There are the traditional ways, to follow for acceptance, better chance of traditional publishing, and ease of reading, but in the end you can do it any way you like. Using dialogue tags correctly is a myth. There are enough rebel writers to prove it isn't necessary. I hate quotation marks and prefer styles similar to Cormac McCarthy where he just ignore them. I don't have any 'quoted' (ha) dialogue in my current work.
I've read The Road and No Country and never even noticed this (or I probably did, but it seemed irrelevant so didn't stick in my mind). How does he identify dialogue? Edit: Nevermind, I've answered my own question: - A quarter mile down the road he stopped and looked back. We're not thinking, he said. We have to go back. He pushed the cart off the road and tilted it over where it could not be seen and they left their packs and went back to the station. In the service bay he dragged out the steel trashdrum and tipped it over and pawed out all the quart plastic oilbottles. Then they sat in the floor decanting them of their dregs one by one, leaving the bottles to stand upside down draining into a pan until at the end they had almost a half quart of motor oil. He screwed down the plastic cap and wiped the bottle off with a rag and hefted it in his hand. Oil for their little slutlamp to light the long gray dusks, the long gray dawns. You can read me a story, the boy said. Cant you, Papa? Yes, he said. I can. Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Read-an-Excerpt-from-The-Road-by-Cormac-McCarthy#ixzz3QkFeKnQh The slight problem being it requires copious use of dialogue tags. He said, he said, he said, he...
That seems a strange position to take. I can understand perferring dialogue without quotes, but to out right hate what is essentially the industry standard just seems absurd. I've been somewhat curious about this type of thing before, and so I feel now would be as good of a time as ever to ask. What exactly does the removal of dialogue quotes add to the work? I guess the flow would be different, but I don't see it as enough of a change to justify the reduced clarity.
A valid query, because it seems odd and, well, pretentious. But here's my thinking: I hate what happens when people rely on dialogue quotes. First, a quote represents exactly what was said, or is being said. If in the past tense I call bullshit on remembering exact quotations. It bugs me and is a minor issue I have. The main reason is that with dialogue quotation marks people write long conversations, and these almost always end up being boring. I prefer if people get to the damned point rather than pad out a story with chatter. As per the example, Cormac McCarthy limits his dialogue, and avoids when possible long conversations. he just gets to the point. With my own work I prefer to give the same limited quotations within the body of the paragraph, or a summary of what was said. Instead of quoting, I give a rough description of what was talked about and the main message of the conversation. Such as: he told me about how his mother never believed he would amount to anything. How she would always call him stupid and mock his attempts at being creative. He sighed, lamenting that he never did complete his model aircraft that he got for Christmas. He still had it, he said. He still planned on it. ( a rough example) etc etc
But then everything is said in one authorial voice; it removes a whole method of characterisation through dialogue.
Yup. Still don't like it. Also because I don't like being told: you have to do it this way. Maybe hate is too strong a word, but I dislike it being the norm.
I don't understand. Are we talking about a non-fiction book that recounts the tales of actual events? Because I can't see how remembering dialogue accurately comes into play when fictional books are entirely made up. That seems fair enough, but it really just comes down to style. Some people prefer less dialogue, some people prefer more. Yet, that reasoning rubs me up the wrong way. There is nothing about dialogue quotes that make people write longer passages of dialogue, nor do they make it more difficult to write short passages. They just allow dialogue of any size, sizes that some may not like, but the choice to create short dialogue is not lost. And so saying that inconveniencing the writer in order to force shorter dialogue, is like saying we should solve obesity by breaking people's hands so it's less convenient to eat.
What you are doing there is writing indirect dialog by removing the quotes sort to speak. Is nothing wrong with that. But, you eliminate much of the character's qualities and uniqueness. Like; how she talks from other characters, or is she sweet, mean bitch, or just plain dumb. You cannot seperate character differences by using indirect dialog. Sometime during the story, we want to read the direct dialog from the character or characters to imagine their personalities in the story.
I disagree. I think you can do all of that without quotation marks or conventional formatting. Another writer that does his own thing very well is Hubert Selby, one of the few other writers I like.
Well, you could do that without quotes if you italize the dialog. If not, the writing will look like rundown. The reader will have a hard time coming back to a page and see where did someone said something. You gonna have him scanning. With tags and italize writing he can find the reference more easily.
No, they won't. It's this kind of academic defence that scares people from being brave. Look at the real world examples. There's no problem with McCarthy's writing. Some people didn't even notice there were no quotation marks. Selby's writing flows beautifully and he never uses quotes. And rarely paragraph breaks. I've never seen an example in published literature of no quotations that didn't work. Free yourself from conformity. Fuck the rules. It's creative writing. Get creative. Those who say cannot are really saying I don't know how.
Bottom line, if I read a book with serious grammar issues, I'll stop reading. If I read a book with serious plot holes, I'll stop reading. It doesn't have to be perfect, but there comes a time when an author's unwillingness to use commonly accepted conventions ceases to be a quirk and becomes too much.
Theres a time to revise and proofread, but it looks like you are a man of many talents and arrogance, so try proofreading this dialog or your writing skills are limited? La esencia de un escritor es la virtud de transmitir un mensaje de sabiduria no de arrogancia. Por el mismo motivo, hay momentos donde se requiere integridad y constancia en puntuacion. No siempre el mejor escritor puede mantener puntuacion, porque trata de transmitir el mensaje. Proofread that, if thats too much, ill try to write it in other easier languages for you.
I don't think that writers like me who choose to ignore convention would care one iota if you stop reading or not.
lol. What I mean is that they know some people won't like it so won't be discouraged by a certain amount of rejection.
The interesting thing is that the style of less dialogue and more 'external' kinds of narration could almost be called 'telling', except it's not. I agree with Selbbin in that I don't think marks are required either, but you have to know what you're doing to take them off. McCarthy breaks conventions left and right, but like someone else said you barely notice it because he does it so well. I have also always felt that he breaks the rule of No Telling constantly because his narration often reads like a string of 'he did this, he did that, he did that and this', etc. etc. etc. except when you realize that he really isn't telling, but Showing at the same time. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but there are definitely some authors who can twist a rule and make it work, do things no one else has thought of, or do more than one thing at the same time. The conventions are what most of us use, but they aren't required to tell a story.
I agree. Superficially McCarthy's technique is terrible; but in reality he is skilled enough to be able to break all those oft-repeated rules of writing fiction. Having said that, I wouldn't want to read his style too often.
You chose to write on an English language forum, presumably because you wanted to write in English. I was trying to help you by correcting your English. If you'd rather continue to write ungrammatical English, I can only assume that it's because you have the arrogance to believe that your English is better than an English speaker.
Just my skills as a writer are way broader than yours. When I write, I think in 4 languages. You only have one. Therefore, I take more risks than you. At the same time, i'm able to translate my own material and make twice the money without having to give away foreign rights. So, making a few mistakes is a small issue to me. That's the editorial department's job. That's what there for. There are more interested in my novel.
Yeah.. you really need to rethink how publishing and writing works if that's your take on it as it is seriously flawed. I speak three languages, I know for a fact it does not help anyone write in English more. In fact, I take less risks, because I know what works in which language and what doesn't rather than just what works for me due to my extra fluency in other languages. Translating your own material is probably the ONLY correct thing you've ever said. Also, twice the money is a very optimistic ideal. Just because it sells in one language does not mean it will sell in another. Making a few mistakes? If you forget a comma, a stop, a capital letter somewhere in your manuscript, or something small and pedantic that could easily skip anyone's eye, then yeah, it would not affect your submission. However, your entire posts are riddled with issues, so your submissions would never make it to an editor. They'd be long rejected especially so if you think it's okay to have mistakes due to inexperience and lack of knowledge, you'll never publish. Publishers are not interested in anyones novel. They are interested in something that will sell and generate a net a profit.
I have to say that this is one of the most heated debates about a quotation mark I have ever seen. I love this website. How you write is a freedom that no one can take away from you. However, my rule of thumb has always been to write in a way that paints the movie in your readers mind the clearest and distracting them with ridiculous changes in format just to be different would be a mistake. Traditional formatting is what you should go with unless you have a reason to do otherwise. As far as your grammar is concerned I hope you write better in your actual novel.
That's the issue, it was never really about proper dialogue format. It was about someone trying to find excuses and indulgence in "writing his own way" because it's easier than learning how to properly do it in the first place. Every post that went against this, he fought against. Every post that made it sound it's okay to do whatever, he supported. I support anyone who wants to try a new way to write narrative. I do not support people who do it because it's easier than learning the proper way first.
