How to Write Dialogue

[Aekiel]

Originally Posted by Nauro

~snip~

Well, I'm not overly fond of any of the ways you posted. If I were to write that sentence I would go for:

"Watch the face, I don't want to..." She caught the ball and threw it back, "get it bruised."

The way you have it written in the examples implies that you want the first bit of speech to happen, followed by the action and the second bit of speech, which happen simultaneously. You also want to imply that there's a brief pause between the two, where the character pauses to catch the ball and prepare her throw, which is then followed by the throw itself and her reply. That's the purpose of the ellipses; to show a short pause between pieces of dialogue (or a trailing off of words, but that's entirely contextual and not relevant in this case).

Anyway, that's how I'd write it.

[Taure]

I use one of these two, depending on how I'm feeling.

5. "Watch the face, I don't want to" -she caught the ball and threw it back- "get it bruised."

6. "Watch the face, I don't want to-" she caught the ball and threw it back "-get it bruised."

However, number 5 has a mistake. Speech must always end with punctuation, so it should be:

5. "Watch the face, I don't want to," -she caught the ball and threw it back- "get it bruised."

[Don E. Delivery]

I would have written it as:

"Watch the face. I don't want to," she caught the ball and threw it back. "Get it bruised."

I would assume there is a full stop after face. Then 'I don't want to get it bruised'... however, the physical exertion of throwing it back causes a second pause.


But I'm no expert. That's just the way I would have written it.

[Blazzano]

I'd probably feel tempted to split it up in that example.

"Watch the face. I don't want to-" She caught the ball and threw it back.

"-get it bruised," she finished.

Or something like that, anyway.

[GrayFox]

First sorry for necro, but I haven't seen a straight answer. Is there, in fact, a proper way of typing an instance like Nauro's? I mean one commonly excepted as fact and not based on stylistic choices. I ask because I've seen all of them applied, but according to my English101 professor #6 from Taure's post is the right way to do it.

However, I do live in Florida, and fully realize that we *cough* cem to mak our own rulez fer the amurican laungwage *cough* sorry my inner southerner came out. However my point stands, regardless of what is excepted by my teachers/college is there a designated way to perform that action when writing a story?

[Agravaine]

Originally Posted by OriginalGentleman

Is there, in fact, a proper way of typing an instance like Nauro's?

The best solution is to not construct such a sentence.