Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A A question about dialogue and paragraphs?

Your real problem is that you have dialogue, and then the narration immediately after it tells us what the dialogue just said. Remove that bit. If we don't know that John's legs are on the table (...

posted 10y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:27Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/14799
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:57:10Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/14799
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T03:57:10Z (almost 5 years ago)
Your real problem is that you have dialogue, and then the narration immediately after it tells us what the dialogue just said. Remove that bit.

If we don't know that John's legs are on the _table_ (as opposed to the chair, a statue, or someone's head), move that to John's action sentence.

> "Please, John, do not let our urgent matters get in the way of your leisure," the older man said, his sharp voice echoing in the small chamber. John, slightly embarrassed, swung his legs off the table to the floor and sat forward.

It's fine that those are both in the same paragraph. You could even put them in the same sentence:

> "Please, John, do not let our urgent matters get in the way of your leisure," the older man added, and John quickly swung his legs to the floor and sat forward.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-01-06T11:15:09Z (almost 10 years ago)
Original score: 2