This is a rant -- I'll warn you right now. I don't understand how there can be so many wonderful writers out there in the world who don't know when to hit the return carriage (that's the 'enter key' for those of you who don't remember typewriters). This is about punctuating dialogue, but I'm not even going to bother complaining about where the periods and commas should go in relationship to the quotation marks -- I can live with those mistakes. It's the paragraphs I can't stand.
Whenever someone new starts talking or thinking or scratching his head -- START A NEW PARAGRAPH. It is the paragraph that tells us who is speaking. Look at the piece of dialogue below -- I see things like this all the time in the Harry Potter fandom. The problem is, it doesn't say what the writer thinks it says:
"Did you just sniff me?" Harry demanded, trying to figure out why his schoolyard rival was behaving so strangely.
Draco smiled dreamily at the Boy Who Lived. His veela senses cried out for his mate. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon rising off Harry's heated skin was more than Draco could take.
"You smell divine." Harry screamed and ran away. "Come back, my love!" Draco shouted in horror.
The problem is with paragraph 3. We can tell by the context that the line "You smell divine" should be said by Draco, but the punctuation says it is said by Harry. The line "You smell divine' should have been tacked on to the end of paragraph 2. Paragraph 3 should have been "Harry Screamed and ran away" all by itself. That was Harry's response to Draco's comment -- he may not have said anything, but screaming and run away speaks loudly enough. Then the last line should have been in its own paragraph. It should be punctuated like this:
"Did you just sniff me?" Harry demanded, trying to figure out why his schoolyard rival was behaving so strangely.
Draco smiled dreamily at the Boy Who Lived. His veela senses cried out for his mate. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon rising off Harry's heated skin was more than Draco could take. "You smell divine."
Harry screamed and ran away.
"Come back, my love!" Draco shouted in horror.
Never put one person's dialogue and someone's response to it in the same paragraph. If Hermione says "Harry, open your book", and Harry's response is to glare at her -- put them both in separate paragraphs.
Hermione leaned across the library table. "Harry, open your book."
Harry glared.
"Now you're just being childish!"
In the block above we can infer by the paragraphs that the last line was said by Hermione. If I had punctuated it like this, the line would instead belong to Harry.
Hermione leaned across the library table. "Harry, open your book."
Harry glared. "Now you're just being childish!"
And last, in long blocks of dialogue, give the reader tag lines occasionally. Don't make the reader count lines to figure out who is saying what. It's too much work and it takes away from the enjoyment of the story. Look at the example below:
"I hate you," Harry said as he glared at Snape.
"I hate you right back."
"You're ugly!"
"You're just like your father!"
"Your clothes are stupid!"
"Have you looked in a mirror lately?"
"I bet you don't even own a mirror?"
"And apparently you don't own a hair brush!"
"At least my hair is not greasy!"
"Is that the best you can do?"
"You always have to insult me."
"You always deserve it."
"I can't possibly learn how to work with you."
"Dumbledore didn't give us any choice."
"Dumbledore isn't the one locked in a room with you for 8 hours a day."
"It's no picnic for me either."
"Idiot!"
"Jerk!"
"Obnoxious!"
"Moron!"
"Bastard!"
"Don't curse at me!"
We can obviously tell that the first line was said by Harry, so we infer that the second line was said by Snape. After that we alternate between characters. Harry says one line; Snape says the next. Context helps occasionally. Context lets us know that Harry said the line about Snape having greasy hair, and Snape said the lines about Harry's father and not owning a hair brush. But there is no contextual clues in any of the other lines. By the time they start calling each other names, we have no choice but to go back and count to figure out who is speaking. Obviously it doesn't matter if Snape or Harry used the word Idiot or Jerk, but it might change the context if Harry called Snape a bastard versus the other way around. (Do we know if Snape's parents were actually married or not?)
This whole thing can be very easily fixed like this:
"I hate you," Harry said as he glared at Snape.
"I hate you right back."
"You're ugly!"
"You're just like your father!" Snape growled.
"Your clothes are stupid!"
Snape raised one eyebrow. "Have you looked in a mirror lately?"
"I bet you don't even own a mirror?"
"And apparently you don't own a hair brush!" Snape sneered.
"At least my hair is not greasy!"
"Is that the best you can do?"
Harry sighed. "You always have to insult me."
"You always deserve it."
"I can't possibly learn how to work with you."
"Dumbledore didn't give us any choice," Snape reminded him.
"Dumbledore isn't the one locked in a room with you for 8 hours a day."
"It's no picnic for me either," Snape pointed out.
Harry's eyes flashed in anger. "Idiot!"
"Jerk!"
"Obnoxious!"
"Moron!"
"Bastard!"
Snape leaped to his feet in shock. "Don't curse at me!"
Now go out there and do the right thing! The paragraph is your friend.
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