posted
I’ve read the other thread floating around in this forum, the one about breaking up long monologues and speeches, and the proper punctuation to accompany this.
I’m finding the grammar rules fuzzy on another aspect of dialogue, what paragraph to place the stuff we break dialogue up with, the narration, description, exposition. This gets even more complicated when breaking up dialogue of considerable length.
Your basic example: John scooped the ice cream and dumped it back into his bowl. “I disagree, that’s the most annoying comic strip I’ve ever read.” Mom, a hygiene freak, made a face.
“Like I’m supposed to trust your tastes in comics?” I said.
“You don’t plan on eating that, do you?” asked mom. I didn’t care about ice cream, I wanted to defend a piece of art I considered insightful and refreshing.
“Boondocks is brilliant in its political satire,” I said, but Mom wouldn’t let the matter rest.
“Stick that bowl in the sink right now and get another one.” She put the dish rag down and grabbed the comic strip off the counter top. “I read this one today. I usually like Boondocks, but not today.” Mom sensed an opportunity to give a lecture and followed through with gusto.
“In the first place…”
I just made this up and tried to illustrate how I try to follow the advice of keeping paragraphs separated by who’s speaking, and by subject, but that dialogue doesn’t always make this possible. Notice that I flipped flopped in the use of conventions in the beginning and ending of this paragraph. When faced with dialogue by a specific character paired with a sentence about or performed by the same character, does the sentence belong in the same paragraph as the dialogue? Should I have made “But Mom wouldn’t let the matter rest and stuck it in the next sentence, the one that has to do with the matter that she wouldn’t let rest?
Now, to make matters more complicated, lets pretend Mom’s monologue when on for several paragraphs. It may not be good story telling, but she did it anyways because the subject matter was thematic and important to the story.
Where does the exposition belong? Where do I place the reactions to her boring tirade and other details that break it up? Should I tack it on to the paragraph preceding the break or start the new paragraph of continuing dialogue with it? Should I employ a mixture of the two techniques? If I only use one break, how do I know which option is preferable?
The edit is to add spaces between the sample paragraph above. This bulletin board ignores indents.
[This message has been edited by Tess (edited November 21, 2004).]
posted
I think it's actually just a matter of personal style.
But I'm not sure, so someone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
For example, I think "...but Mom wouldn't let the matter rest" is fine right where it is. Or you could put it in the next paragraph if you want. It's your story, so who's to say wherever you put it is wrong? I don't know that rules of where the new paragraph starts are as strict as more syntactical grammar rules, at least not in fiction-writing.
posted
When you're mixing dialogue with naration, you often don't need to break new paragraphs when another person speaks. What we do NOT do is put two quoted bits of dialogue one directly after another, like this:
quote:"When are you going to be home?" "Whenever I feel like it!"
That's wrong. This is acceptable:
quote:"When are you going to be home?" she asked. She always had to ask that just as he was about to close the door. "Whenever I feel like it!" he shouted as he slammed the door. Immediately, he felt bad for shouting. After all, she was just being a mother.
When two people are talking (it's almost impossible to do this with more than two), and they are trading remarks without any exposition, each person's next bit of dialogue is a new paragraph, like so:
quote:"When are you going to be home?"
"Whenever I feel like it!"
If there isn't a lot of exposition around the dialogue, then this is fine, too:
quote:"When are you going to be home?" she asked.
"Whenever I feel like it!" he shouted.
This is not to say that you can't begin each person's dialogue in a new paragraph, just that it isn't required.
[This message has been edited by Magic Beans (edited November 21, 2004).]
posted
MB, the only example above I disagree with is the second. Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" says:
"In dialogue, each speech, even if only a single word, is usually paragraphed by itself; that is, a new paragraph begins with each change of speaker."
An old grammar book I have from college, "Harbrace College Handbook," says:
"Standard practice is to write each person's speech, no matter how short, as a separate paragraph. Verbs of saying, as well as closely related bits of narrative, are included in the paragraph along with the speech."
Wetwilly may be right, the distinctions I'm looking for, the ones about where to place the exposition, may be a matter of personal style. I'm posting this because it came up in a critique I just did. My guess is that we pick whatever flows smoothest, what ever will be the most invisible to the reader. I'm afraid, however, that not all writers will agree with what I think meets these qualifications.
[This message has been edited by Tess (edited November 21, 2004).]
posted
That's why it is called style and not grammar. Other writers do not have to agree, so long as you are comfortable, and your readers are comfortable. We often nitpick to draw people's attention to such things, not to say this HAS to be changed.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I've read books that do it both ways (not in the same book! ) and yet it never drew attention to itself, either way. Strunk says usually and Harbrace says it is standard practice, which is their way of saying what they think the rules should be in the face of countless exceptions.
I think it may be a more contemporary practice to have a paragraph break for each new speaker of dialogue, which means we should be doing it this way. I don't think it would prevent a manuscript from being published.
posted
The underlying reason for separating dialogue into paragraphs is because each paragraph is unified by topic, namely, description of the words (and sometimes actions) of a particular character.
So in a passage of dialogue, you should make sure that each paragraph deals with the actions (percieved by the POV, of course ) of a single character or defined group (such as "the raging mob").
I'll illustrate on the passage where you first encounter a problem.
quote:John scooped the ice cream and dumped it back into his bowl. “I disagree, that’s the most annoying comic strip I’ve ever read.” Mom, a hygiene freak, made a face.
Notice that the quoted line is not clearly attributed, and both John and Mom take expressive action in this paragraph. If the line is John's, then the paragraph should be about what he is doing.
quote:John scooped some ice cream and dumped it into his bowl, ignoring the face Mom made at this unhygienic reuse. “I disagree, that’s the most annoying comic strip I’ve ever read.”
Now it is clear that John's words and actions are the topic of the paragraph (I also eliminated "the" and "back", which combined to imply that John was scooping the ice cream out of his bowl in the first place).
In a long monologue, you intersperse description of the character's other actions, as well as interjecting the POV character's thoughts and perceptions where appropriate. If the POV perception is directly of the character delivering the monologue, then it can be in paragraph with the monologue (the entire monologue, after all, is implicitly what the POV character heard not necessarily what was said).
If you are breaking in to desribe another character's external reaction to the monologue or the POV characters "premotor" or motor reactions, then you put that in a paragraph set apart from any monologue.
quote:John rolled his eyes the moment Mom turned her back on him, and and silently struggled to keep calm against the duel impulses to strangle someone or laugh hysterically.
Something like that would need its own paragraph, for example. The preceeding line, "Mom shifted her glare to me with this last remark", where "last remark" refers to something that she was saying, belongs in the same paragraph which contains the quotation of the last remark.
That said, you can write your dialogue in Sanskrit spelled phonetically using Chinese characters with dirty meanings. My comments are only suggestions, after all. Or you could insert unmatched UBB codes throughout your cogent explication of the principles of paragraph breaks in dialogue.
[This message has been edited by Survivor (edited November 22, 2004).]
posted
I see what you mean, Survivor. Thank you for being the first to pick apart the first paragraph of the sample. You’re right; I should have put a “he said” in there. You’re also right about the POV being a factor. I tried another rewrite of the sample paragraph:
* * *
John scooped the ice cream off the floor and dumped it back into his bowl. “I disagree, that’s the most disgusting comic strip I’ve ever read,” he said. Mom made a face.
“Like I’m supposed to trust your tastes in comics?” I shot back, assuming Mom would back me up.
“You don’t plan on eating that, do you?” asked mom. Just like her, to care more about the ice cream than the comics – I should have guessed. I didn’t care if John ate dog hair; I wanted to defend a piece of art I considered insightful and refreshing.
“Boondocks is brilliant in its political satire,” I said, but Mom wouldn’t let the matter rest.
* * *
In the above, do you think “Mom made a face” belongs in a separate paragraph? This is a case where I think an additional paragraph would be disruptive. I realize this is not yet a monologue, but you wrote:
“If you are breaking in to desribe another character's external reaction to the monologue or the POV characters "premotor" or motor reactions, then you put that in a paragraph set apart from any monologue.”
I agree with your above monologue examples. What happens though, when the interrupting action or thought is performed by the speaker? For example:
(Mom’s talking here) “…Blah, blah, blah.” She scratched her chin in thought and shifted her weight to the other foot.
“Blah, blah, blah….”
Where does the piece of interrupting action go if the action isn’t directly connected to the content of the speech, at the end of the first paragraph or the beginning of the second? I have a tendency to prefer the former, at the end of the first paragraph.
I generally like it when a paragraph starts with dialogue. I find it flows better, but this may only be my personal preference. I think I’m trying to nit pick the supposed rule that “closely related bits of narrative, are included in the paragraph along with the speech." Notice again, in the rewritten example at the top of this post, the sentence “I didn’t care if John ate dog hair; I wanted to defend a piece of art I considered insightful and refreshing.” This content has more to do with the following paragraph, where the POV character “I” defends the comic strip, but I included it in the former paragraph to preserve the flow of thought.
[This message has been edited by Tess (edited November 22, 2004).]
posted
I would strongly recommend separating the sentence about Mom making a face from the first paragraph if only for the sake of clarity.
Action tags (or narrative sentences, whatever you want to call them) among dialog should be arranged so the actor is the same person speaking.
Since Mom is not the speaker in the first paragraph, the sentence about her facial expression should be in its own paragraph (it's a separate thought, after all).
quote: John did something. "John's words."
Mom reacted.
"Someone else's words." That same someone does something.
posted
I question everything, especially the insitutions...(they're out to get us you know).
I think Kathleen's point is the best one... clarity, and above all clarity. I like paragraph breaks. Long paragraphs make my eyes hurt after a hard day's work. I don't see paragraph breaks as disruptive but clarifying. It eases my reading of a passage.
posted
If we use Kathleen’s action tag rule, the second segment of the above rewritten paragraph should look like this:
* * *
“You don’t plan on eating that, do you?” asked mom.
Just like her, to care more about the ice cream than the comics – I should have guessed. I didn’t care if John ate dog hair; I wanted to defend a piece of art I considered insightful and refreshing. “Boondocks is brilliant in its political satire,” I said.
Mom wouldn’t let the matter rest. “Blah, blah, blah…” (mom starts her monologue)
posted
Well, as I showed in my example, you can have John react to what Mom does, thus revealing her action by implication.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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) and yet it never drew attention to itself, either way. Strunk says usually and Harbrace says it is standard practice, which is their way of saying what they think the rules should be in the face of countless exceptions.
) of a single character or defined group (such as "the raging mob").
