What is it? <\/p>\n
A dialogue split is when a character says something, then does an action, then continues speaking. <\/p>\n
\u201cLook! It\u2019s a plane! Mary exclaimed. \u201cNo, wait, it\u2019s a space ship!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n This is perfectly fine as a sentence. <\/p>\n However, I\u2019ve been seeing a lot of this:<\/p>\n \u201cCassandra,\u201d Joe said firmly, wondering if Cassandra would even listen to what he had to say about Gerald\u2019s time in the jungle and the fact that he claimed to have seen a leopard turn into a human. \u201cDo you think maybe Gerald was seeing things?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Mechanically, there is nothing wrong with the sentence. All the \u2018t\u2019s\u2019 are crossed, all the \u2018i\u2019s\u2019 are dotted, commas and periods in the right place. Capitalization is proper and grammar is…well..we won’t go there. \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n However, the dialogue is disrupted by Joe\u2019s thinking about a 3rd character. <\/p>\n There are three people in this scene, even though Joe is only speaking to Cassandra. <\/p>\n The third character, Gerald, is actually the center of attention. <\/p>\n In romance, as much as possible, the hero and heroine should be the center of attention. <\/p>\n Cassandra paced the room, frowning with concern. \u201cJoe, you were there in the jungle, did you ever see anything like Gerald claims? Will you start spouting weird stuff about the jungle after we\u2019re married? Is this something I need to worry about?\u201d <\/p>\n Gerald will be my new brother-in-law, better keep the peace. <\/em> <\/p>\n \u201cCassandra,\u201d Joe said, firmly. \u201cI enjoyed my time in the jungle and didn\u2019t experience anything out of this world. Do you think maybe Gerald was seeing things?\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n The focus of the sentences have now returned to hero and heroine. Sure, they\u2019re discussing another person, but now, the reader has their feelings in the forefront of the scene. Cassandra is worried about Joe, based on her brother\u2019s response, but Joe is reassuring her he\u2019ll be fine, despite the brother\u2019s mind slip. <\/p>\n Try hard to temper dialogue splits without the distraction of another person, or speculation on their actions or thoughts. Keep the focus on hero and heroine, even when they are discussing someone else. Put the hero and heroine\u2019s feelings and actions in the split, not someone else\u2019s. <\/p>\n Be careful, too, that your dilaogue split is needed. Don’t break the tension unless it is truly necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is it? A dialogue split is when a character says something, then does an action, then continues speaking. \u201cLook! It\u2019s a plane! Mary exclaimed. \u201cNo, wait, it\u2019s a space ship!\u201d This is perfectly fine as a sentence. However, I\u2019ve been seeing a lot of this: \u201cCassandra,\u201d Joe said firmly, wondering if Cassandra would even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}