It looked like a baby’s arm holding an apple and it tasted like a Starbucks mochachino.
Actually, something I noticed listening to the audiobook of John Scalzi’s “Lock In”.
he said
he said
he said
he said
etc.
Vary that up a little!
You’d probably notice that less if you were reading it instead of listening to it. I often drop the "he/she said"s when I’m doing readings of my stories, but that doesn’t mean I’d want them cut from the original manuscript.
snorts
he said he said he said he said etc.
Stances on dialogue tags have become weirdly polarized in most of the creative writing experiences I’ve had. Some authors will argue to the death that ‘said’ is invisible and is performing an unspoken function that isn’t uttered when reading aloud-- then there are folks who find ‘said’ very distracting and want more varied tags. The compromise I’ve made is that I’ll used a more vivid tag when it’s pertinent to the situation of the story-- like, “she countered” when it’s not necessarily clear that a character is being smug.
I also walk a sort of middle ground. And I think it depends on the particular story. If it’s a really serious piece of hard sci-fi flash fiction, then I’ll go for the most streamlined style possible. That’s what seems to be popular in those sorts of markets. For Otters In Space though… I’m more likely to add a little color.
I prefer to avoid dialogue tags as much as possible by using action to make it clear who’s speaking, and then when I do need tags, I use mostly “said,” unless I need something like “whispered” that suggests a different volume or tone.
This is something that indicates stronger dialogue writing to me. It’s something I rather encourage all writers to get better at.
Again, you’ll find a lot of disagreement. Strong disagreement that is surprising, but exists. Dialogue tags are invaluable when there’s more than three characters speaking with one another.
And then there are authors like Cormac McCarthy who don’t use quotes or dialogue tags at all, which made dialogue a chore for me to read, but some people absolutely love it.
I also walk a sort of middle ground. And I think it depends on the particular story. If it's a really serious piece of hard sci-fi flash fiction, then I'll go for the most streamlined style possible. That's what seems to be popular in those sorts of markets. For Otters In Space though... I'm more likely to add a little color.
I’d say this is a good approach-- knowing who you are writing for and how to write for them. Different audiences demand different styles. Something like a hard scifi might expect a more spartan kind of prose than, say, a YA fantasy. I’m also one of the authors who refuses to take a side in the dialogue tag war because I’ve seen strong examples of writing with mostly ‘said’ used, with colorful tags, and with no tags or quotes used at all. They all produce different effects. Writers should practice all of these.
I was taking the implication of two characters out of that. I do agree that they are a bit more necessary with three or more characters, though you can even get away with it sometimes with three characters if you’ve made their voices distinct enough. If a character has been developed well, in theory, I should be able to read a piece of dialogue with very little context and be able to have at least a good idea of who was saying it.
Some people also enjoy pain and torture. I can say without a shadow of a doubt I’d be putting whatever story it was down if I saw regular dialogue without quotes. I can handle an excessive amount of tags in the right instance, but I’d never support this.
“A master of American style” is what you’ll see from a lot of literary critics and big name industry people because his prose is out-of-this-world, but yeah, I can appreciate his skill while still wanting to claw my eyes out as I read through his dialogue. I think the lesson here is: this is something few people can pull off well, and when it is pulled off, it’s not exactly universally loved, but it is interesting to see how they pull it off.
Also the problem of relying upon voice is it’s much harder for tertiary and secondary characters who don’t need to be developed but play a purpose in the story.
I’m all for pushing the boundaries and finding new and interesting ways to convey a story. I even read a few short stories (roughly 10k range, and I don’t remember the authors) who tried to write stories with character interactions and no direct dialogue. I remember that one went with mute characters who spoke through their expressions and actions (that was my favorite), one that wrote the whole story as “Donna went to the supermarket. She told the clerk at the deli counter that she wanted two pounds of lunchmeat, and the clerk smiled and said sure.” (my least favorite), and one that told the story in a completely omnicient style, only describing actions.
It’s interesting to see the different ways you can relay dialogue, but I still think you need quotation marks if you’re actually going to show that people are speaking. =/
The first time I read Cormac McCarthy I really struggled with the dialogue and got quite cross. After a couple of pages I got into the rhythm of it and now I admire his style a great deal.
I wrote a short story without speechmarks, because it ‘just felt right’ (I know, I know) and got called out on it when I entered the story in a competition. I still think it reads OK…
To be fair, The Road also had quite a few other things mixed in with the odd dialogue structure that don’t exactly help it. 
You must have done it right because I didn’t even notice when reading it. Usually I notice present tense when it reads really oddly, which usually means the writer did something wrong with the tenses.
That’s actually really cool to know :3 Now I kinda want to keep my eyes open for that story >.>
This is when you know you’ve written present tense correctly. When I get in a few pages before I stop and realize I’m reading it present tense. Usually it will throw me out of the story right away.
That’s good. 
When you’re writing in present tense you’re really pretty close to stream of consciousness, and I think that’s part of what makes it difficult – even though you’re not using first person, the narrative voice is still largely the voice of the POV character, and constructions that would work just fine in past tense can come across as stilted or distancing. I definitely have to keep watching that when I’m doing this.
It’s in The Furry Future, so it’ll be available soon.
[i]blog[/url] earlier, and I thought I’d share it here, too. I think it’s relevant.]
It has come to my attention, through multiple writers and editors on social media, that typing two spaces after a period is the most heinous evil a writer can commit. Worse than bad character development. Worse than clichéd plot twists. Worse than a poorly written sex scene! Worse than (fake audience gasp) soap opera dialogue! Worse than, comma splices! Worse than MURDERING PUPPIES! Worse than internet shorthand in narration omg!!!11
Apparently the devil himself has a grand plot to annoy editors the world over by tempting aspiring writers to strike the space key twice after a sentence ends, therefore all writers who obey the devil’s wishes should be blacklisted from all publications for eternity and cursed to the fires of hell with the editor’s dying breath!
…
Why does this pet peeve rouse so much emotion? Hell, the example of Standard Manuscript Format I follow uses two spaces after every sentence-ending punctuation! It mentions the convention at the end, noting: “if you’re used to hitting the spacebar twice after a period, you shouldn’t stress out about it, particularly if you’re using a Courier font.”
Yeah, Google’s top hit for “Standard Manuscript Format” tells writers “no big deal.”
I had no idea there were people out there who would reject a manuscript or even dismiss a writer at a glance because he or she did such a trivial thing. I never knew some people out there cared so much about it. All my manuscripts have used two spaces. It’s how I was taught to type, and nobody has ever told me I need to change this.
Personally, I like two spaces separating sentences because it differentiates sentence breaks from commas. I don’t mind if there’s only one space between sentences, but two spaces just looks nicer to me, as the text isn’t all bunched up and crammed together.
If you’re an editor, and you make such a big deal about this issue, I don’t think I’d want to work with you as an editor. If you have a problem with two spaces after a period, please specify it in the formatting requirements of whatever publication you’re working on. Don’t assume writers know your pet peeve, and don’t assume Standard Manuscript Formatting dictates the 1-space rule. Remember, Google’s top hit on the subject does not.
We authors are subject to enough whims of editors who are the gatekeepers to our future. The number of spaces after a period shouldn’t be one more invisible hurdle authors have to jump to get anywhere in the world.
Same here, and it wasn’t until the end of high school that I found out that it was generally frowned upon.
Yes and no on this part.
Most of the editors that would have a problem with this would be working with a publisher, who more often than not go by a specific style guide, whether it’s one in publication or their own mix. The only time I could really see this being an actual problem would be in an anthology, where it would look really weird for the stories to have different formats. Even then, when it was something I encountered, I was able to fix it with Ctrl+F+Replace, replacing two spaces with one space.
When it comes to a publisher, I can sort of see their point of view. I was hesitant to do the Ctrl+F+Replace method in case there would be something else I’d mess up, so I actually went through each sentence rather than replace all. A publisher or editor for a publisher might not have this kind of time to waste and would want an author to fix something like that on their own. While it seems there are a lot of style guides that say that one is more or less correct, though two isn’t an issue, my POV would be that more style guides say that one space is correct, and thus I would go by it.
Everything above is from my own experiences, so if anyone else has had any experiences, feel free to share and disagree with me.
The reason for this is something to do with manual typesetting, using serif fonts on a regular typewriter also made it difficult to discern the end of a sentence without the second space.
Many of us who learned to type in school were still taught to use two spaces, even up to the 90s at least.
It’s not wrong per se, it just isn’t required anymore due to digital typesetting having finer kerning controls.
As a publisher, using two spaces after a period would not affect my decision on whether to accept a work. Whoever made this seem to be a major issue is vastly overstating things. It’s a simple fix which I’d do at the layout stage in In Design.
As a writer, you can also just find and replace a double space with a single one if you’re concerned about spacing issues. I think I’ve gotten into the habit of doing this as it’s similar to the Oxford fanatics in that they’ll notice it but others don’t really care.