Dates in Dialog

[Skytripper]

I'm writing a story in which the characters discuss years. How do I handle writing the dates out in dialog?

Chicago Manual of Style is no help, unless someone can find more on dialog in there than I did.

I found a ref. on the internet at johnaugust.com that said:

"For dialogue, a screenwriter should use as few numbers as possible, and write them out unless it’s cumbersome to do so.

Write out:

“We’ve got nineteen calls on hold.”
“That joke’s got to be a hundred years old.”
“Alaska may be the forty-ninth state, but it’s first in awesome.”
“We have an unidentified craft, bearing thirty-one mark nine.”
“This suit cost me five thousand. You stole yours from a hobo, I’m guessing.”

Use numbers for things like dates, codes and phone numbers:

“According to this, he was born March 10th, 1970. That means he’s already forty.”
“The combination is 21…34…17.”
“Just call this number: 555-764-2002.”

..."

That makes me lean toward writing the year as a number, 2011, rather than spelling out the words in their mouths. Does anyone know the correct format?

 

[oggbashan]

Using numbers for years makes them easier to read.

Writing them out in full slows the dialog.

 

[Skytripper]

Using numbers for years makes them easier to read.

Writing them out in full slows the dialog.

Quite agree. Thank you.

 

[sr71plt]

Dialog is no different from other text. The Chicago Manual of Style does have a section on dates. 9.30-9.37 in the newest, sixteenth edition.

Dates are rendered in numbers unless starting the sentence.

November 11, 1911 (usually) or 11 November 1911 (your choice as long as you are consistent)

November 11th.

In 1911 on November 11th, we enjoyed a 111111 day.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I would always write out dates, usually using an ordinal, unless circumstances called for something else.

I would also avoid writing out large numbers. Such as: The general manager was proud of the increase in attendance. "Last year we sold one million, nine hundred twentynine thousand, six hundred thirty tickets," he bragged. Instead: "Last year we sold 1,929,630 tickets."

 

[sr71plt]

I would always write out dates, usually using an ordinal, unless circumstances called for something else.

Then you would be wrong. I cited the authoritative source. You use numbers.

 

[driphoney]

I'm writing a story in which the characters discuss years. How do I handle writing the dates out in dialog?

Chicago Manual of Style is no help, unless someone can find more on dialog in there than I did.

I found a ref. on the internet at johnaugust.com that said:

"For dialogue, a screenwriter should use as few numbers as possible, and write them out unless it’s cumbersome to do so.

Write out:

“We’ve got nineteen calls on hold.”
“That joke’s got to be a hundred years old.”
“Alaska may be the forty-ninth state, but it’s first in awesome.”
“We have an unidentified craft, bearing thirty-one mark nine.”
“This suit cost me five thousand. You stole yours from a hobo, I’m guessing.”

Use numbers for things like dates, codes and phone numbers:

“According to this, he was born March 10th, 1970. That means he’s already forty.”
“The combination is 21…34…17.”
“Just call this number: 555-764-2002.”

..."

That makes me lean toward writing the year as a number, 2011, rather than spelling out the words in their mouths. Does anyone know the correct format?

Dialog is no different from other text. The Chicago Manual of Style does have a section on dates. 9.30-9.37 in the newest, sixteenth edition.

Dates are rendered in numbers unless starting the sentence.

November 11, 1911 (usually) or 11 November 1911 (your choice as long as you are consistent)

November 11th.

In 1911 on November 11th, we enjoyed a 111111 day.

I'm no authority other than have read a lot. There would be no difference in dialog than the rest of the story. It would be inconsistent and, therefore, difficult to read. I've don't recall ever seeing a complete date in dialog. Interesting.





Yeah. I'm just bored and feeling like chatting. Any more questions?

 

[sr71plt]

I'm no authority other than have read a lot. There would be no difference in dialog than the rest of the story. It would be inconsistent and, therefore, difficult to read. I've don't recall ever seeing a complete date in dialog. Interesting.





Yeah. I'm just bored and feeling like chatting. Any more questions?

I wasn't suggesting you had to write the whooooole date out. The examples I gave were if you did. In dialogue, you'd most likely see "November 11th" or "the 11th." You shouldn't see the dates written out, though.

Why is it so hard for authors just to take the standard conventions and use them? If it goes through a publisher's editor, it's the sort of thing that's going to be changed no matter what the writer wanted. Publisher's care more that readers get a standard view than they the authors get to express their personal quirks.

 

[driphoney]

I wasn't suggesting you had to write the whooooole date out. The examples I gave were if you did. In dialogue, you'd most likely see "November 11th" or "the 11th." You shouldn't see the dates written out, though.

Why is it so hard for authors just to take the standard conventions and use them? If it goes through a publisher's editor, it's the sort of thing that's going to be changed no matter what the writer wanted. Publisher's care more that readers get a standard view than they the authors get to express their personal quirks.

I know. I was basically agreeing with you without saying it directly.

Most of us here, though, are never going to get to face the chopping block of a publisher's editor.

 

[sr71plt]

Most of us here, though, are never going to get to face the chopping block of a publisher's editor.

But, again, the view of it isn't for the author; it's for the reader. If you exercise your personal quirks on Lit., this will be intrusive for your readers--unless your readers don't read anything but what you write. An author is shooting him/herself in the foot for insisting in individuality in formatting and presentation--even on Lit.

 

[estragon]

"Why is it so hard for authors just to take the standard conventions and use them? If it goes through a publisher's editor, it's the sort of thing that's going to be changed no matter what the writer wanted. Publisher's care more that readers get a standard view than they the authors get to express their personal quirks."

Because authors are individualists. Publishers are, if I may again paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, plain-sailing tradesmen who take, mostly with misgivings, what the authors, with whom they are most comfortable, give them. Occasionally they may give a new author a trial, but that does not happens often enough to be taken into account. So the publishers and their editors play it safe. If Chicago 16 is the manual du jour, that's what they'll have their editors use, and the authors can like it or lump it.

 

[sr71plt]

"Because authors are individualists. Publishers are, if I may again paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, plain-sailing tradesmen who take, mostly with misgivings, what the authors, with whom they are most comfortable, give them. Occasionally they may give a new author a trial, but that does not happens often enough to be taken into account. So the publishers and their editors play it safe. If Chicago 16 is the manual du jour, that's what they'll have their editors use, and the authors can like it or lump it.

So, where do you think the new best-selling authors continually come from? Hate to break it to you but George Bernard Shaw and all his contemporaries are dead--and at some point he too was an undiscovered author.

Publishers have to sell the books--and at enough profit to stay in business. They provide what they perceive the readers want and will pay for. It can be hit or miss to catch the wave of new trends--but, interestingly enough, most publishers do devote part of their effort to finding and serving these trends and to adding new authors.

Many authors think their's is the only book that's any good. But few authors go after the new trend. Most them them write to yesterday's trend just as much as an agent or publisher (or reader) is publishing to it, which sounds as much like playing it safe to me as anyone else in the business--including folks who have to take a much bigger financial risk than the author does. (Do I really have to invoke the word "Twilight"?)

Authors are tradespeople too--they just are plying their trade earlier in the process. And, compared to Publishers--and buyers--they are the glut in the market, and thus the big bag of supply.

Authors also tend to underestimate the wide range of abilities and talents needed to get a book successfully to market, while authors also tend to be egomaniacal enough to think it's all about them and that they know how best to do everything. But most of them don't have industry talents much beyond writing and most of them also are too taken with their "baby" to be objective. They aren't even the most valuable element in the chain for a profitable sell--the marketeer is.

The snottier authors don't care about the reader/buyer at all. "Let them try to figure my golden prose out on their own." Publishers know who is putting up the money that has to feed the entire publishing chain, including the author.

I've already noted several times why publishers use standards like Chicago. Their customer is the buyer. Even the author benefits if the buyer is comfortable with the read and the style is as standard and quirk free as possible.

It's no mystery, but I guess you have to actually be a real author with objective appreciation for the other functions in publishing and watch all sides of the market for a while to "get it." It may not be enough to just be a tax blogger and a self-appointed literary critic.

 

[estragon]

The commercial author is looking to sell something, as is the publisher, and the marketeer. I'm not a commercial author, at least not of erotica. And as for "self-appointed critic", I have as much right to appoint myself as you, or anyone else. Let the results speak for themselves.

 

[sr71plt]

The commercial author is looking to sell something, as is the publisher, and the marketeer. I'm not a commercial author, at least not of erotica. And as for "self-appointed critic", I have as much right to appoint myself as you, or anyone else. Let the results speak for themselves.

The reader is just as important to a Lit. author--or should be--as the reader is to a commercial author.

An author with half a brain will realize that they don't want a lot of style and format quirkiness intruding in the read of their work posted here. It's fine with me if an author doesn't care about that, but if an author comes to the forum and asks for help on what the best-practice is on style and format, I think they deserve to get that rather than what somebody's personal quirk is or what his/her Aunt Hazel might have learned in her eighth-grade English class.

But, I guess if there are going to be authors who think it's all about them and they know best about everything, it's good that they stay on the level of free-use Web sites. They'll get a real spanking--and not in an erotic way--out in the real world.

 

[driphoney]

But, again, the view of it isn't for the author; it's for the reader. If you exercise your personal quirks on Lit., this will be intrusive for your readers--unless your readers don't read anything but what you write. An author is shooting him/herself in the foot for insisting in individuality in formatting and presentation--even on Lit.

That wasn't my point. There are standards and I agree that it's good to make the best effort you can to make the words as invisible to the reader as possible. The text on the page should melt away and only the story hang in the reader's mind. Since everything I said was in agreement with your comments, I'm not sure why my last statement of fact that the average Lit writer isn't going to have the privilege (restated here for clarity) of working with a publisher was taken the way it appears to have been.

It wasn't a comment on formatting or grammar, just me rambling out of boredom.

 

[sr71plt]

That wasn't my point. There are standards and I agree that it's good to make the best effort you can to make the words as invisible to the reader as possible. The text on the page should melt away and only the story hang in the reader's mind. Since everything I said was in agreement with your comments, I'm not sure why my last statement of fact that the average Lit writer isn't going to have the privilege (restated here for clarity) of working with a publisher was taken the way it appears to have been.

It wasn't a comment on formatting or grammar, just me rambling out of boredom.

And I was addressing a more general mind-set I knew was churning out there--and that promptly showed up in estragon's posting.

 

[oggbashan]

I think that in most cases the numbers in dialog don't matter to the reader and their impact should be minimised by using numerals.

Is it important TO THE STORY that the item cost $xx.xx or that the event happened on November 11th 2008?

It might be important that the item was expensive or cheap, or that the date was before or after another date, but the actual figures are usually irrelevant unless you like 10" cocks and 38"DDs.

IF the figures are important then the spoken dialog might emphasise them as one does in normal speech:

For example: "You paid TEN THOUSAND for that?" has more impact than 'ten thousand' and much more than 10,000.

 

[autoplot]

But, I guess if there are going to be authors who think it's all about them and they know best about everything, it's good that they stay on the level of free-use Web sites.

Oh, don't be so hard on yourself.

I agree that standards are very important in commercial writing, although I think there are plenty of hobby writers and readers, especially on Lit, to whom this won't make the slightest difference no matter how pedantically they're lectured.

The rookie mistake of "that's just my style" does drive me spare from time to time, but I've rarely seen finger-wagging have much effect. Rejection slips, on the other hand...

 

[sr71plt]

Rejection slips, on the other hand...

Ah, but there are some vigilantes--many with no experience to do so whatsoever--on even Lit. who are going around volunteering rejection slips to those posting stories just for fun--who then come to the forum and rail against the comments their stories are receiving.

So, it isn't just something in the commercial world.

In this thread, though, someone asked for best-practice advice and even cited the authority they were looking in for help. And more than one poster has gone with personal quirk in response even after the guidance was cited in the authority. Welcome to the world of "just don't get it."

 

[oggbashan]

Standard UK usage for dates is not the same as US advice.

Almost all UK publishers would prefer 11 November 1911 with no punctuation. November 11, 1911 is seen as an American style.

Older books might have used 11th November 1911 but modern usage is normally the cardinal number 11 for the day, not the ordinal 11th.

When writing for a British publisher, most have style advice on their websites which prospective authors should follow for any submission. With modern wordprocessors, changing the style recommendations to suit the publishers is easy if mundane and boring. Not doing it is a signal to the publisher that you aren't really considering them.

The publishers also have preferred, sometimes mandatory, formats for submissions such as Chapter 1 and a synopsis as a .txt file. Ignoring their preference is asking for rejection.

 

[autoplot]

In this thread, though, someone asked for best-practice advice and even cited the authority they were looking in for help. And more than one poster has gone with personal quirk in response even after the guidance was cited in the authority. Welcome to the world of "just don't get it."

It's true, the world would be such a peaceful place if everyone just silently absorbed your infallible expertise. Or just consulted the Chicago Manual of Style like a man oughtta.

I've actually never understood the benefit of asking random internet joes technical questions like this, when there are definitive sources readily available.

 

[sr71plt]

It's true, the world would be such a peaceful place if everyone just silently absorbed your infallible expertise. Or just consulted the Chicago Manual of Style like a man oughtta.

I've actually never understood the benefit of asking random internet joes technical questions like this, when there are definitive sources readily available.

Since what I consult for U.S. publishing is the CMS rather than shoving my own personal preferences, I think the crack about my "infallible expertise" is mean spirited. I won't apologize for having taken the time and effort to train to do this. Nor will I apologize for trying to help writers find the best-practice for their writing for free when they ask for the help. Despite all of the backbiting I find on this forum.

I think the Dilbert comic strip today is quite appropriate.

 

[autoplot]

Since what I consult for U.S. publishing is the CMS rather than shoving my own personal preferences, I think the crack about my "infallible expertise" is mean spirited. I won't apologize for having taken the time and effort to train to do this. Nor will I apologize for trying to help writers find the best-practice for their writing for free when they ask for the help. Despite all of the backbiting I find on this forum.

I'm just giving you shit. I fundamentally agree with you, even if I don't feel as strongly about it as you do.

 

[driphoney]

Standard UK usage for dates is not the same as US advice.

Almost all UK publishers would prefer 11 November 1911 with no punctuation. November 11, 1911 is seen as an American style.

In dialogue? That's how Brits talk? (Since that was the original question.)

 

[driphoney]

I think that in most cases the numbers in dialog don't matter to the reader and their impact should be minimised by using numerals.

Is it important TO THE STORY that the item cost $xx.xx or that the event happened on November 11th 2008?

It might be important that the item was expensive or cheap, or that the date was before or after another date, but the actual figures are usually irrelevant unless you like 10" cocks and 38"DDs.

IF the figures are important then the spoken dialog might emphasise them as one does in normal speech:

For example: "You paid TEN THOUSAND for that?" has more impact than 'ten thousand' and much more than 10,000.

Apologies. I didn't see these comments until I made my last response.