DIALOGUE FROM THE CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR
(Humorosity #39)
by Honeydew Zubari
I know lots of authors avoid using dialogue because of the many pitfalls an unwary writer can, um, fall into. I, also, used to write entire stories with no one actually speaking. I’d find clever ways to infer that speech took place (Henry stood to one side of the mangled glop that was once a person and spoke with the police.) but my characters never actually quote/said a word. (Joanne called Henry after she heard a rumor about him finding a pile of glop. She wondered if it was true. Henry told her that, sadly, yes.)
Then came the wondrous day I was wandering around a dusty, yet filthy, used book shop. I stumbled across a pamphlet hidden under a massive column of cobweb-covered books. Honestly, I wouldn’t have knocked over the mountain of books if the owner put away his stock occasionally. Anyway, there it lay, “Dr. Palmer’s Book of Dialogue.” I swooped down and scooped it up, cradling it to my bosom as I asked the price.
The cradling bit might be why the cashier gave the book to me in exchange for my phone number. Pervy old man.
I read the one-paged book with growing enthusiasm. “Honeydew,” I said, “you can steal from this for your next column!” And dang blast if that isn’t what I did.
So here are Honeydew’s Helpful Hints for Punctuating Dialogue—among other mishmash.
They are the real deal, so read and remember them. You might actually want to follow one or two—so your writing is accepted among the snooty.
The Golden List of Three:
• No tag at all. This allows the power of the words to stand alone. As long as we know who's speaking, no law says we must use a tag.
Example: Tina-May flopped on the couch, crushing the bag of corn chips and nearly putting her elbow in a tub of chocolate/marshmallow/peanut butter ice cream. No biggie, this was gonna be a good one! “C’mon, Dr. Phil, make me perfect.”
• Action.
Tina-May saw the Frankie-shoe-sized hole in her TV screen and narrowed her eyes, one lip raising into a snarl.
This is specific, it allows us to visualize Tina-May’s face and draw a conclusion without the author “telling” us a thing.
• The well-known "said." This little word is so overused that it’s now overlooked when reading. The better to keep attention on the dialogue and action where it belongs, my dear.
“Frankie, just wait ‘til you get home,” Tina-May said, “You puffed-up, overstuffed, knucklehead!”
• A combination of "said" and action. This is effective when interrupting dialogue, as in the example below.
“Frankie, you gonna die for this,” Tina said. She tossed corn chip crumbs at the broken TV and followed with the ice cream. “Nobody makes me miss my Dr. Phil!”
***
Dr. Palmer…Honeydew Palmer, that is, also invented a list of ways of punctuating dialogue.
If a dialogue tag is used ("said," being the only tag necessary as per previous Humorosities on the subject), a comma will separate the dialogue from the tag.
Example: WRONG, WRONG, WRONG: “Hey Honey!” Frankie said.
RIGHT: “Hey Honey,” Frankie said.
“You better watch it Bud! I’m pissed about you putting your fat foot through the TV screen—I missed all my shows ‘cause of you,” Tina-May said, giving him a gimlet eye.
If only an action (no tag, is used, it is considered a separate and complete sentence and should be punctuated that way. (In other words, not linked to speech with a comma.)
Example: WRONG: Tina-May gave Frankie the gimlet eye, always a warning that everything in the kitchen was about to be thrown at his head, “You stinkin’ drunk jerk dumbo! ‘Cause you went and put your foot through the TV screen, I missed all my shows!”
RIGHT: Tina-May gave Frankie the gimlet eye, always a warning that everything in the kitchen was about to be thrown at his head. “You stinkin’ drunk jerk dumbo! ‘Cause you went and put your foot through the TV screen, I missed all my shows!” (Here, the period after “head” is correct.)
WRONG: Frankie held up his hands and backed out of the room, “I didn’t mean to Sugar Lump. I slipped on that green slime spot on the wall-to-wall. I’ll getcha a new TV. A bigger one with color! Look…I’m leaving now.”
RIGHT: Frankie held up his hands and backed out of the room. “I didn’t mean to, etc., etc….) we’ve all heard it a million times before, right girls? The important thing is the period after “room,” making this sentence technically correct.
When you have both a dialogue tag and action, you have a busy sentence! But of course there’s a rule for this. Isn’t there for everything these days? So, if you interrupt a line of dialogue, use the tag rule. This gives you a comma instead of a period. Confused yet? Examples, just in time
WRONG: “Get outta here, you lying sack of turtle stuff,” Tina-May said in a dangerous tone, narrowing her eyes as she prepared to pitch the blender. “Or I’ll give you the Big What-for!”
RIGHT: “Get outta here, you lying sack of turtle stuff,” Tina-May said in a dangerous tone, narrowing her eyes as she prepared to pitch the blender, “or I’ll give you the Big What-for!” (Here, the comma after “blender” is correct because it’s one line of dialogue, interrupted by Tina’s actions. This is writing folks—you have to take a “time out” for things like description of action once in awhile. This ain’t TV, where it can all happen at once.)
Finally, verbs can NEVER be tags. This mistake is made so often that it drives me insane. Particularly since I find myself making it too. Grr. Read on and then tattoo the following on your hands, to watch as you type:
Example: “You hold it right there, Frankie DiMarco! You ain’t going nowhere until you take this coupon for a new blender over to the ‘Buy Cheap’ appliance store,” Tina-May glared.
“NONONO,” Honeydew screams from the mountaintops.
“Glared” is a v-e-r-b, meaning it is NOT a dialogue tag such as “said.” Get it? Good, we shall proceed.
This can be rewritten correctly a couple of ways. RIGHT: “You hold it right there, Frankie DiMarco! You ain’t going nowhere until you take this coupon for a new blender over to the ‘Buy Cheap’ appliance store,” Tina-May said, glaring at her live-in boyfriend. (This makes the glaring an action as it should be by adding a dialogue tag)
RIGHT: “You hold it right there, Frankie DiMarco! You ain’t going nowhere until you take this coupon for a new blender over to the ‘Buy Cheap’ appliance store.” Tina-May glared at the lump of a live-in boyfriend. (This also makes the glaring an action, but instead of adding a tag we put it in it’s own sentence)
I’ve said it before and I’ll swear by it here: the best way to shape your characters and get them across to the reader is dialogue. Plus, dialogue moves the story along and is interesting to read when written well. Don’t be afraid of it! We spend all day talking, don’t we? With a little practice you can get those words on paper to ring as true as a conversation in real time.
©2006, Susan “Say, say, say” Scott
