this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
9 points (100.0% liked)

Writing

1950 readers
2 users here now

A specific community for original shortform and longform writing, stories, worldbuilding, and other stuff of that nature.

Subcommunity of Creative

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
mint@beehaw.org
remington@beehaw.org
9
A tip about paragraph breaks inside of character speech (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by Zagaroth@beehaw.org to c/writing@beehaw.org
8 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

So, the rule is that if you have a single character speaking across multiple paragraphs, you don't use end quotes on those paragraphs. I get the intent of the rule, but I think it looks awful and is jarring.

What I have been doing for a long time, is to insert a minor action at the end of that paragraph or the start of the next. I don't even notice that I am doing it anymore, it just feels natural to have a character gesture or emote in some way every so often.

The only reason that this came to mind is that one of my new readers pointed out a spot in Chapter 50 where I had used end quotes on a paragraph break of continuous speech. I edited in a minor action instead, the character was recalling a previous thought process, so I had him lean back in his chair and look up, which is the sort of thing people often do during that sort of thought.

One of the advantages of publishing a serial online, you potentially get some good feedback. :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Zagaroth@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From the same character's speech (as opposed to switching talkers)? Well, supposedly that's against the rules, but it generally feels better to insert a bit of minor movement anyway :)

[โ€“] Profilename1@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

I'd say it depends on the length of the dialogue. If we're talking about 2-3 lines, then yeah, it should only be done on switching. If we're talking about a speech that lasts several pages, I would think that it should be clear from context clues who is speaking.

Anyway, don't get hung up on rules! Write how you want! Have a style!