About quotation marks

[AG31]

I originally was going to make the subject of this post, "What's the point of not using quotation marks?" but I figured it would come across as a backhanded exclamation, "There's no point to not using quotation marks." But I really mean it as a question.

I was reading a book by Elizabeth Brundage, and I was on page 7 before I realized that she wasn't using quotation marks. I had already decided not to continue with the book. The note I would make in my list of rejected authors was "Characters are portrayed at a remove." The word "cool" floated around my brain as well. Not "with it" cool, but cool as in lacking in warmth.

Might leaving out quotation marks contribute to that impression?

Do any of you avoid quotation marks?

 

[SimonDoom]

Cormac McCarthy doesn't use quotation marks in his books. James Joyce didn't use quotation marks. It can be done, and it can work. But I don't see the point. I think in almost all cases an author can express his or her creative vision by sticking to normal English conventions.

But here's the thing. As long as you are careful and consistent with your conventions, so the reader gets on board with what you are doing, it's probably OK.

 

[JGittes]

I've found younger female English (and Irish) authors rarely use quotation marks.

Sally Rooney is a popular young Irish writer. I decided to see what the fuss was about and bought her first two novels. I was about 20 pages into Conversations with Friends and was so confused I had to start over. It wasn't until my third attempt that I realized she didn't use quotation marks. After I figured that out, it was still more work to read than it was worth. She is very popular, and at least her first two novels have been made into popular BBC series.

Another young English writer is Saba Sams. She doesn't use quotation marks either. Well, at least in the one book of hers I've purchased, Send Nudes, a collection of short stories. Her writing style is more vivid, so it is easier to decipher.

This must be a problem only for me, because they are both very popular.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I gave up on Amor Towels last novel, The Lincoln Highway, after about fifty pages because he didn't use quotation marks. It made the dialogue and the narrative too hard to follow, to figure out which was which. It struck me as an unnecessary affectation. Which was a bugger, because I'd paid full dollar on the book, on the strength of A Gentleman in Moscow, which was superb. I'm sure he thought there was a point, but I couldn't see it.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

With anything extravagant like that I'd personally either really, really do it and do it for a reason and milk it for all it was worth or I'd just not do it.

 

[StillStunned]

I could see how it would have an effect on the story. Beyond making it difficult to read, I mean.

I think it would create a sense of distance. Like in this bit from my WIP for the Born the Run challenge (warning: stream of consciousness, and 2P POV to boot):

“Hey, gotta smoke?”

A skinny thing, nothin’ but bones and whipcord and a pair of mirrored glasses, standin’ before you makin’ a cigarette gesture, you gonna say no, brush past, till you catch the circle on their neck, a silver circle that’s not quite closed at the base, like an old omega symbol but this is for the Poets, it’s a torc and who the fuck even knows what a torc is nowadays, this kid probably don’t, but they got news, they got the know, who’s who in the Poets these days, so you make pleasant, no smokes, but walk with me and I’ll buy a pack, soon you’re talkin’ like old friends, you and your new friend Smokes, and they got a wealth of knowin’ that they don’t mean to share but you’re smooth and you got the knows too, know what to ask, know what to say, impress Smokes with your cool aura, so they feel cool by association as you glide over the square, at home in the crowd, still markin’ all the punks and the grifters and their holotats until you get a name, someone of the Third Circle, high up in the Poets…

If you look at the bit quoted here, you'll see that it includes some implied dialogue ("no smokes, but walk with me and I’ll buy a pack"). It has a distinctive feel, not like the opening bit of dialogue in quotation marks. It's more abstract, and paradoxically it becomes telling instead of showing (as in, you're telling the reader that something is said, rather than showing the dialogue).

A story that doesn't use any quotation marks for dialogue would have this throughout, I think. By choosing not to separate the dialogue from the narration, you're making it part of the narration and making it more abstract. It will give the story a distinct flavour, but you'd have be very sure it's the flavour you want.