Nicole MacDonald Author

Author Nicole MacDonald's website

  • Book Store
  • Gar’nysian Treats
    • Creating the BirthRight Trilogy
    • Characters from the Trilogy
    • Q’s & A’s
    • Map of Gar’Nyse
    • Valentine Snippet
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Speech-marks and dialogue

November 16, 2010 by Nicole 9 Comments

Just another thing I’ve discovered while working through my edit *grin* You may or may not know this and I hope this info is helpful to other newbies like myself out there.
In my manuscript I switch POV frequently.  It gives a broader view point for the reader and means you have insight into quite a few of the characters.  It’s very fun and VERY challenging to write as it has to be clear to the reader whom they’re following and when.
I also have creatures in the story that use telepathy to ‘speak’.  So this means I have to be able to make a clear distinction between all these varying conversations.  After a lot of googling last week (said it before and I’ll say it again, Google – best invention EVER!) I’ve come up with the following solution for myself and some basic ‘writing dialogue’ points.
My solution for my manuscript is to make telepathy in italics between single speech marks i.e
‘What’s up?’
To make thoughts in a persons head on a single line i.e
Oh crap..
Normal speech is like this
“What’s up?”
And when I refer to the ‘rational voice’ or the ‘silly voice’ in a persons mind it’s in italics with an appropriate tag and no speech-marks at all, ie
Maybe not such a good idea, thought my rational voice.
This may sound chaotic but I’m very happy to say it actually reads well (trust me, I’m SUPER critical on my writing now – rose tinted glasses are sooo gone).
And the basic suggestions (shouldn’t say rules, nothing’s set in stone) for easy to follow dialogue editing are.
Start the beginning of new dialogue with a capital
Keep full stops inside the speech marks if appealing to a mainly US audience (have had to change mine from the UK version of outside speech marks)
Keep each persons dialogue to a separate line – easy to read and follow
Try to design your dialogue so as to reduce the number of ‘tags’ you need, a tag being ‘she said’ or ‘john explained’.  Tags are often over-used.
If anyone else has dialogue pointers let me know!  I’d love to hear them (and I promise I’m working on the Road-trip video and post) 
signature

Filed Under: Pre 2016 posts Tagged With: Speech-marks and dialogue, Uncategorized

Comments

  1. Constance says

    November 16, 2010 at 8:22 am

    Have you read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse??

    she does some interesting dialogue in there on account of "internal monologue' rapid change of time line (centuries apart) and POV changes and telepathic links i think?

    have a squiz if you can…

    Reply
  2. Kerrin says

    November 16, 2010 at 8:52 am

    hey, good idea! that will make is SOOO much easier to follow! 🙂

    Reply
  3. Jolene Perry says

    November 16, 2010 at 8:52 am

    Those are EXCELLENT.
    I knew nothing on my first few projects and going back to double check and change all that is EXHAUSTING!

    Reply
  4. Constance says

    November 16, 2010 at 8:54 am

    o i agree BTW, internal monologue definitely works best in italics without speech marks!
    no other way about it!! 🙂

    Reply
  5. Wendy aka Quillfeather says

    November 16, 2010 at 9:32 am

    I agree too. Italics are definitely the way to go for speech.

    Good post 🙂

    Reply
  6. Old Kitty says

    November 16, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    Google is truly a handy device and very good for instant answers!! Yay!!

    Good luck with your editing!! Sounds ever so complicated with various POVs and telepathic dialogue! Wow! Take care
    x

    Reply
  7. laughingwolf says

    November 16, 2010 at 12:53 pm

    so far so pretty good, nicole 🙂

    Reply
  8. Vicki Rocho says

    November 16, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    I'd never noticed the difference between US and UK dialogue marks, but then I guess I get caught up in the story and don't read critically.

    Reply
  9. The Golden Eagle says

    November 16, 2010 at 7:51 pm

    I noticed that some books had different dialogue marks–but I didn't know it was because of a difference between US/UK!

    Thanks for posting about dialogue!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Copyright © 2021 · Custom Design by BD Web Studio · Powered by Genesis

Copyright © 2021 · Author Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in