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Characters in a conversation
How to avoid hearing “that's me!” from your friends when they read your characters?Do all main characters require equal development?How can I broaden my understanding of my characters?How do I add more characters into my story?How to casually reveal the relationship of two recently introduced characters?Explain character dynamics without giving away too much backstory?Using Trademarked Public Domain Characters as supporting characters in storyOmniscient but limited Narrator talking to the characters - Pros and consHow to write female characters with agency?Beyond letters and diaries—exercises to explore characters' personalities and motivation
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Are there hard and fast rules for characters speaking to each other? As far as quotations, or without them? Are they hinged inside a paragraph or ruled to only be in a talking string?
character-development
asked 9 hours ago
M.E. RollinsM.E. Rollins
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M.E. Rollins is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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Are there hard and fast rules for characters speaking to each other? As far as quotations, or without them? Are they hinged inside a paragraph or ruled to only be in a talking string?
character-development
asked 9 hours ago
M.E. RollinsM.E. Rollins
62 bronze badges
New contributor
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Welcome to Writing.SE M.E. Rollins, glad you found us. We have a tour and help center you might wish to check out. You might want to check out some other questions under dialogue. If you still have a single question (we only allow one at a time here) about something you're not sure of that hasn't been answered elsewhere here, you can ask that. Thanks and see you around!
– Cyn♦
7 hours ago
add a comment
|
Are there hard and fast rules for characters speaking to each other? As far as quotations, or without them? Are they hinged inside a paragraph or ruled to only be in a talking string?
character-development
asked 9 hours ago
M.E. RollinsM.E. Rollins
62 bronze badges
New contributor
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Are there hard and fast rules for characters speaking to each other? As far as quotations, or without them? Are they hinged inside a paragraph or ruled to only be in a talking string?
character-development
character-development
asked 9 hours ago
M.E. RollinsM.E. Rollins
62 bronze badges
New contributor
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 9 hours ago
M.E. RollinsM.E. Rollins
62 bronze badges
New contributor
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 9 hours ago
M.E. RollinsM.E. Rollins
62 bronze badges
New contributor
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 9 hours ago
M.E. RollinsM.E. Rollins
62 bronze badges
asked 9 hours ago
M.E. RollinsM.E. Rollins
62 bronze badges
62 bronze badges
New contributor
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Welcome to Writing.SE M.E. Rollins, glad you found us. We have a tour and help center you might wish to check out. You might want to check out some other questions under dialogue. If you still have a single question (we only allow one at a time here) about something you're not sure of that hasn't been answered elsewhere here, you can ask that. Thanks and see you around!
– Cyn♦
7 hours ago
add a comment
|
Welcome to Writing.SE M.E. Rollins, glad you found us. We have a tour and help center you might wish to check out. You might want to check out some other questions under dialogue. If you still have a single question (we only allow one at a time here) about something you're not sure of that hasn't been answered elsewhere here, you can ask that. Thanks and see you around!
– Cyn♦
7 hours ago
Welcome to Writing.SE M.E. Rollins, glad you found us. We have a tour and help center you might wish to check out. You might want to check out some other questions under dialogue. If you still have a single question (we only allow one at a time here) about something you're not sure of that hasn't been answered elsewhere here, you can ask that. Thanks and see you around!
– Cyn♦
7 hours ago
Welcome to Writing.SE M.E. Rollins, glad you found us. We have a tour and help center you might wish to check out. You might want to check out some other questions under dialogue. If you still have a single question (we only allow one at a time here) about something you're not sure of that hasn't been answered elsewhere here, you can ask that. Thanks and see you around!
– Cyn♦
7 hours ago
add a comment
|
2 Answers
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There are three rules for conversation:
1) Indicate through some mark of punctuation that someone is speaking aloud.
This can be double quotes " , single quotes ' , dashes of varying lengths — , guillemets « , or whatever else typographic convention is in your area.
2) Make it clear who is speaking.
This is usually through some kind of dialogue tag (he said, she shouted, they whispered). You can also distinguish characters through vocabulary, grammar, diction, foreign language, accent, etc. Not every utterance necessarily needs a tag, but it should be easily and absolutely clear who is speaking any given line. If two people are talking and I have to count lines of dialogue to determine the speaker, you need more dialogue tags, variation in speech, and/or stage business.
3) New speaker gets a new paragraph.
It doesn't matter how many people are talking or how often they interrupt each other. Each new person speaking starts a new paragraph. (There are rare exceptions, but I wouldn't experiment with them until you have the basics down solid.)
answered 8 hours ago
Lauren IpsumLauren Ipsum
70.8k7 gold badges107 silver badges238 bronze badges
add a comment
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With all due respect to Lauren's answer, there is a fourth rule.
4) Speech that is incidental to action stays with the paragraph that describes the action. That is, if the character runs, jumps, yells "Stop", and tackles the person they are chasing, that is one action paragraph, including the dialogue.
In prose, action usually stops for dialogue. It is too confusing to mix the two. But when words are an element of the action, they stay with the action.
answered 8 hours ago
Mark BakerMark Baker
62.1k5 gold badges116 silver badges233 bronze badges
2
absolutely correct. I thought that this might be too advanced for the OP if the OP is not sure if dialogue is supposed to use quotation marks, but this is an excellent addendum.
– Lauren Ipsum
8 hours ago
add a comment
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2 Answers
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2 Answers
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There are three rules for conversation:
1) Indicate through some mark of punctuation that someone is speaking aloud.
This can be double quotes " , single quotes ' , dashes of varying lengths — , guillemets « , or whatever else typographic convention is in your area.
2) Make it clear who is speaking.
This is usually through some kind of dialogue tag (he said, she shouted, they whispered). You can also distinguish characters through vocabulary, grammar, diction, foreign language, accent, etc. Not every utterance necessarily needs a tag, but it should be easily and absolutely clear who is speaking any given line. If two people are talking and I have to count lines of dialogue to determine the speaker, you need more dialogue tags, variation in speech, and/or stage business.
3) New speaker gets a new paragraph.
It doesn't matter how many people are talking or how often they interrupt each other. Each new person speaking starts a new paragraph. (There are rare exceptions, but I wouldn't experiment with them until you have the basics down solid.)
answered 8 hours ago
Lauren IpsumLauren Ipsum
70.8k7 gold badges107 silver badges238 bronze badges
add a comment
|
There are three rules for conversation:
1) Indicate through some mark of punctuation that someone is speaking aloud.
This can be double quotes " , single quotes ' , dashes of varying lengths — , guillemets « , or whatever else typographic convention is in your area.
2) Make it clear who is speaking.
This is usually through some kind of dialogue tag (he said, she shouted, they whispered). You can also distinguish characters through vocabulary, grammar, diction, foreign language, accent, etc. Not every utterance necessarily needs a tag, but it should be easily and absolutely clear who is speaking any given line. If two people are talking and I have to count lines of dialogue to determine the speaker, you need more dialogue tags, variation in speech, and/or stage business.
3) New speaker gets a new paragraph.
It doesn't matter how many people are talking or how often they interrupt each other. Each new person speaking starts a new paragraph. (There are rare exceptions, but I wouldn't experiment with them until you have the basics down solid.)
answered 8 hours ago
Lauren IpsumLauren Ipsum
70.8k7 gold badges107 silver badges238 bronze badges
add a comment
|
There are three rules for conversation:
1) Indicate through some mark of punctuation that someone is speaking aloud.
This can be double quotes " , single quotes ' , dashes of varying lengths — , guillemets « , or whatever else typographic convention is in your area.
2) Make it clear who is speaking.
This is usually through some kind of dialogue tag (he said, she shouted, they whispered). You can also distinguish characters through vocabulary, grammar, diction, foreign language, accent, etc. Not every utterance necessarily needs a tag, but it should be easily and absolutely clear who is speaking any given line. If two people are talking and I have to count lines of dialogue to determine the speaker, you need more dialogue tags, variation in speech, and/or stage business.
3) New speaker gets a new paragraph.
It doesn't matter how many people are talking or how often they interrupt each other. Each new person speaking starts a new paragraph. (There are rare exceptions, but I wouldn't experiment with them until you have the basics down solid.)
answered 8 hours ago
Lauren IpsumLauren Ipsum
70.8k7 gold badges107 silver badges238 bronze badges
There are three rules for conversation:
1) Indicate through some mark of punctuation that someone is speaking aloud.
This can be double quotes " , single quotes ' , dashes of varying lengths — , guillemets « , or whatever else typographic convention is in your area.
2) Make it clear who is speaking.
This is usually through some kind of dialogue tag (he said, she shouted, they whispered). You can also distinguish characters through vocabulary, grammar, diction, foreign language, accent, etc. Not every utterance necessarily needs a tag, but it should be easily and absolutely clear who is speaking any given line. If two people are talking and I have to count lines of dialogue to determine the speaker, you need more dialogue tags, variation in speech, and/or stage business.
3) New speaker gets a new paragraph.
It doesn't matter how many people are talking or how often they interrupt each other. Each new person speaking starts a new paragraph. (There are rare exceptions, but I wouldn't experiment with them until you have the basics down solid.)
answered 8 hours ago
Lauren IpsumLauren Ipsum
70.8k7 gold badges107 silver badges238 bronze badges
answered 8 hours ago
Lauren IpsumLauren Ipsum
70.8k7 gold badges107 silver badges238 bronze badges
answered 8 hours ago
Lauren IpsumLauren Ipsum
70.8k7 gold badges107 silver badges238 bronze badges
answered 8 hours ago
Lauren IpsumLauren Ipsum
70.8k7 gold badges107 silver badges238 bronze badges
70.8k7 gold badges107 silver badges238 bronze badges
add a comment
|
add a comment
|
With all due respect to Lauren's answer, there is a fourth rule.
4) Speech that is incidental to action stays with the paragraph that describes the action. That is, if the character runs, jumps, yells "Stop", and tackles the person they are chasing, that is one action paragraph, including the dialogue.
In prose, action usually stops for dialogue. It is too confusing to mix the two. But when words are an element of the action, they stay with the action.
answered 8 hours ago
Mark BakerMark Baker
62.1k5 gold badges116 silver badges233 bronze badges
2
absolutely correct. I thought that this might be too advanced for the OP if the OP is not sure if dialogue is supposed to use quotation marks, but this is an excellent addendum.
– Lauren Ipsum
8 hours ago
add a comment
|
With all due respect to Lauren's answer, there is a fourth rule.
4) Speech that is incidental to action stays with the paragraph that describes the action. That is, if the character runs, jumps, yells "Stop", and tackles the person they are chasing, that is one action paragraph, including the dialogue.
In prose, action usually stops for dialogue. It is too confusing to mix the two. But when words are an element of the action, they stay with the action.
answered 8 hours ago
Mark BakerMark Baker
62.1k5 gold badges116 silver badges233 bronze badges
2
absolutely correct. I thought that this might be too advanced for the OP if the OP is not sure if dialogue is supposed to use quotation marks, but this is an excellent addendum.
– Lauren Ipsum
8 hours ago
add a comment
|
With all due respect to Lauren's answer, there is a fourth rule.
4) Speech that is incidental to action stays with the paragraph that describes the action. That is, if the character runs, jumps, yells "Stop", and tackles the person they are chasing, that is one action paragraph, including the dialogue.
In prose, action usually stops for dialogue. It is too confusing to mix the two. But when words are an element of the action, they stay with the action.
answered 8 hours ago
Mark BakerMark Baker
62.1k5 gold badges116 silver badges233 bronze badges
With all due respect to Lauren's answer, there is a fourth rule.
4) Speech that is incidental to action stays with the paragraph that describes the action. That is, if the character runs, jumps, yells "Stop", and tackles the person they are chasing, that is one action paragraph, including the dialogue.
In prose, action usually stops for dialogue. It is too confusing to mix the two. But when words are an element of the action, they stay with the action.
answered 8 hours ago
Mark BakerMark Baker
62.1k5 gold badges116 silver badges233 bronze badges
answered 8 hours ago
Mark BakerMark Baker
62.1k5 gold badges116 silver badges233 bronze badges
answered 8 hours ago
Mark BakerMark Baker
62.1k5 gold badges116 silver badges233 bronze badges
answered 8 hours ago
Mark BakerMark Baker
62.1k5 gold badges116 silver badges233 bronze badges
62.1k5 gold badges116 silver badges233 bronze badges
2
absolutely correct. I thought that this might be too advanced for the OP if the OP is not sure if dialogue is supposed to use quotation marks, but this is an excellent addendum.
– Lauren Ipsum
8 hours ago
add a comment
|
2
absolutely correct. I thought that this might be too advanced for the OP if the OP is not sure if dialogue is supposed to use quotation marks, but this is an excellent addendum.
– Lauren Ipsum
8 hours ago
2
2
absolutely correct. I thought that this might be too advanced for the OP if the OP is not sure if dialogue is supposed to use quotation marks, but this is an excellent addendum.
– Lauren Ipsum
8 hours ago
absolutely correct. I thought that this might be too advanced for the OP if the OP is not sure if dialogue is supposed to use quotation marks, but this is an excellent addendum.
– Lauren Ipsum
8 hours ago
add a comment
|
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
M.E. Rollins is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
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Welcome to Writing.SE M.E. Rollins, glad you found us. We have a tour and help center you might wish to check out. You might want to check out some other questions under dialogue. If you still have a single question (we only allow one at a time here) about something you're not sure of that hasn't been answered elsewhere here, you can ask that. Thanks and see you around!
– Cyn♦
7 hours ago