How do you write a long rant where almost all the dialogues are from one person?
Think house wife complaining to a friend.
If I put it all in one paragraph, it would become too long.
If I seperate it into many lines, I don’t know what to put in between the line.
Anyone got good ideas or examples on how to write this?
Thank you in advance.
If this is prose, you may want to try describing the actions that the primary ranter takes. A lot can be communicated by showing exactly what the character’s face looks like, or what her hands are doing, or whether she’s pacing or sitting. Adding in some of that description should help you break up the long quotes, and could also help you eliminate some of the dialogue.
Alternately, you could also mention how any onlookers react, and whether the ranter notices this. Without the context, it’s kind of hard to know what you should do. What voice are you using?
Praise the Lord!
Sorry, I am new to this…
A story/novel is considered prose, right?
By voice, do you mean what’s the emotion and tone of the speaker?
What I am trying to write:
The wife is complaining about the inequity towards woman.
Mostly sorrow, with a tiny bit of anger. Because there is nothing she could do.
I think you can have dialogue from one character in more than one paragraph, you just don’t close the quotation mark at the end of the first paragraph.
Thank you very much, Waenara and Angel of the Lord.
That was really a lot of help.
Sorry Angel of the Lord, I tried to find out what you meant by “Voice”. I finally realised that you were talking about point of view.
I am writing in third person with limited omniscient. (well, at least that’s what I hope…)
Okay. In that case, using others’ reactions might be difficult, depending on how observant your character is. If your character is in a state to acknowledge others’ reactions, then they’d be usable. If the character is too absorbed in her ranting, though, then that won’t work–it’d break the point of view, I think. Describing the character might be tricky, too; you might limited to describing her motions and why she made them, or just the parts of her body she can see without looking in a mirror.
Waenara is spot-on about putting one person’s dialogue in more than one paragraph. If all you’re worried about is breaking it up so its easier on the eyes, then that’d be more than suitable. Depends on whether you want to be more dialogue-heavy or not, really.
If you’re going to do the multi-paragraph dialogue thing, you still might want to break it up a bit. I know that I personally get a little glassy-eyed when I have to read a long section of dialogue. Then again, I get a little glassy-eyed when I have to listen to someone talk for a long time, so my opinion might not be the norm.