Melrick

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13663 Well, when you're on to a winner...

13659 I guess I prefer my women to be of the non-rotting variety. lol Although that one wasn't bad!

13650 Still, I prefer non-zombie chicks, because they tend to be easier on the eye when it comes to perving.

I'm not sure if you meant to copy and paste in some of your dialogue as an example, but if so then it didn't work. Either way, I think I understand now what you mean. If you have two - or more - paragraphs of dialogue from the same person, then the quotation mark rules are a little different. You begin the first paragraph with quotation marks (whether you use ' or " is pretty much up to you), but at the end of the first dialogue paragraph, you don't use any quotation marks to enclose it. In other words, you leave that paragraph open. At the start of the second paragraph, you use quotation marks again, just like you did with the start of the first paragraph. Now, if this second paragraph is the last dialogue paragraph, you then finish with quotation marks, thereby enclosing both that paragraph, and the one that came before it. I'll post some nonsense text to show what I mean: To be honest, most people don't do that. Not because you shouldn't, but because they don't know the rules. You may well get people leaving comments to say that you forgot to use quotation marks, but you can rest assured that you didn't, that you did the correct thing. But only if there's no other text of any kind in between the paragraphs! You should keep one thing in mind, though, that you really should try to avoid having great long passages of dialogue only from a single person. Personally, I think two good-sized dialogue paragraphs in a row is enough. You could - and probably should - then break it up with something, even if it's just a small observation of some kind, or simply a comment that the talker takes a deep breath before continuing, etc. I hope that helps this time.

13642 Damn, I should have bought some chocolate for the end of the world.

13638 lol Aww shucks.

13634 btw, whichever one of you has the odd number problem, if you find yourself falling on an odd number, you could always cheat a little by adding the next number as well, thereby putting yourself back on even numbers. As long as it's only one more, I'm sure no one will notice.

As far as formating for dialogue is concerned, each line requires its own paragraph. Exactly how you break up your paragraphs is I guess up to you, but the most common way is to leave a blank one line space between them. In most novels, you'll find the start of paragraphs are indented, mainly for space reasons, and you can go with that if you like, but for formating ease - and, most importantly, for ease of reading - simply leaving a space between them is probably easier. I'll write out a passage of dialogue from the brilliant J.R.R. Tolkien novel, "The Hobbit". I'll convert the indented paragraphs to the blank line paragraphs: This rapid fire kind of dialogue doesn't require long explanations, other than the "said Bert" variety. Anything else would have ruined the feel he was going for, which was a bit of comedy. But the less rapid fire variety might require a bit more description or explanation, such as, "Whence did the Trolls get them, I wonder," said Thorin, looking at his sword with new interest. It's not important to always finish every line of dialogue with the, "said Bert" type. You can leave out that description for a couple of lines of dialogue, but the important thing is to never write too much without that, otherwise the reader will almost certainly get lost as to who said what. If there are more than two people in the dialogue, then it's even more important to ensure people don't get lost. There's other rules to dialogue writing, but that should hopefully cover your question.

The problem with really long chapters is that readers can find them daunting at times. For example, if the chapter is shorter then the reader is more likely to make decisions such as: "I'll just read this chapter and then go to bed". If the chapter is really long then a person is more likely to say: "Oh I can't be bothered reading all that." Your dedicated readers likely will be fine, but new readers are just as likely to skip it as read it. Maybe after the story has grown by a number of chapters, then you could slip in the odd long chapter, but certainly not at the start. As far as writing for children, that's always a very difficult thing indeed, and one that a great many professional writers don't get right. I think as long as the child doesn't come away sounding too adult - and as long as the child is understandable - then you're fine. Observing how a real child of that age speaks is a good indicator.

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