How to Format a Conversation

[whiterabbit0117]

Starting to work on a possible submission that is entirely a conversation between an experienced dominant and a new person interested in the topic. It is strictly a back and forth conversation, including direction and response or reaction

In first draft currently using a format:

Den -asdfadfae

Sir - asdfaedeadeaer

Den - dfeadfee

Sir - easdf

etc.

Would it work better for this platform if instead one person was in italics and delete the speaker name other than initially? Is there a better way?

 

[NotWise]

The normal format is to include all spoken text within quotation marks, with (in the US style) ending punctuation inside the marks. There is a paragraph break whenever the speaker changes, and dialog tags are commonly used to indicate who is speaking. Once the order is set, then it isn't necessary to use dialog tags on every quotation.

"asdfadfae," said Den.

"asdfaedeadeaer," Sir answered.

"dfeadfee."

"easdf."

If a single quotation includes more than one paragraph then the convention is that the quotation marks are left open on the first and all subsequent paragraphs except the last, and they're closed on the last paragraph. I doubt that people are all that picky about the convention.

In your example, if Sir's two statements were two consecutive paragraphs, they'd be,

Sir said, "asdfaedeadeaer.

"easdf."

Writing an understandable conversation with no environment, observations, or actions is a challenging task. Good luck.

 

[whiterabbit0117]

I know the standard quotation format, but with nothing but conversation between two people it really was awkward. The he said, she said almost dominated the text. Why I'm looking for something less intrusive.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I know the standard quotation format, but with nothing but conversation between two people it really was awkward. The he said, she said almost dominated the text. Why I'm looking for something less intrusive.

What you're proposing would look like a string of computer code and would quickly become very tiresome and eventually unreadable.

There are grammatical conventions because... they work - by making reading easier.

 

[whiterabbit0117]

That may work. Will see how it follows.

Thanks