# Dumb question but I'm sorta concerned about..



## Scotty1700 (Feb 13, 2010)

Mkay, I'm trying to write a bit of a story and I gotta say I'm not the best writer out there. My "intro" has a ton of quotes in it and I was wondering if there was a way to write it without something so choppy. Here's an excerpt from it to show you what I mean...

[...â€œShut it furball, I'm not in the mood!â€, replied Faust. â€œWhere's your lucky lady at or is it safe to assume that you still haven't scored at least ONCE this month?â€ snickered Wes. Storming across the room, Faust came within inches of Wes and with a growl, replied â€œThat's none of your concern, back off!â€ â€œShe walked out on you, didn't she?â€ said Wes quietly.]

It just seems a heck of a lot different than most other writings and I'm just not sure how to make it seem more professional...


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## panzergulo (Feb 13, 2010)

Scotty1700 said:


> [...â€œShut it furball, I'm not in the mood!â€, replied Faust. â€œWhere's your lucky lady at or is it safe to assume that you still haven't scored at least ONCE this month?â€ snickered Wes. Storming across the room, Faust came within inches of Wes and with a growl, replied â€œThat's none of your concern, back off!â€ â€œShe walked out on you, didn't she?â€ said Wes quietly.]



Let's see... okay, I see what you're doing here... it should look better like this:



> [...â€œShut it furball, I'm not in the mood!â€, replied Faust.
> 
> â€œWhere's your lucky lady at or is it safe to assume that you still haven't scored at least ONCE this month?â€ snickered Wes.
> 
> ...


Use a paragraph break whenever someone doing something changes. Don't know what's the fancy term for this, but most prose is chopped into paragraphs like this. Go to your local library and take a peek into a novel, that'll get you some clues how it's supposed to be done. Or, if you don't have a local library, take a peek into some more experienced writer's gallery, e.g. my gallery. I am rather pedantic about the formatting of my stories.

So, only one person doing or saying something in one paragraph, if it isn't a list or an overview... you get the hang of it. I can make simple examples in this thread if you want.


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## Scotty1700 (Feb 13, 2010)

Oh I get it, gosh why didn't I think of that before. Thanks a bunch, I'll try and add paragraph breaks and I'll look around at some books for example....gosh I feel dumb


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## Joeyyy (Feb 13, 2010)

If it's between 2 characters, you don't need the "said" and "replied".  I'm pretty sure this is called a dialogue.  But!  If there is a lot of movement and action,  it may not be a good idea to use the tactic.


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## Scotty1700 (Feb 13, 2010)

Joeyyy said:


> If it's between 2 characters, you don't need the "said" and "replied".  I'm pretty sure this is called a dialogue.  But!  If there is a lot of movement and action,  it may not be a good idea to use the tactic.



Yes, my writing style goes along the line of :
Action from Character 1, Dialog from Character 1, Response from Character 2, and just keeps repeating from there....
I'm aware of the whole dialog thing where you don't need to continually say "replied" or "said"...

Edit: I tried a bit of spacing and it doesn't seem all too choppy anymore. I'll try this for a while and see how it turns out.


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## Tyvara_Panther (Feb 13, 2010)

First issue I noticed was the two characters spoken dialogue and action in one paragraph. Thatâ€™s hard to follow. When characters are speaking, itâ€™s customary to have paragraphs devoted to one character at a time, so Faust and Wesâ€™ lines should be separated into paragraphs. Examples have been given by others. This allows the reader to take time to absorb what each character says, before they get bombarded by what comes next. Itâ€™s sort of like giving the reader a chance to turn their head, to best follow the conversation.

Second, when spoken dialogue ends with an exclamation or question mark, the dialogue tag shouldnâ€™t contradict the ending punctuation. The first line â€“ which ends with an exclamation mark â€“ implies that Faust is shouting, therefore, he can not simply â€˜replyâ€™ the line. Heâ€™s probably screaming it.

Donâ€™t be tempted to use those â€˜words for saidâ€™ lists either. While they are useful, replacing said with words like snickered and guffawed only work when the character is actually doing those things, and descriptions of their actions after dialogue should reinforce that. The best part about said, is the readers eyes often skim over it, so itâ€™s not necessary to pair every spoken line with â€˜saidâ€™ or an equivalent. Especially once characters are well established.
The goal with writing characters is to make each one sound individual, so that they can be identified by their dialogue and actions.

Also, exclamation marks should be used as sparingly as possible. Why? Well all that mark does is tell the reader the dialogue was delivered with force (probably volume) but it doesnâ€™t give any clue as to how the character actually says it. It doesnâ€™t shed any light on his emotional state either.
When people have an argument, more often than not, they donâ€™t stand around like stoic statues throwing insults. We move around to show our anger and frustration. Those body movements can clue us in to a characters inner turmoil.
The only example of that here, is when Faust rushes across the room to stare down Wes.

Capitalizing words for emphasis is internet standard, not book standard. Either italics or proper punctuation â€“ if you know it â€“ is best for implied emphasis.

My suggestion is to try and work more action into your dialogue. Itâ€™s fine to write out a heated conversation between characters (I do that with dialogue all the time, because I don't want to break up the flow), but make sure to go back and fill in all the action thatâ€™s going on. Focus on whichever character the point of view the scene is coming from, and go from there.

The key to sounding more professional is . . . you guessed it, Practice! 

Good luck, and keep writing.
Tyvara


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## AriusEx (Feb 13, 2010)

The general rule is to start a new paragraph when another character begins to speak.  This is to ensure that the reader doesn't get confused as to which character is saying what.

And Joey(yy) is right: you don't necessarily have to latch on a "replied" or "said" to every piece of dialogue, unless it's to add something essential such as tone or a physical action.

Her's my suggestion (and that's really all it is):



> [...â€œShut it furball, I'm not in the mood!â€, replied Faust.
> 
> â€œWhere's your lucky lady at?" snickered Wes.  "Or is it safe to assume that you still haven't scored at least ONCE this month?â€
> 
> ...



I tossed the "snickered Wes" into the middle of the statement because, to me, it helps to better pace the dialogue, keeping it from reading like a run-on sentence.  You'll also notice that I didn't explicitly mention that Wes was speaking at the end, since the back-and-forth was already pretty well established at the beginning (though if him speaking quietly is important, you can put it back in).

Hope this helps


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## Scotty1700 (Feb 13, 2010)

Thanks for the info Tyvara, I'll keep at it and remember your words of wisdom along with everyone else's.

Edit: I never thought of that either AruisEx, I'll give it a try too.


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## panzergulo (Feb 13, 2010)

Scotty1700 said:


> Oh I get it, gosh why didn't I think of that before. Thanks a bunch, I'll try and add paragraph breaks and I'll look around at some books for example....gosh I feel dumb



No need to feel dumb. Writing prose isn't easy, if you go deep into the technical details. There are many things, like spelling, grammar, punctuation, formatting... lots of little but important things that don't necessarily affect your actual storytelling abilities. But, if you want the reader to enjoy the story, these must be learned. Your story might be great, but if the reader sees only a huge wall of text full of spelling errors and non-English, he or she won't read more than maybe one sentence or one paragraph.


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## Scotty1700 (Feb 13, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> No need to feel dumb. Writing prose isn't easy, if you go deep into the technical details. There are many things, like spelling, grammar, punctuation, formatting... lots of little but important things that don't necessarily affect your actual storytelling abilities. But, if you want the reader to enjoy the story, these must be learned. Your story might be great, but if the reader sees only a huge wall of text full of spelling errors and non-English, he or she won't read more than maybe one sentence or one paragraph.



Well it's not that. I practice good english and grammar online (normally) but I just haven't developed a good structure format for it. I understand what you're getting at though, a good story doesn't exist from just structure or just good english. You need both of them


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