Well SHEESH Chuck…
Actually, I think what’s stuck in my head is the rule I learned in school which was “every new speaker requiries a new paragraph”
So if I write the line
I glance at my watch. “I have time for you.”
I think that “I have time for you.” requires a carriage return.
*I glance at my watch.
“I have time for you.”*
whatever. I’m just going to quit writing and become a pastry chef.
jarbaby
In some circles, the overuse of other verbs for “said” is known as “said-bookism,” and it’s always considered a problem. (I’ve seen this phrase a lot in science fiction; I don’t know if that use has penetrated other areas.) That’s one of the things that a writer’s group will pounce on when they meet to show each other what they’re working on, for example.
Manuscripts with lots of other verbs for “said” are often the ones editors make personal copies of to pass around and read out loud at gatherings; they can be unintentionally hilarious. This probably isn’t anyone’s preferred outcome.
One rule of thumb: if there are only two people talking, you need very few speech tags. Just one to get it started and one every so often if it’s a long conversation (or if there’s a major break in the middle). RealityChuck touched on this above, but it’s worth saying bluntly: you don’t need to “he said” every line of dialogue.
I thought that this thread would be about the use of “like” and “go” in place of “said;” I was quite happy to find it wasn’t But I will say that those horrid terms are really only acceptable within dialogue.
I.E.:
David said, “So I go ‘But Chuck was all “No way, Barry went like ‘That is totally uncool,’”’ y’know?”
Well, I’ve read many novels by Alexandre Dumas (author of the Three Musketeers, the Count of Monte Cristo, etc…) and in sections using that method, where the interlocutors are only marked by starting a new paragraph, I’ve noticed several occasions where I swear that the author gets confused. I had to start again from the beginning and count the paragraphs, and sentences appropriate for one character are in a position that indicates they are said by the other character. Dumas obviously needed to do better editing. So if you do employ this method, make sure you keep track of who’s saying what! :mad:
(Arnold also needs to do better editing :o)
[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 04-24-2001 at 12:28 PM]
Sure. Just connect the actions of that new speaker in the same paragraph as the speech. In your example:
I glance at my watch. “I have time for you.”
. . . it’s really just one speaker – the narrator. So no need for a new paragraph. When the second person speaks (or you describe something he does), that’s where you start the new paragraph.
If it were easy, it wouldn’t be any fun.