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In my new book I have a scene where a bunch of friends are having lunch and holding a conversation. The issue I am having is how to make the conversation flow without ending each line with A said B said A replied C added to the conversation etc.
Could anyone provide a way to make this work where it seems natural or point to an online reference. THANKS
Comments
good question
So far I have winged it. I try to include names or something in the things so that the reader has an Idea who is speaking.
But yeah your right the "he said. This is like really really really annoying as a reader.
really annoying - Tels
its annoying as a writer too, especially with a group of six. The best I could do was have one character eating and talking with his mouth full.
BOB SAID
JANE SAID
BILL SAID
TOM SAID
BILL SAID
TOM SAID
JANE SAID
Author deletes story and plays angry birds.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Maybe multiple fonts would work?
Maybe you could use a different font for each character. It could be chosen to match the character's personality. If this was introduced before the big scene and reinforced every few times each character spoke it might work. Granted, it would be very confusing if not done correctly.
Say a bold font for someone who tends to be up front and in your face when talking. A flowery font for someone who is particularly feminine. Or a whimsical font for a joker. I obviously haven't dealt with different fonts here and don't know how much flexibility there is here on BC. If this is done, each font should be distinct from each other font.
If you do consider this you might want to consult with your publisher and editor before you invest a lot of time on it.
Good Luck!
_Bev_
If the conversation
is primarily between two of them, then it's easier and you could describe it as such, with interruptions or additions by other named characters.
"I like you in green," Tom said to Dorothy.
"Why's that?" she replied.
"I think you know why"
"Do I?"
"Oh for God's sake get a room, you two," piped in Susie.
Angharad
wish it were that simple - angharad
This is more like a round robin conversation with a lot of people talking in turn, I have two character's who play off each other (like always adding something when the other stops talking). I just don't want to confuse people, but I don't want the list of said and the thesaurus of words I could use to replace said.
They are all talking about the main focus character, kind of gossipy during lunch. Almost so much action can happen at lunch though. Chew, swallow, salt, pick teeth with credit card, pass gas and say "my compliments to the chef." Very limited.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Ahhh....
While the gossipy discussion can be interesting - when you're IN it... It CAN be hard to read. It sounds like you want to get the feeling across that they're chatting about someone (with random stuff tossed in)... And you have a pair who finish each other's thoughts and such...
Go ahead and write it out with the he said/she said stuff - perhaps with variations on wording/positioning... THEN, re-write the scene where you DESCRIBE what was said and how it was said - like you did above, but with the details included. Take a look at both versions... You'll likely find that the second provides the reader with what they need better than the former... Even so, if you really like the dialog bit, you can START the dialog, and after a few lines (before it has a chance of getting confusing or tedious) switch over to the descriptive/narrative approach.
After the exercise, you may still decide to go with a full dialog version, but you'll know it's the right decision then rather than ending up there by default... (Yes, I'm speaking from experience of one who over dialogs... Just ask the dozen or so folks who've read some of my prose. I also spend way to much time INSIDE the head of my POV character(s)...) Doesn't mean I can't recognize what I do "wrong". LOL
Annette
It IS extremely confusing IRL
So why it should be less so in the story? :-)
There are several ways...
There are several ways to handle this (that I've seen)... And each has advantages and disadvantages. A lot depends on whether it's important WHO says WHAT and whether a given comment is directed at a specific person. It also depends on whether the story is in first person or third person. (In first person, it's quite easy to tell what the POV character says... So, you just need to let the POV character (& readers) know what OTHERS say.)
1) Dick Said; Jane Said; Sally Said
Yes, this is BOOORING. But, if it's critical to know exactly who says what, it works... If it's only a FEW lines, it's not TOO painful.
2) alternate words.
Use alternates for "said"... Bill queried; James interrupted; Andrea concurred. Also - you can put the person performing the action in the middle.
"I don't know", Bill interposed, " Jim's always bla bla blaing."
3) Two names on one
Rather than imply who says EACH line, you can have a later speaker IMPLY who made an earlier statement, either by quoting part, or indicating it's in reply.
"Are you sure Bill would really like that?" Jane asked her sister.
or
"Sally, do you really think so?" Jane queried.
4) Occasional Naming
Just let it flow, putting a speaker's name only on the critical lines and let readers "guess" where it's not critical. You can try just writing out the dialog with NOBODY named and see if it works... Then, if there are some things that have to be said by a specific person, go back and add it.
5) Accents
This can be very hard, but if one or more characters have a distinctive accent, you can try to incorporate that in their speaking. Writing dialect is NOT easy and few carry it off well.
6) Word Choice
Some characters tend to use LONG words or lots of them, when a few would work (and vice versa)... If this is well known and you are consistent, readers can come to recognize these speakers quite easily. If it's early in the story, you can add descriptive text where you explain that Bill's always terse or Helen will never use a one syllable word, when there's a perfectly good three or four syllable word that better conveys what she's saying or some such. I've even seen a case where an author had another character comment about traits. One in particular sticks with me... "You know, if you listened to ever third word Janice says, you'd still know what she was talking about."
7) Describe the conversation
Rather than actually put the conversation in there (or all of it) describe what is said in prose. Some of us (myself included) probably use far more dialog than we should in getting our message across. There ARE times (Yes, Annette, you need to remember this yourself!) when dialog isn't critical and just describing what was discussed is far more effective and helpful. You can interpose bits/pieces of dialog if you feel it helps the flow... But, the longer the section of dialog the more likely it should be that it really should be prose rather than dialog. (How often have you seen a professional author take dialog over a half page?
Things I don't like is playing games with fonts and such, as many readers (myself included) find that distracting, and you have to remember which font goes with which speaker.
How ever you do it, if you don't include speaker with EACH LINE (and you probably shouldn't, which you noticed and why you probably asked the question) - you probably want to have a "version" of your story where you do indicate exactly who you have saying which line... So you don't forget who says what. You also need to have the section read by one or more beta readers to make sure that where it's needed, folks know who said what.
Good Luck,
Annette
You could approach it like a
You could approach it like a play or movie script.
_Bev_
Yes, writing good dialogue is
Yes, writing good dialogue is not an easy skill to acquire, especially when more than two characters are involved.
Ideally, I need to go into some detail, but I don't want to bore you all! {but see later}.
There's no need to add he said, she said, whoever-else said to every strand of dialogue. Sometimes the reader will be able to work out who is saying what from context of what is being spoken, although with multiple characters, that is less likely.
The word 'said' is, in any case, a harsh word, and I tend to avoid it in all dialogue as much as possible. There are numerous alternatives that you can use, such as xxxxxxx replied, xxxxxx interrupted, xxxxx laughed, and xxxxx commented. (xxxxx being a character's name).
You can also break the dialogue up by adding short comments that also help to show the reader what else is happening in the scene.
In your case, friends are having a meal together. Use this fact to add interest to the story. For example, read the following two short passages of text that you COULD use in such a scene.
Extract 1.
During the meal, Rachel said, "What are we doing at the weekend?"
"Shopping, of course," the girls answered, in unison. At least one of the guys rolled his eyes heavenward.
"Yes, I need some new lingerie, and some boots," Clare said.
Helen giggled. "Victoria's Secrets?"
"Where else?" said Clare.
Extract 2.
During the meal, Rachel asked, "What are we - " She paused when a waiter appeared at her shoulder to offer her more wine. "Please," she nodded to him, then thanked him and repeated the question she'd been about to pose. "What are we doing at the weekend?"
The girls all glanced at each other and, in unison, chorused "Shopping, of course," followed by laughter. At least one of the guys rolled his eyes heavenward and shook his head,
Clare chuckled. "What else? I need new lingerie, and some boots."
Helen nudged her. "Victoria's Secrets?" she asked.
"Mais oui, ma cherie." Clare hugged Helen as she spoke, then the pair broke into a fit of giggles.
End of extracts.
Ok, the first extract is deliberately 'stacatto', but I'm sure the second, whilst not perfect, is much easier to read - and there's no mention of the word 'said'.
It's also essential that your dialogue is correctly enclosed in the usual quotes. Miss one terminating quote and you can confuse the reader. Oh, and NEVER include dialogue from two or more characters in one paragraph.
I hope this helps a little.
And on that subject, I have often wanted to comment on the technical aspects of writing, on this site, but don't want to put writers off by being too critical, and I'm not sure comments such as this, even if requested, are best used in this way.
I have thought of posting some (hopefully) useful tips and pointers, rather that a story as such on the site. Would this be a helpful idea? Comments would be appreciated - or messages.
Actually . . . .
I prefer the first extract. Short and to the point, it conveys the necessary information without a lot of excess verbage. The second one reads as if the writer is being paid by the word, or worse, is in love with their "voice". It can be fleshed out a bit, if you are trying to show that Rachel gets bombed out of her mind on the wine, but certainly not to the extent the second extract does. Being too wordy will lose you readers fairly quickly. Very few are going to want to wade through the excess verbage, instead they are going to go elsewhere.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
As an editor, I also dislike the he said, she said, he saidstuff
I do not recommend multiple fonts for this purpose, unless one of them is s0me god-like character. Ditto for script styling in writing prose.
Several of you have added good ideas that can help.
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Connected had some other good suggestions.
I like what Angharad, and Annette said, but I'm going to expand on their suggestions.
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With two speakers, once they have been identified, as long as it is clear who is speaking, you can begin leaving off the attribution after their first dialogs. Don't take it to extremes, though, reintroduce them after maybe four sets of dialog, just to help the reader.
It gets tougher when there are three or more characters, but, as long as they have been introduced, it is obvious who is speaking from the context, Leave off the attribution for a bit, as above.
Another thing that can help things seem less stilted, is to move the 'Jane said,' to before the dialog once in a while, or, with more than one sentence in the dialog, put it between them. Or even within a multi-part sentence, though you must be very careful of your punctuation.
If the dialog is a question, and it must be attributed, use asked instead of said.
If it shows someone breaking into someone elses dialog you might use interjected, or broke in,
If it is an order telling someone to do something, use ordered, or something like that.
But going back to my first two paragraphs, as long as it is obvious who said something, you can leave off the attributions more than half the time.
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Often, one speaker will have more than one consecutive paragraph of dialog. This makes things more complicated.
First, the rule for consecutive paragraphs of dialog is to begin the first paragraph with a quotation mark, but leave off the trailing quotation mark on it and all following paragraphs that are not the final paragraphs.
The final paragraph of the group must have a quotation mark at the beginning and the end. It is optional, but preferred that the speaker be identified somewhere, (I like the first paragraph).
The next paragraph of dialog should clearly identify the speaker, preferably at the beginning.
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I know I left out a space in my title, but Drupal wouldn't let me add any more characters.
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Holly
I usually
Just run with it and do dialogue after dialogue bit, using each character's word choice and phrasing to emphasize who says what. It's not the cleanest way to do it, and can still be a bit confusing, but you can make that work for you as well by letting it emphasize the point that it's not always who says something that matters so much as what was said. The occasional addition of something along the lines of "X stroked his chin nervously as he asked me," or some similarly descriptive bit, can help to identify who each voice belongs to if it's important to the readers to know.
Otherwise, I've never really worried about it too much.
Melanie E.
Change format
If the problem is that the format of a novel doesn't fit a section with a lot of dialogue, switch to one that does. Have your narrator say something like, "If my life was one of those cheesy romantic comedies, this would be the scene in the third act where the heroine has her moment of clarity," and then write the conversation as though it were a screenplay, where the speaking parts get labelled with the character names.
Dialogue
I try as best I can to make my characters individuals. The idea of different accents is one I follow, but I also try to add a touch of quirkiness, of character, to each of them. In my own stuff, Annie is very Welsh, and uses odd filler from her area, aye? Von is Valleys Welsh, see, and that allows a distinction between two people who are both Welsh women. Darren and Chantelle speak/spoke mock Jamaican from East London, lahk, and Sophie a stilted form of English deriving from her learning it as a second language.
Then, there is personality. Ginny is spectacularly over the top in imagery and lack of sanity (fuck, yeah!") and bounces from one subject or mood to another, so she is obvious when she talks.
As for lists of characters in one chat, I tend to follow the standard alternative speech structure but I rarely have anyone 'say' something. What I do is to describe an action by the character.
Ian grinned. "xxxxxx"
John looked puzzled. "xxxxx?"
"xxxxx"
"Ah! that xxxxx"
Alec grunted in amusement. "No, the other xxxxxxx"
That brought a laugh from Suzy. "yyyyyy!"
chat with multiple characters
You can try this
Player 1: What the hec is that?" pointing to the sky.
Player 2: That's the new Aerostar 300 o it's good will tour.
May Your Light Forever Shine
There's nothing wrong with said
Said is the invisible word. You don't want to overuse it but that's actually hard to do. Readers don't really see the word said. Don't be afraid of he said, she said.
That said :) there are alternatives. If a character has a distinctive way of speaking, there's no need for frequent tags. If people call each other by name now and then, that can help. If you describe the speaker acting in the same paragraph, you can usually do without the said.
Beware of using words like mentioned, noted, shared and stated. They seem like synonyms for said but they require very careful use and should not be used frequently. Ellen Hayes gets away with it (in Tuck) because she uses them ironically but that's hard to do.
You can also vary where you put the said. She said, "X." "Y," he said. "Z!" said Bill.
That last one sets a few prescriptivist grammarians on edge but there is nothing really wrong with it. It's just a construction seldom used with other verbs outside of poetry.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Agreed on the use of said.
Check out popular mainstream fiction, when I look at the books I've read they use said frequently, did I notice when I was reading them? Not at all.
If the story is good you barely notice one syllable that the eye passes across in a split second.
Hugs
Cat
-
You can't choose your relatives but you can choose your family.
Grin
What she said.
What is said
can sometimes identify the speaker, without having to tell everyone.
By all means introduce the speakers in some way (already well covered above but perhaps also nationality) but use something like "I knew this girlfriend stuff was a load of crap'" he said, harshly' as the sort of thing that Bill would say, or in his tone of voice.
S.
Um, no
"He said adverbly" is called a Tom Swiftly and should be avoided because of the very real possibility of unwitting humor.
As in, "Hand me the sandpaper," he said abrasively.
Or, "I don't think so," she said vaguely.
Or, "We bought a pony," he said hoarsely.
Or, "I missed Science class," she said absently.
You get the idea. :)
You can do this: Bill's voice sounded harsh. "What a load of crap," he said.
But adverbs with -ly endings should be avoided in speech tags and used with caution elsewhere.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Unless...
Unless you are attempting to intentionally cram some of that humor into a piece...
A look at the hundreds (or thousands) of puns that have appeared in the over 30 Xanth novels by Piers Anthony and their popularity shows that it CAN be acceptable... When done intentionally.
Annette
Intent
excuses all ---- as long as the humor works (that working bit is the problem)
Multi voices
Katie,
When I read the first header, I thought you were concerned with talking with several of your split personalities... LOL
Seriously, I have seen this done by using different indents for each person.
Zip
Change the text style
You can do like in some of the RetroCon stories and play with the font and the color of the text.
You're better ask them how to do it, cos I don't remember the codes to do the changes.
Best of luck
Peace and Love
tmf
lot of good ideas
Loads and loads of good ideas that my multiple personalities are now fighting over (Thanks zip)
I don't know about using the screenplay layout... would look a little off from the rest of the prose.
The font thing was interesting, but in this new age of electronic publishing (can I consider BC electronic publishing) there comes certain issues that may have not been there before. For one, do the people reading your work also have the font? I have installed several hundred fonts on my computer and couldn't tell you which ones come standard that everyone would have (except times new roman and courier new). Also, if it is put on an e-reader (kindle-nook) I think it converts everything into one font and font size. Plus, unless it was something quirky and meant to be funny it gets annoying, unless it is reserved for one character (like using a digital font for H.A.L. in 2001 ASO) and makes some sort of sense.
I like the idea of interspersing action and I agree with Joyce that I have to be careful with the ly words. I have a habit of doing it sparingly (fuck, I did it again)
Going back and forth without saying who spoke confuses me. I have seen a few story where there is like lines and lines of Dialogue and I get lost as to who said what (it happens in mainstream books in print that have sold millions as well as here so don't think I'm picking on any one.)
I think in the end, I am going to have to write the entire novel and then go back to figure out what works out best and I'm only in the second or fifth chapter (I haven't decided where things break down). I need the main character to be popular, and sometimes to show popularity you have to show interaction with a lot of people. Oh well. I still have 2000 more words to type today and I need to sell some more of my Novel already out.
Someone buy a copy of God Bless the Child, I can't have 0 sales for the month, it would make me feel bad.
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
See, that's one of the things I love about BCTS
Erin makes a valid point.
I've learned so much here and I'm still learning.
S.
One solution
One solution is to give them them distinctive speech patterns or accents. On could be Texan, another Boston etc. It'd be a bit of work to keep it up throughout the story, but it would solve the problem.
An other is too have the speaker (A)address a particular person (D)with a question so that the reader understands that D is replying. D could then pass the buck to B... etc.
It's a tough dilemma. Perhaps you don't read many book with six sided conversations. ;o)
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Break it up into bits
Just break the whole huge thing into bits. That is what we really do anyway, and it will make it easier to read.
Think about it, though people may come and go in a crowd, is that how you remember it? Give it some thought. Add some narration in there, just to cause a pause
OK; is there one main person? That one person probably doesn't ever need an attribution, especially if she is adding a comment every second or third comment. But, yeah, 'said' disappears - you got to really push it to over use it.
But mainly, break the thing up! Unless someone is at a podium, twenty people will seldom be listening (and maybe not if they are). Peeps come and go in conversations -- next time have your protagonist engage in two or three conversations at once, that happens as often as this, and is fun to read through too, but harder to write.