Hi, guys. This has probably been asked before but I'm having trouble figuring out how to write a section of my writing where one character is reading a story out loud. I've looked online but I thought if I wanted the best answer then the best answer would come from my fellow writers. I've written it so far as dialogue but I'm not 100% sure if I've done it correctly.
Can't you just sum up the important bits of what the character read? Especially if it's long paragraph. ect. "I scanned the letter and it was about..." Just my suggestion.
If he's reading it aloud then putting it in dialogue the way you did it is fine. Just remember to leave a paragraph of dialogue unclosed when moving to a new paragraph.. What I mean is: "The boy went to New York...[blah blah blah]. [No closing quote] [New paragraph] "Then he met a talking cat..." An exception would be if he's narrating a book which is actually the story you're writing. You wouldn't have to add quotes because he just becomes the extradiegetic narrator. I suppose you could also do this if the story is very long (like a whole chapter), but I'm not sure about that one.
if he's reading from something and not just 'telling' a story, the best way is to insert the quoted material as block indent... no " " are needed and it separates it from the scene's action/narrative in a way that won't confuse the reader...
