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A tip about paragraph breaks inside of character speech (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So, the rule is that if you have a single character speaking across multiple paragraphs, you don't use end quotes on those paragraphs. I get the intent of the rule, but I think it looks awful and is jarring.

What I have been doing for a long time, is to insert a minor action at the end of that paragraph or the start of the next. I don't even notice that I am doing it anymore, it just feels natural to have a character gesture or emote in some way every so often.

The only reason that this came to mind is that one of my new readers pointed out a spot in Chapter 50 where I had used end quotes on a paragraph break of continuous speech. I edited in a minor action instead, the character was recalling a previous thought process, so I had him lean back in his chair and look up, which is the sort of thing people often do during that sort of thought.

One of the advantages of publishing a serial online, you potentially get some good feedback. :)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

WOW almost 400k views and over a thousand pages! 👏👏👏 Well done!

Your concept is great, I can see why it’s found success as a serial! Hearing how your plans changed and evolved as you went through the story is really interesting, thank you for sharing 😄

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

The views are cumulative across all chapters, so 1k readers x 100 chapters would be 100k views, before getting into things like my editor-in-wife and I revisiting pages as we slowly clean up my early chapters.

But overall, I do feel very good about my story, and most of my other story ideas take place in the same world (if mostly on different continents), so each time I work on any of these ideas, I am fleshing out the world as a whole.