:

You should be


Good




To





Go.

 

[tinkerdan]

The graphic stacks here have a sort of e.e. commings-ish-ness to it all.

I could also see this as as::
You should be...good...to...go....

or:
You should be--good--to--go--.
where '--'are your em-dashes.
But overall it would be exciting to see the text fade to white as you go along.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I would just add a descriptor.

"And you should be good to go ..." His voice faded out as something else crossed his mind.

Doing it by fading font seems tricky and I'm not sure readers would get it. They'd just wonder why the font is changing.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I was one of the people who brought it up and I've been thinking about it as I didn't offer any suggestions. In addition to the ideas above, I would be most likely to go for an abrupt cut-off. This gives the reader a nicer jolt and doesn't baby them into illustrating what is happening.

For example:

and you should be goo--

If you cut even earlier; and you shoul--

you also give the impression that the time traveller has missed an important bit of information from the instructor giving (IMO) a nice hanging ending.

pH

 

[Mr Orange]

Cheers for the suggestions all. None of them really give the sense I'm going for: the speaker is fading as the person he is addressing time travels away.

And it's kind of a second person monologue so no descriptors!

The fading to white of the text is great but I guess it also falls under the no-no of creative typesetting

An abrupt cut doesn't really give the sensation I'm after either

 

[Cat's Cradle]

"Ha! Well, that would be telling now wouldn’t it? Let’s just flick the switch on the pack like so, press this, and….you should…..be good…....to go…"

Hey Mr. Orange! Okay, how about this...I broke the words up a bit differently, but the main change is that I italicized the last few words, to enhance the diminishing of the font size. The italics might--possibly?--suggest an otherworldliness, perhaps the echoing of distance, at the end of the story. Visually, the italicized letters seem to be leaning away from the rest of the story, almost as though they are beginning to move through time and space. CC

 

[Michael F]

So over in critiques I posted up a section where the last sentence was dialogue, with the speaker fading out. I used diminishing font to try and give this feeling, which a couple of people flagged up as a no-no. So the question is, how would you show the speaker fading out in dialogue?

For reference the speaker was saying the following:

...and you should be good to go

All fine ideas. You own seems as good as any to me

 

[Avid Scifi Fan]

I've used "..." with partial sentences when someone is going out of radio range. You may have to tell the reader how the voice is fading out.

Example:

A character hears his friend over the radio "I'll meet you...the resturant..." until only static is left (tell the reader there's static).