Qultes

[timelord1963]

Do people even notice quotes? If so, do they think an over abundance of them makes a work poor?
I am trying to fix a group sex/BDSM story that is 54 pages long. Because there is dialog between Master to submissive, Master to Master Submissive to submissive and submissive to master you wind up with a lot of quotes. Is there a way to limit them?
My main problem is separating and reorganizing my thoughts so there is just one speaker per paragraph and hopefully have my paragraphs more than a sentence or two in length. I think the story as a whole is a good one, I just do not want to destroy it whilst trying to fix it.

Any constructive advice would be appreciated.

TL 1963

 

[Hypoxia]

I hope that's not 54 LIT pages, about 200,000 words. (One LIT page is about 3700 words.)

Anyway, many mainstream tales are mainly dialogue. Use such as models. To stay fresh, include lots of context, escriptions of settings and reactions, not solely talk-talk-talk. Break the speech into natural patterns. Be sure who-says-what is always clear. I hate having to trace back a ways to figure out who is talking.

People don't always speak in paragraphs. Some can barely speak sentences. 'Natural' speech patterns include many fragments, interruptions, trailing thoughts, brain farts, etc. Don't be overly consistent. Let your characters gibber at times.

The test: Read aloud what you've written. Does it sound natural?

BTW when I saw the thread title I wondered if it was about quilts. Those could get kinky, sure. Especially if stitched with tentacles.

 

[Handley_Page]

I hope that's not 54 LIT pages, about 200,000 words. (One LIT page is about 3700 words.)


BTW when I saw the thread title I wondered if it was about quilts. Those could get kinky, sure. Especially if stitched with tentacles.

The mind boggles. . .

 

[TxRad]

I'm not sure if quotes is the word you want. Or do you mean quotation marks for dialog? Dialog and quotes are quite different.

 

[Hypoxia]

I'm not sure if quotes is the word you want. Or do you mean quotation marks for dialog? Dialog and quotes are quite different.

A twisted bunny: an erotic (smut) tale told entirely in notable quotations, real or invented or morphed. Splice together biblical, historical, Shakespearean, and other bon mots for a stroker. Forsooth!

 

[timelord1963]

Quotation marks

I actually have 2 problems I have a 39,000 word work. I made the story by picking the scene and thinking what this person would say and how the other person would respond given the characteristics of each character. Just like if you were talking to a friend. I am not sure a reader would like 1,000 quotes or more.

My other problem is this, Instead of having a bunch of one sentence paragraphs I combined people's words to make a larger paragraph. I may have a Mistress disciplining a sub, the sub pleading for mercy and an onlooker making snide remarks about the sub. This is the reason my story got rejected. I am a lousy writer, but maybe I can learn to make a better story.

TL 1963

 

[oggbashan]

A twisted bunny: an erotic (smut) tale told entirely in notable quotations, real or invented or morphed. Splice together biblical, historical, Shakespearean, and other bon mots for a stroker. Forsooth!

Forsooth indeed!

BUT - it could be rejected on Literotica. My first version of 'Getting Nude With Chairman Mao' was rejected because it was almost all Mao's words and not enough of mine. I rewrote it so that about 55% was mine.

 

[oggbashan]

I actually have 2 problems I have a 39,000 word work. I made the story by picking the scene and thinking what this person would say and how the other person would respond given the characteristics of each character. Just like if you were talking to a friend. I am not sure a reader would like 1,000 quotes or more.

My other problem is this, Instead of having a bunch of one sentence paragraphs I combined people's words to make a larger paragraph. I may have a Mistress disciplining a sub, the sub pleading for mercy and an onlooker making snide remarks about the sub. This is the reason my story got rejected. I am a lousy writer, but maybe I can learn to make a better story.

TL 1963

I think that readers actually ignore the separate paragraphing, quotation marks and designators such as 'he said'; 'she said'. Without them it is very easy to confuse the reader about who says what. If you have more than two speakers it can become very complicated without the traditional methods of setting out speech.

 

[beachbum1958]

Forsooth indeed!

BUT - it could be rejected on Literotica. My first version of 'Getting Nude With Chairman Mao' was rejected because it was almost all Mao's words and not enough of mine. I rewrote it so that about 55% was mine.

And in the same vein:

"To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift. Splendid because it ornaments a mans' speech with other men's jewels; dangerous for the same reason."
Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, & professor.

"Genuinely good remarks surprise their author as well as his audience."
Joseph Joubert

and my favourite:

"When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple; take it and copy it."
Anatole France

 

[Zeb_Carter]

A twisted bunny: an erotic (smut) tale told entirely in notable quotations, real or invented or morphed. Splice together biblical, historical, Shakespearean, and other bon mots for a stroker. Forsooth!

There was an episode of Bones where a witness was a street performer who only spoke in Shakespearean quotes and only responded to them.

Quotation marks tell us in the written word that someone is talking out loud or in their mind. Dialog for each speaker is it's own paragraph surrounded by quotation marks, unless the speaker continues on to the next paragraph..

"paragraph one, blah, blah, blah

"paragraph two, blah, blah, blah"

You always leave the quote mark off of the end of the preceding paragraph if the speaker is the same person in the next paragraph.

Yes, dialog can increase the page count, but the word count remains the same. I always find dialog embedded in a paragraph to tedious to read. I'm not saying I don't do it, it's just not easy to read that way.

Take a look at Robert B Parker's Jesse Stone books...lots of dialog in them.

 

[Handley_Page]

I actually have 2 problems I have a 39,000 word work. I made the story by picking the scene and thinking what this person would say and how the other person would respond given the characteristics of each character. Just like if you were talking to a friend. I am not sure a reader would like 1,000 quotes or more.

My other problem is this, Instead of having a bunch of one sentence paragraphs I combined people's words to make a larger paragraph. I may have a Mistress disciplining a sub, the sub pleading for mercy and an onlooker making snide remarks about the sub. This is the reason my story got rejected. I am a lousy writer, but maybe I can learn to make a better story.

TL 1963

I commend that you separate the speeches into separate paragraphs. It can make for easier reading.
On the subject of long speeches,, if you start the paragraph with the usual double quotes [ " ] you don't need to do more. If the speech goes on to another paragraphs worth, just start the new on with the same double quotes. Obviously, you need to stop whenever the speech ends.

 

[sr71plt]

I certainly perk up and take notice with "Qultes" are mentioned.

 

[SecondCircle]

To be clear, you have a lot of dialogue between the sub and dom, and you're afraid of having a wall of text or line after line of single sentence quotes, is that correct? You're trying to avoid this...

"Blah blah blah," Dom said.

"Blar blar blar," Sub responded.

"Ohh, blah blah BLAH blah blar," Dom cooed.

"Blardy blah blah."

"Blar! No blar blarben in blah bleben!"

"Blar... blah blah."

Dom said, "Blar blah blah."

...right? You don't want a steady marquee of this, right? And as others have noted, it's confusing and unclear to cobble those into one paragraph just for the sake of avoiding repetitive lines. Just making sure I'm understanding what you're asking.

Technically speaking, there's nothing wrong with this line after line dialogue. But it will get repetitive and can become confusing to a reader's eyes.

I can offer a few tips just from what I try to do personally, but note that I'm NOT suggesting this is THE RIGHT WAY nor the ONLY way:

* Restructure those single lines themselves. A sentence of spoken dialogue and it's optional dialogue tag do not have to follow the same pattern over and over.

"Come over here, pig, and kiss my feet," Dom said.

"Get over here, pig," Dom growled, "and kiss my feet."

Dom leveled a glare at Sub. "Get over here and kiss my
feet, pig."

With each progressing line you can kinda vary them up a bit so that things don't look and sound so same samey. In my opinion it reads a bit better.

*Insert a little action between these spoken lines. I'm not saying just come up with useless filler, but add a little pertinent flavor amidst the talking.

Dom leveled a glare at Sub. "Get over here and kiss my
feet, pig."

Sub swallowed hard. He knew it was all a game, but he
saw no shred of sympathy in Dom's eyes.

"What if I don't?" Sub asked in a weak voice.

The next moment of silence seemed to last for an
eternity.

"Well then," Dom said slowly, "I guess you'll just have to
find out, won't you?"

Sub watched her hands drift down to the object in her
hand.


I find myself breaking up dialogue with action, thoughts, setting, or other things like this a lot. Not saying this is right or the best way. Too much of this can bog down the pace of the conversation. But I find it gives the reader another place for their prying eyes to wander than just quote after quote after quote after quote. It can even build atmosphere in the scene and in the dialogue itself.

*This last bit is tricky, I'd wager it's worth thinking about. Consider what is being "said" itself. Is every single line of dialogue strictly relevant? Can any of the fat be cut away with a scalpel? Are there other ways to convey the characters intentions, or even to be purposely vague in cases to build more tension?

Just suggestions to consider. For taking or leaving.

 

[Hypoxia]

One of my data-dump tricks is to embed such within conversation. In my long-form The Book of Ruth cycle I introduced a cousin for Ron to brief at annual family gatherings, typically the day after Thanksgiving when the women are out shopping. The guys lounge by the side of the pool in the cousin's L.A. apartment block watching barely-clad swimmers, sucking brews, and talking. Ron dumps data; straight-man cousin asks questions; near-naked women stroll by. It's all woven together.

Show a conversation's setting. It's not that difficult.

 

[NoJo]

I'm not sure if quotes is the word you want. Or do you mean quotation marks for dialog? Dialog and quotes are quite different.

QuIte.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

To be clear, you have a lot of dialogue between the sub and dom, and you're afraid of having a wall of text or line after line of single sentence quotes, is that correct? You're trying to avoid this...

"Blah blah blah," Dom said.

"Blar blar blar," Sub responded.

"Ohh, blah blah BLAH blah blar," Dom cooed.

"Blardy blah blah."

"Blar! No blar blarben in blah bleben!"

"Blar... blah blah."

Dom said, "Blar blah blah."

...right? You don't want a steady marquee of this, right? And as others have noted, it's confusing and unclear to cobble those into one paragraph just for the sake of avoiding repetitive lines. Just making sure I'm understanding what you're asking.

Technically speaking, there's nothing wrong with this line after line dialogue. But it will get repetitive and can become confusing to a reader's eyes.

I can offer a few tips just from what I try to do personally, but note that I'm NOT suggesting this is THE RIGHT WAY nor the ONLY way:

* Restructure those single lines themselves. A sentence of spoken dialogue and it's optional dialogue tag do not have to follow the same pattern over and over.

"Come over here, pig, and kiss my feet," Dom said.

"Get over here, pig," Dom growled, "and kiss my feet."

Dom leveled a glare at Sub. "Get over here and kiss my
feet, pig."

With each progressing line you can kinda vary them up a bit so that things don't look and sound so same samey. In my opinion it reads a bit better.

*Insert a little action between these spoken lines. I'm not saying just come up with useless filler, but add a little pertinent flavor amidst the talking.

Dom leveled a glare at Sub. "Get over here and kiss my
feet, pig."

Sub swallowed hard. He knew it was all a game, but he
saw no shred of sympathy in Dom's eyes.

"What if I don't?" Sub asked in a weak voice.

The next moment of silence seemed to last for an
eternity.

"Well then," Dom said slowly, "I guess you'll just have to
find out, won't you?"

Sub watched her hands drift down to the object in her
hand.


I find myself breaking up dialogue with action, thoughts, setting, or other things like this a lot. Not saying this is right or the best way. Too much of this can bog down the pace of the conversation. But I find it gives the reader another place for their prying eyes to wander than just quote after quote after quote after quote. It can even build atmosphere in the scene and in the dialogue itself.

*This last bit is tricky, I'd wager it's worth thinking about. Consider what is being "said" itself. Is every single line of dialogue strictly relevant? Can any of the fat be cut away with a scalpel? Are there other ways to convey the characters intentions, or even to be purposely vague in cases to build more tension?

Just suggestions to consider. For taking or leaving.

I much rather read that^^^^...

instead of this...

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[SecondCircle]

I much rather read that^^^^...

instead of this...

Hey, qulte that.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

:d .

Now what I typed was colon capital D and saving it changed it to colon small d.

WTF?

 

[Hypoxia]

:d .

Now what I typed was colon capital D and saving it changed it to colon small d.

WTF?

You saved imprudently, grasshopper. Like in Word maybe. That never happens in Jarte or my Mozilla Seamonkey browser. Let me try a colon+cap-D here:



How did that work?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

You saved imprudently, grasshopper. Like in Word maybe. That never happens in Jarte or my Mozilla Seamonkey browser. Let me try a colon+cap-D here:



How did that work?

No, I typed directly into the edit box...



See it worked this time....WTF?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

. What the hell?


Maybe it's only when its first?

 

[PervOtaku]

Right, if people are talking back and forth, each change in speaker must be denoted by a paragraph break. That's a typesetting matter rather than a matter of keeping related sentences together as you would in a pure narration paragraph.

Even if it makes the text look choppy, that is the long-established convention, so not following it is worse, and readers are fairly well trained to not be bothered by such things anything.

 

[SlightlyGone]

Cormac McCarthy wrote a book where he didn't bother using quotation marks even when people spoke ... so, there is that option, if you don't like those ugly little floating marks. They defy gravity!

 

[sr71plt]

Right, if people are talking back and forth, each change in speaker must be denoted by a paragraph break. That's a typesetting matter rather than a matter of keeping related sentences together as you would in a pure narration paragraph.

Even if it makes the text look choppy, that is the long-established convention, so not following it is worse, and readers are fairly well trained to not be bothered by such things anything.

I don't think there's any such typesetter's rule, or that this is a "never, never" issue. I've seen--and recently used--paragraphs where it was appropriate to put quick, short dialogue exchanges by different characters in the same paragraph, buried in scene description. No typesetters gasped and fell over dead.