So I am not really sure how to have a character transition from dialogue to verbally quoting someone. Not sure if this is a normal problem or if it is a new thing. Though I could use a bit of your guys's imput on the matter as I am unsure if I did it correctly, or if there is a better way to go about doing this. Thanks for your help on this one. Sample for ref: “Now to business,” she says through slit eyes,” March 12th, 2471. Syrilious, Marckus, Lieutenant Reprimanded for disobeying a direct order. Received fifty lashes in consequence of disobedience. But the story did not end there did it? Six month psych eval has more to add, and I quote: ‘The Captain issued an order to which I did not agree.’ ‘What did your CO ask that you decided was not one you would comply with?’ ‘It was a kill order, sir. Heading back to base after being out on patrol with my assigned platoon. Coming across a small village, we cleared it and found no hostiles in the area, and reported this back to command.’
Just use internal quotations. But I think the language here isn't as clear as it could be. Not being fully aware of the context here, it is hard for me to know how to spin it, but it seems like the only necessary direct quote from the psych evaluation would be the reasoning for disobedience. The initial dialogue establishes that he disobeyed the order. Maybe restructure in a way that illustrates that Lt. Syrilious didn't agree with an order to wipe out a village?
I am not sure I follow what you mean by internal quotations. Do you mean by putting in ( " ") instead of what I did ( ' ' ) ? I think the use of the colon before hand helps separate the dialogue of the speaker, and still ties the quotation that they are verbalizing. As for the content in the background and context outside of my mechanics question. My MC has been captured and is going through the grueling beginnings of being psychologically tortured until he breaks, and the person doing it is using all of the information from his past and his bi-annual psych evaluations to her advantage, by making him suffer through his more damaging moments in throughout his career in no particular order to break him down. Trust me it explains everything a little bit further in.
Assuming I've identified the quoted part correctly, this is how I would do it. If you use double quotation marks (") for normal speech, you use single (') for quotes, and vice versa.
@Tenderiser I actually like what you have there. Using the comma instead of the semi colon, and then blocking the quotation inside ( ' " " ' ). That does smooth things out quite a bit, and makes it look less 'document'. So would it be fine to have it go: 'line" "line" "line' and still be noting the difference between the two?
I don't think so. I wasn't 100% sure I'd identified the quote because of the line breaks - at first glance it looked like two characters exchanging single lines of dialogue: Line from C1 Reply from C2 New line from C1 New reply from C2 Whereas it's actually Line from C1 Second line from C1 Third line from C1 Reply from C2 But that might be because you switched from double quotes to single quotes, or because you have blocks of text instead of indents. It might be clearer on the page (print or Kindle).
Okay, so I guess my main issue is that the clause before the colon doesn't indicate who is speaking. I was assuming at first it was the psychiatrist, not Syrilious. Obviously, context clears that up pretty quickly. I just think it could be restructured a little so that you didn't have to chainquote different people. But I would open each line with a new quote mark, because it is still the same person speaking. So with the original language, more like “Now to business,” she says through slit eyes,” March 12th, 2471. Syrilious, Marckus, Lieutenant Reprimanded for disobeying a direct order. Received fifty lashes in consequence of disobedience. But the story did not end there did it? Six month psych eval has more to add, and I quote: ‘The Captain issued an order to which I did not agree.’ "'What did your CO ask that you decided was not one you would comply with?’ "‘It was a kill order, sir. Heading back to base after being out on patrol with my assigned platoon. Coming across a small village, we cleared it and found no hostiles in the area, and reported this back to command.’" Or maybe identify who is speaking in each instance? Either way, it's going to be a little weird. And either way, I'd break it up with some description of the behavior of the psyops officer. "Her eyes roved down the report," or something like that. But I maintain that you could clean it up by having her paraphrase some of the report that she is currently directly quoting. So something like “Now to business,” she says through slit eyes,” March 12th, 2471. Syrilious, Marckus. Lieutenant. Reprimanded for disobeying a direct order. Received fifty lashes in consequence of disobedience. But the story did not end there did it? In your six month psych eval you said that your captain had issued an order to which you didn't agree." Her eyes roved down the report. "And when your evaluation officer asked you about the order you said, and I quote: 'It was a kill order, sir. Heading back to base after being out on patrol with my assigned platoon. Coming across a small village, we cleared it and found no hostiles in the area, and reported this back to command.’" I guess another alternative could be for her to call up footage of the eval. Then you don't have to worry about her quoting both of them at the same time.
So you are saying that I should have her (General Flurren) play a recording of the psych eval, as opposed to reading the report verbatim? I could do that in a similar fashion to a recorded radio transmission in the first book. That is if you think it would be easier on the reader, and cut out alot of the confusing quotations.
That's really confusing. Honestly, I'd write around it. I think it's pretty rare that you'd absolutely need to have a character audibly reading a section of dialogue from two other people, which, I think, is what you're doing here? If you're absolutely determined to go ahead, I'd use more tags/beats to indicate what's going on. “Now to business,” she says through slit eyes. "March 12th, 2471. Syrilious, Marckus, Lieutenant. Reprimanded for disobeying a direct order. Received fifty lashes in consequence of disobedience. But the story did not end there, did it? Six month psych eval has more to add." Another aggressive look. "Syrilious said, 'The Captain issued an order to which I did not agree,' and when questioned about that order, he said, 'It was a kill order, sir.... Assuming that's what you're actually trying to say. It's not really clear to me what's part of the report and what's part of the current scene. Possibly you mean... “Now to business,” she says through slit eyes. "March 12th, 2471. Syrilious, Marckus, Lieutenant. Reprimanded for disobeying a direct order. Received fifty lashes in consequence of disobedience. But the story did not end there, did it? Six month psych eval adds that you said, 'The Captain issued an order to which I did not agree.' So now I'm left to wonder: what was the order you didn't agree with?" "It was a kill order, sir....
Also random point she doesn't say anything through slit eyes - unless she's some weird alien that speaks from her eyeballs... you mean 'with'. If you want to use through it needs to be with a mouth gesture "through gritted teeth" "through pursed lips" like that
Yeah, exactly. It makes it easier for the reader to understand what is going on. We get to talk to you, ask you questions; they don't.
Can you use italics for quotes, like this: Six month psych eval has more to add, and I quote: The Captain issued an order to which I did not agree. What did your CO ask that you decided was not one you would comply with? Can you?
So, thinking about this with my slit eyes, I think maybe @CT you face the dialog/ue quotatation diligma, is that correct? And firstly ignore @TE's advice as she is Anglish and uses speech marks back to front from your side of the water perspective. You're doing something like this? "Give him fifty lashes, and make it snappy," said Zabrina. "Don't give me lashes, I can explain," said Gloworm, "back in Alphanam, Captain Cyclops issued a direct order he said 'burn the orphanage.'" "Did he now?" "Yes, and if I recall, he said something like 'hurl the nuns from the bell-tower,' you see, I am not responsible," said Gloworm. ... I hope that's right, and hope I got it right, all best.
I had the idea of changing it from standard dialogue, to an audio recording. Which will be in italics, much the way I did in the first for when a recorded message was played or their was something being read directly by the characters. Unless you think that will work better in your example?
Actually, I just did - after first swim yesterday. The [Channel] sea's okay, not cold, beaches are open ...I think I knew that really. Your agent's American, but...but...recalling your prose (which was elegant btw) I'm sure it was very UK setting. I might find that difficult...when 'she watches a different program and reaches for her cell.' [!!!!] [!!!!] RAGE
I don't know, I'm asking the same question. What applies to reading out loud will apply to a recording, I think.
As long as I immerse...when I read it...any method you like... though I'm not really a fan of: She rode her charger through the trees so many branches, so many thorns The yew tree stood in her way Oh my goodness I shall be decapitated by yonder underhanging vines The 'vines' swiped her head clean off @gh £%ytj unintelligible )(09....
I am starting to think it might have more impact on the MC to actually hear it in his own voice through a recording, than to have the other read out of a file with the notes written in it. @matwoolf It would be all audio, no lapse for little side thoughts/actions. It is a snippet out of a much larger ordeal. That and I don't know how action packed psych evals are when it is just people talking.
Audio piece, eh? I really should pay more attention. Well, you have technical skills don't you? I don't, and have tried these things with the background music, giggling women {in background} plus sound of passing ocean liner in background. It was just agony with seven youtube screens open all at once, plus the script plus recorder. I mean I can't even scrivener. What I really mean is - to change 'voice' to recall, you use a cheesy 'I remember it was many moons ago...' and then harp music with bubbles - then return to scene with the same harp music, maybe reversed. [goes back to read original post]
No tech required, just a simple adding the actions of turning it on and off and putting the rest in italics. It might be better than trying to have speech in speech approach I was initially going to go with. 7 vids, gotta be fast so they all sync up with what ever your doing.
