Grammar Construction of single dialog for an unidentified speaker

I took it more as speaking to oneself, but it has been a while since I read it.

 

Durrell does it again in Justine, which is part of the Alexandria quartet. I won't reproduce the paragraph here--it's a bit long--but it is one person's dialogue, mixed with the actions of two people, so it is analogous to the OP where one person is speaking and the other is responding.

Found another example in Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lives in the Castle. That's 1962.

Looking for a more recent one--too many books, so it'll take me a moment.

 

Ever read any Virginia Woolf? You can lose track of the thread of her prose sometimes, if you're not careful. I had an English prof. who once used an excerpt of her work as an example of changing POV in the middle of a sentence. She did it twice in once sentence if I recall correctly.

 

OK, Gene Wolfe, Sword of the Lichtor, 1981.

Umberto Eco, The Myserious Flame of Queen Loana (2005):

"Write something about your life," Paola said. "What did you do when you were twenty?" I wrote: "I was twenty. I won't let anyone say that's the best time of a person's life." The doctor asked me what first came to mind when I woke up. I wrote: "When Gregor Samsa woke one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect."

That's all one paragraph in the book. Eco is a well-regarded writer. Yes, I know the last line is from Kafka

 

Yeah I find Faulkner and McCarthy easier to follow, especially when Woolf starts following some tangent for way too many words before returning to her original thought.

In any event, the examples I mention and showed above aren't common. But they do exist. If you write a manuscript like that, you'll draw attention to those decisions, maybe in a negative way. It's not an automatic rejection, though. McCarthy (and I think sometimes Faulkner?) don't even use quotation marks for dialogue.

 

I'd like to read that. He'll do some interesting things with the genre.

 

Oh, sure, but those have tags. Rumer Godden, my very favorite author, very often has two speakers within a paragraph, though it's often in the context of a quote-used-as-description or other use other than standard dialogue.

But these aren't tagged.

 

Yes. Leaving out the tags would be a problem. I've come across books where I had to go back over something a few times to figure out who was speaking when (Woolf, I'm looking at you again). Don't care for that.

 

Sorry if I was unclear. My initial statement, I thought, was wholly framed as my perception. Thinking that, I was hearing our interchange as something like:

Me: It doesn't work for me.
You: I disagree. It does work for you.
Me: Excuse me? How can one disagree with another's perception that something doesn't work for them? I said it didn't work for me.
You: In my opinion, it does work for you.
Me: (scratching head) Huh?

But reading my initial response again, I can see that parts of it could be taken as my opinions or even as assertations of fact. Those you can disagree with. Have at it. But the fact of my perceptions? Nope.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Rumer-Godden/e/B000APBPP4/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

I haven't read any Godden for awhile, but I recall liking The Battle of the Villa Fiorita.

 

All this tsimmes just goes to show how our word choices, sentence structure, and paragraphing all go together to make up meaning. So you're not asking "Does this bit here work as a single paragraph?" (it doesn't), but rather, "Can you intersperse the second person's reactions within the first person's speech?"?

Sure, if you're clear about it. I do it myself, though usually only if the reaction comes in the middle of the speaker's line and not at a full stop. As in "I couldn't help being late," he said. "I had to rescue a nest of baby bunnies"---she was shaking her head in disbelief--- "from a rabid dog." So there's no cessation of speech between the "bunnies" and the "from," but that's when her head-shaking starts.

 

She's a twentieth-century (I was going to say mid-twentieth-century, but she was still writing in the 1990s) British author, who wrote both children's books and adult books. (And was awarded an Order of the British Empire.) My favorites tend to be her children's books. Though I don't think that's because I actually dislike her adult books; it's more that she can affect me more than most authors, and if, oh, The Doll's House can make me cry, what is writing intended for adults going to do to me?

I'm going to suggest An Episode of Sparrows. It's classed as a children's book, but I don't really agree with that classification, and neither do some of the reviews on Amazon.

If you like children's books, but would like some male children in your children's books, there's The Kitchen Madonna and Home is the Sailor.

There's also The Greengage Summer. And Black Narcissus was turned into a movie with Deborah Kerr, which has an 8.8 rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though apparently she didn't like the movie. She did like the movie of The River. And...

Everyone should just read them all. I just bought the Kindle edition of China Court while writing this post, because I suddenly want to read it Right Now. I'm going to re-read them all.

 

And that underscores WHY it's not traditional...I had to read it several times to work out what was dialogue (between the first and second inverted commas) and what was narration (between the second and third inverted commas)

 

I guess it's a nonissue. It's the only instance in my book and if a publisher/editor doesn't want it, they'll mark it off in editing.

 

As I said, it's not usual. The idea that it just can't be done is empirically false, however. No reason for authors to believe it's just not possible if you want a published book.

 

@Dnaiel - so basically you're asking if something works, and then when we all say "No it doesn't," you tell us, "Well, this isn't even the actual thing in my manuscript and in my manuscript it's written quite differently, so your answer is invalid."

I'm sorry, but... how do you want us to answer your question if your only defense is: what you see is nothing like what is in my manuscript!

Yes, if we are responding to what we see that is nothing like what is in your manuscript, that makes our answers irrelevant. Yet, we cannot comment on something we have not seen.

As with everything, it's in how you do it. Is an agent gonna toss your book because halfway through a thrilling story, she sees this way of presenting dialogue? Of course not. Is this enough to get you a rejection? Of course not. You know these answers. It depends on whether it's clear to the agent/reader and if you happen to meet an agent willing to be a little more creative, who has the right contacts that might take a chance on books written in a slightly more unconventional manner. The chances of an editor taking on unconventional debuts are lower than conventional ones, and so the chances of an agent having just the right contacts might also be lower. Lower does not mean impossible. Is this a stylistic choice throughout your book or does it happen only on one occasion? Also, consistency is key - if ALL dialogue is presented this way, then it is a stylistic choice that your reader will become accustomed to, which means breaking conventions would not be an issue. If only one piece of dialogue in the whole thing is presented this way, you will probably raise a few eyebrows unnecessarily.

Would it get you a rejection based on this alone? Highly doubtful. Can it? Yes, it can. Do we know for sure? We are not agents, so no, we do not know for sure. Taking on a book is as much of a taste thing as a skill thing - you can probably always find somebody who will think it's fine. Would that necessarily be the majority opinion, and thus ensuring good chances of your book being accepted? Looking at the responses in this thread, probably not. But none of us work in the industry as agents/editors/publishers here so if you're looking for something "solid", you won't find it on a forum full of aspiring writers, most of whom are unpublished.

Since you keep insisting clarity is not an issue - then again, there is no question. If clarity is not an issue, you can pretty much do whatever the heck you want in fiction writing. And no agent would be fool enough to ditch a perfectly sellable book based on something this small that can be easily edited.

@Steerpike - one could argue though that the example you gave is clear because names were given and there are clear dialogue tags denoting who spoke. Not so in Dnaiel's case.

 

Hmm. Looking at it just as it is, I assumed the beats and the dialogue were from the same person until I started reading the thread. It's very out of context, and hard to judge. Will the readers know that one person is speaking and the other is just reacting?

If you're keeping the construction, I would certainly use paragraphing to separate the two. And maybe play with fonts as well?

"So I took the cat over to the dog and let them at it."
(Raised eyes.)
"A little blood, but lots of stupid fun."
(Gritted teeth.)
"Okay, it was fun for me."

 

I'm not sure why you would think this is what I meant. Do people often do that?

 

Please go back and recount the "we all say" in this discussion.

First, I didn't call anyone's answer "invalid" or even close to it. Second, I have no "defense" because this has only ever been a matter of misunderstanding. Third, this "what you see is nothing like what is in my manuscript!" is a poor recreation of my comments. Stop doing that to me. This is the kind of thing that can lead to bad arguments. I expect more from a staff member.

You did see it. It was an example construction. That is all anyone needs to answer my question. Perhaps you are confusing content with form.

It is like what's in my manuscript. The content is not, the structure is. I have tried to make clear that the content is not similar to my manuscript.

I did not know. I wasn't sure until I read the replies.

This is interesting to me.

Absolutely.

The parentheses look pretty good in your version. I hadn't thought about using brackets, so I'll play with that.