Dealing with Lengthy Dialogue

[ShadowsPale]

Hi, I am back again. >.<

This time I have a question about writing dialogue or rather lengthy portions of it.

How do I go about writing dialogue that is more than a paragraph long when the listening character(s) are doing nothing more then just that? I have seen it written in long blocks bracketed by parentheses and I have seen it broken up into paragraphs. I am not sure at all how to handle this issue. It seems silly to break it up by constantly saying what the listener(s) are doing when for the most part they wouldn't be doing anything other than maybe sifting around. Help Please!

Edited May 18, 2011 by ShadowsPale

[Melrick]

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:

"I made sure it was yellow," said Bert.

"Yellow it was," said William.

"Then what did you say it was grey for?" said Bert.

"I never did. Tom said it."

"That I never did!" said Tom. "It was you."

"Two to one, so shut yer mouth!" said Bert.

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.

[ShadowsPale]

Thank you for your answer but I obviously wasn't clear in explaining. What I meant was one person talking while the other(s) listened. Think of Dumbledore giving a speech for which he has asked that everyone refrain from asking questions until he was finished. Yes there are going to be times something said would invoke an reaction but breaking after each paragraph of speech too say so and so shifted in their chair because they had no marked reaction just seems a waste of time.

Maybe I am wrong and its how it should be but I can't think of a single time I have read a lengthy speech broken up by something like that but on the same hand I can't remember how it was handled. I confess that punctuation isn't my strong point. I know to use Quotation marks for dialogue but not exactly how to use it if there is more than a paragraph of speech taking place at a time. I will use what i have written so far to hopefully make myself clear.

Think of the above two paragraphs as dialogue being spoke by the same person with no break taking place to detail the listener's reaction of alarm or whatever. Would I place the quotations at the beginning and end of each or use one set to encompass both?

I just realized I used the term parentheses in my initial question when I meant quotation marks. I am sorry; I don't know why I used the wrong term when I know the difference.

[Melrick]

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:

"The cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the mat the cat sat on the mat.

"The cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon the cow jumped over the moon."

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.

[Keith Inc.]

Thank you for your answer but I obviously wasn't clear in explaining. What I meant was one person talking while the other(s) listened. Think of Dumbledore giving a speech for which he has asked that everyone refrain from asking questions until he was finished. Yes there are going to be times something said would invoke an reaction but breaking after each paragraph of speech too say so and so shifted in their chair because they had no marked reaction just seems a waste of time.

I don't think it's a waste. I think long exposition dumps are boring and unnatural. When someone gives a speech are you completely reactionless? Unthinking recording machines doing no more than witness the speech?

There's going to be some little responses. Maybe they're all internal. Personally, i think putting a few normal reactions into the dialogue makes it more realistic. Makes the scene into something the readers can sympathize with. Even if it's as little as having the speaker glance to see who's listening or who's fantasizing about their latest fanfic.

"Talk, talk, talk." Bored out of his skull, Ron began counting the adverbs in Dumbledore's speech.

"Speeching, speechity-speech." Hermione was riveted. Harry saw the look in her eye and shook his head in chagrin. ONly his friend could be that amazed by even the most trivial parts of the algae harvesting treaty with the merpeople in the lake.

"Blah, blah, blah," he read, realizing he'd taken the wrong speech when he left his rooms. The Phoenix must have nested in the edited version.

"I do have to mention," he added, "that quotation marks are similar to parentheses. They contain the speech." He pointed to the board where his remarks were encapsulated in quotation marks. He clicked the wand and the imps wrote the next part. "One thing that's different, though, is continuing speech across two paragraphs.

"In that case, it's the LACK of a closing quotation mark that indicates the speaker is still speaking, even though a new paragraph has begun."

"REally?" she asked.

"Yes, really."

"So, if there are lines of dialogue that have closing quote marks-"

"Quotation marks, to be precise."

"Thank you. If the alternating lines of dialogue have quotation marks, it can be understood that different speakers are talking different lines?"

"Yes."

"Oh, that's helpful."

"To a degree."

"WHat do you mean?"

"Well, it's considered 0nly polite to put a few 'he said, she said' comments in the exchange, if only so the reader doesn't have to keep counting on his fingers to figure out who said what."

"Ah," she said with a nod.

"Exactly," he agreed, pointing to her nod note with a bit of a flourish.

[ShadowsPale]

I don't think it's a waste. I think long exposition dumps are boring and unnatural. When someone gives a speech are you completely reactionless? Unthinking recording machines doing no more than witness the speech?

There's going to be some little responses. Maybe they're all internal. Personally, i think putting a few normal reactions into the dialogue makes it more realistic. Makes the scene into something the readers can sympathize with. Even if it's as little as having the speaker glance to see who's listening or who's fantasizing about their latest fanfic.

"Talk, talk, talk." Bored out of his skull, Ron began counting the adverbs in Dumbledore's speech.

"Speeching, speechity-speech." Hermione was riveted. Harry saw the look in her eye and shook his head in chagrin. ONly his friend could be that amazed by even the most trivial parts of the algae harvesting treaty with the merpeople in the lake.

"Blah, blah, blah," he read, realizing he'd taken the wrong speech when he left his rooms. The Phoenix must have nested in the edited version.

You have answered my question far more thoroughly than I had expected to have it answered . I thank you for taking the time to understand what it was I was asking and to not only answer the question, but correct me on the importantance of breaking it up. It made me place myself in the listener's shoes, at which point it was clear that they wouldn't have just sat there like statues. It also made me see that even the speaker would be doing more than just talking. I can't thank you enough.

[Ajwf]

A story that's very good with short and uneven text:

Hills Like White Elephants, By Ernest Hemingway

This is my favorite text story. Very short, and very precise. Also a classic. When you only two people talking, you can ignore the tags (said Jane). Therefore, it may look like a brother/sister squabble

"It was your fault!" yelled Jane.

"Was not!" Erin yelled back.

"Was too, and you know it!"

"Then how come there's water on your dress?"

~~~~~~

Sometimes, not using a tag can make a conversation feel more natural. If you're a good writer, you can control the conversation's tempo without having to include tags such as "said slowly", "yelled", or even "growled". It allows the reader to focus on dialogue alone and never bother to wonder why there isn't anything else going on: You've made it clear that the dialogue is all that counts.