Regarding dialog - a question.

[intim8]

A good exercise that you can do while doing you're actually writing is to leave the dialog tags out, and see how easy it is to follow. When it gets hard to track, add the dialog tag, but before you do, try to reword the line so that the character's voice is more easily distinguishable. If that works, you may not need the tag. And, tag or not, making the characters' voices distinct makes the story a lot better.

Also, for formatting, if the same speaker says more than one paragraph, the end quote goes only at the end of the last paragraph. For instance:

John said, "This here is a paragraph that I am saying. It's a lot longer than it needs to be so you can see the line wrap and know that it is actually a paragraph, just to make the example more clear.

"This is a second paragraph. Notice that I didn't stop speaking after the previous one, so there is no end quote there. It does go here, because I'll shut up now."

And yes, even single lines of dialog need a space after them if the start of a paragraph is not indented.

 

[ronde]

I'm in agreement with most of the posts with a couple exceptions.

The standard for US English is that dialogue is enclosed in double quotes. Single quotes are used to designate dialogue within dialogue or to designate a particular phrase within that dialogue as in, "He is one of your 'so-called' superheroes."

White space (blank lines separating text) is important because of the small screen size most of us use. White space is the reader's clue that the speaker or scene has changed. Without the white space, it's easy for a reader to miss the ending quotation mark and get confused.

When writing long passages of dialogue, it's best to keep the number of lines to ten or less. That number of lines will fit on most phone screens. Just end that part of the dialogue without the closing quotation mark, skip a line, and resume the dialogue after a leading quotation mark.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Vs below: (This one doesn't seem too bad, but I have long segments of people talking and each sentence would be it's own paragraph with space between each one.)

She decided she would continue to try to walk around the apartment without any clothes on. She fixed herself some lunch. As she was eating, she looked around at the messy apartment and decided that she should do some cleaning after she finished lunch.

She put on some dance music (but no clothes) and got to work on the bathroom, then the kitchen, and finally the living room. She had picked up the living room and was now vacuuming. A favorite song came on, and she found herself dancing to it. She was swaying and bouncing, up on her toes and twirling, she was feeling completely carefree...
...and she did not hear the door open and shut behind her.

“Oh my God, Cassidy, what are you doing?!” yelled Laura.

Cassidy heard the shout over the music, twirled around on her toes, and let out a shriek. Her roommate had entered the apartment with her boyfriend and they were both looking at her. As soon as Cassidy turned around, Laura put a hand up over her boyfriend’s eyes. He was grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

“You go outside, NOW!” she ordered the boyfriend. The boyfriend took another glance over his shoulder before exiting the apartment.

Cassidy tried to cover herself with her hands, but then decided to bolt into the bedroom, saying, “Be right back!”

That's the format I'd use. It gives the reader plenty of white space (think small screens, not printed book pages), and makes it one hundred percent clear who's speaking.

Your earlier examples are too compressed, I think.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So your work was wider spaced but there was no extra line between each paragraph. I noticed that you also indented each paragraph. I did that at one time, but had moved away from it. I can't even remember what the rule is anymore for that.

You can't indent on Lit. The house style is left justification, right ragged.

 

[gunhilltrain]

So your work was wider spaced but there was no extra line between each paragraph. I noticed that you also indented each paragraph. I did that at one time, but had moved away from it. I can't even remember what the rule is anymore for that.

Yes, in most printed works there is no spacing between lines of dialogue, In my opinion, on a computer screen, it's harder to read it that way. However, I don't usually indent paragraphs, although that is common in print too.

I don't know what all the rules are, so I just make up my own.

 

[gunhilltrain]

You can't indent on Lit. The house style is left justification, right ragged.

I think you can indent the first line, but I've never tried it. If you really wanted to, you could center everything (common in print too), but why bother?

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Is this Em's newest account?

 

[KeithD]

I think you can indent the first line, but I've never tried it. If you really wanted to, you could center everything (common in print too), but why bother?

Literotica style is no indention--so there's no reason trying to go against a standard format being imposed across the whole file to give a uniform read. And I would think it can't be done.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Literotica style is no indention--so there's no reason trying to go against a standard format being imposed across the whole file to give a uniform read. And I would think it can't be done.

I see from my old experiments with HTML on dummy files is that there are certain codes that won't overcome Lit's own formatting. It's impossible to center the text, for example. It does seem possible to move the left margin in, although there is little need to ever do that. The <blockqoute> tag doesn't do anything.

The weird thing is that it is possible to change the text color of paragraphs (blue is the one I tried out) but that also seems useless.

 

[KeithD]

The weird thing is that it is possible to change the text color of paragraphs (blue is the one I tried out) but that also seems useless.

And it makes it through to the published story file? Can anyone cite this from the story file.

Just like any publisher, Lit. is trying to maintain a presentation standard across its story file.

 

[gunhilltrain]

And it makes it through to the published story file? Can anyone cite this from the story file.

Just like any publisher, Lit. is trying to maintain a presentation standard across its story file.

I only tried it as an experiment on a dummy file. I doubt it would have any use for a submission here.

A webmaster on another site put it this way:

Remember, just because you have something does not mean you have to use it. So if you would like to use the Tagged Text formatting, use it wisely. Overusing the above tags can result in a horribly looking text. And something else to remember is that no amount of formatting can be a substitute to good writing.​

Of course, just above that, he told everybody how to do all of those things. So maybe he's hoping the writers will police themselves, or maybe he thinks it's the writer's grief if the story text appearance is bad.

 

[ElectricBlue]

And something else to remember is that no amount of formatting can be a substitute to good writing.

Of course, just above that, he told everybody how to do all of those things. So maybe he's hoping the writers will police themselves, or maybe he thinks it's the writer's grief if the story text appearance is bad.

This and this, every time.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Many readers won't be aware of the rule about not closing quotes at the end of a paragraph, but opening a new one anyway at the next. Even if they are, it's so rarely encountered that it can cause readers to stumble and initially think the next paragraph is someone else speaking.

So when I need someone to yak on for over a paragraph, I generally put a few words of action in so I've got an excuse to close the first quote.

John said, "I'm yakking on for the point of this example. Blah, blah, on and on. Insert text here: lorem ipsum... I really want to reach a new paragraph."

He glared at me. "I hope you're not getting bored. As I was saying..."