Paragraphing and Dialogue

[Pentagon]

Hi there,

I'm just wondering about structure when it comes to dialogue.

So throughout my piece, I have predominantly short speech, with one line one character and so on. The issue is, there's a block which has 2 people speaking, but in long blocks each. so you end up with 16 lines, 4x 4 with alternating speakers, is it acceptable to leave new paragraphs between those?

My follow up question therefore is, is it acceptable to do this for the long blocks but not the short ones? Does it have to be consistent?

Pentagon

 

[The Judge]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, so I'll set out what I think is the right way to do it, and see if that fits with what you're doing!

Every time you switch to a new speaker, you should have a new paragraph (ignoring, for the moment, narrative and how the dialogue fits in with that). With two speakers, it's A, B, A, B etc. It doesn't matter if A's lines are two words long or two hundred, when B comes in, it's a fresh paragraph for him. Sometimes, if one person is saying a lot, then you might want to break that into separate paragraphs for ease of reading, in which case don't close the quotation marks at the end of the first para, but do open the second para of his dialogue with them.

Here on Chrons, when you split a post into separate paragraphs like I'm doing here, we have to leave a clear line's space between them. That isn't how you do it normally, though, off-Chrons. There you'd indent the first line of the new paragraph to show where one starts, and leave no lines between ie

"This is how you do it without a clear line between," said the Judge.
"Yes, that's how I do it."
"Great."​

That help?

 

[Pentagon]

I think so! Thx

 

[tinkerdan]

If you are just talking about separate paragraphs for separate speakers then yes you need a new paragraph each time you change speaker. That's preferable though it seems to be a widely broken rule. I was just reading an ARC copy that confessed to being unedited; still it has paragraphs with more than one person speaking and it is confusing not to mention that it uses at least two different names for most characters and so it might say::This is my made up example and not an excerpt.::

"I was flabbergasted," said Mrs. Murphy, who had just sat next to the older woman. Bernice said, "Yes, it was simply outrageous."
In this instance the same person is speaking; but it's hard to tell. This is Mrs. Bernice Murphy.

The point is that you have to be careful how you present dialogue even when it all belongs to the same person so it's best to keep each character's dialogue separate in its own paragraph. Even so try to pay attention to clarity of presentation of who is speaking. Any ambiguity can throw the reader off.

What compounded my above example was that earlier, in another paragraph, it was clear that there were two people talking because of the dialogue itself and if you have two people talking in the same paragraph once, then when presented with something like my example the reader has to hunt back to be sure that Bernice is Mrs. Murphy or that two different people are talking in a single paragraph again; and by then the spell of illusion in the story is broken.

Now if you are talking about putting extra line feeds as we do here in the forum, then I'd say that you shouldn't unless you want to pad your page numbers; because that's what I think is going on when I see that type of thing in someones novel.

 

[Pentagon]

Okay, so follow up question but related!

I have a character who would introduce themselves as Mr or Mrs Smith. Is it acceptable to switch, to referring to them by first name, as a means of telling the reader that, that is their first name.

So example

John met the strange lady at the door. "Sorry, I didn't catch your name?"
"Mrs Smith, I'm here to discuss the hippo in your garden."
"Really? I wasn't aware I had a hippo in my garden." John remarked.
Sarah pressed on, "Well, I have CCTV footage of you teaching it to play the banjo, so there."
John froze with horror.

I mean, the issue could be avoided if she just introduced herself as Sarah Smith in the first place, but is this kind of omnipotent narration ever allowed, is it doable as long as written clearly, there are only two characters and it's clear who it means?

Best
Pentagon

Edit: Sorry, to be clearer- is it possible to get away with doing what you described, as long as its clear whose speaking and structured appropriately?

 

[The Judge]

I'd introduce her as Sarah Smith or Mrs Sarah Smith if you want the Mrs is there, otherwise you're creating problems for yourself. I'm not sure why you're calling that "omnipotent narration" though -- it's no more omnipotent than just "Sarah" or "Mrs Smith". You don't have to give both names at once, eg she can say "I'm Mrs Smith" then he can ask her first name, or she can give it later, but it's always best to keep things simple and clear.

The other option is something like 'Sarah shook his hand. "I'm Mrs Smith and I'm your hippo-catcher."'but that's only possible if it's written in her POV -- John doesn't know her name is Sarah unless she tells him, so he can't use it in his POV, so in your example you've actually fallen foul of this if you intended it to be his POV.

Or if you want the omnipotent narrator you could have something like "Sarah -- otherwise known as Mrs Smith -- shook his hand."

 

[Pentagon]

Sorry, perhaps I was confusing myself. My thought was, so far I've been writing from a 3rd person limited perspective, So from John wouldn't know what her first name was, or if indeed that was her real name, all he knows is here is a person who has introduced herself as Mrs Smith.

So, I think I've answered my own question! That if I'm writing from a 3rd person limited perspective, it would be better if I just kept to it!!!

 

[The Judge]

Yep. If it's his POV and she introduces herself as Mrs Smith, in dialogue tags and in narration as she does things, she can only be Mrs Smith, not Sarah.

 

[tinkerdan]

I'm In agreement with TJ.
On another point.

John froze with horror.

And this might just be me but I would do this as.
John froze in horror.

Unless perhaps he was using horror to freeze then he might freeze with horror.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'm In agreement with TJ.
On another point.

And this might just be me but I would do this as.
John froze in horror.

Unless perhaps he was using horror to freeze then he might freeze with horror.

I wonder if it's just dialect or preference. Consider someone covered in white paint, or covered with white paint. Both are arguably correct but 'in' seems to work better.

Which is to say, I don't know.

pH

 

[tinkerdan]

Perhaps it's idiomatic.

I wonder if it's just dialect or preference. Consider someone covered in white paint, or covered with white paint. Both are arguably correct but 'in' seems to work better.

Which is to say, I don't know.

pH

It is rife with idiomatic tendencies.
no,no.
It is rife in idiomatic tendencies.