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Q&A How do you mix dialogue with actions of a character?

Like Adrian McCarthy's answer that cited Mark Baker's answer, I wholeheartedly approve of Mark Baker's answer. However, I wanted to further elaborate with an example in case you don't want just a ...

posted 7y ago by TOOGAM‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T07:55:44Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33251
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar TOOGAM‭ · 2019-12-08T07:55:44Z (about 5 years ago)
Like [Adrian McCarthy's answer](https://writing.stackexchange.com/a/33244/19230) that cited [Mark Baker's answer](https://writing.stackexchange.com/a/33216/19230), I wholeheartedly approve of Mark Baker's answer. However, I wanted to further elaborate with an example in case you don't want just a single action that is repeated.

You can also flip-flop, and elaborate the actions with more detail.

> She yelled: "I really [pant] dont... care!"
> 
> Interspersed with her words was a series of violent impacts. After a punch here, an elbow there, and a roundhouse kick, culminating with a flurry of rapid taps followed by a power punch that left her breathless, and left the punching bag far more battered than a half dozen seconds earlier.

See, a little bit of time travel to re-cover the same time period can work rather smoothly, and be much less distracting than trying to toggle with word-by-word frequency. Writing can then move back to some more dialog, if desired. I will continue the scene a bit, just to show this being done a bit more.

> He asked, "You done yet?"
> 
> "Huh?"

As the water bottle lost its contents, the top of her head lost whatever dryness it might have still had. Then she continued her momentous struggle to catch her breath.

> He clarified, "Blowing off steam?"
> 
> "Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Go ahead. You can toss 'em here now. Good. Thank you. See you tomorrow."
> 
> After he threw the car keys in her direction, he acknowledged tomorrow's plans and then walked towards the parking lot. She remained gazing at the still-swinging results she just created.

Notice that the key toss was in the middle of her dialog, which you figure out given context. It's one way to take twice as long to describe a scene. Instead of feeling slow paced because you appear to make things drag on too long, it may look like you're describing multiple aspects/perspectives and actually condensing words into a shorter period of time, which feels fast pace (rather than slow pace).

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-02-14T05:26:53Z (almost 7 years ago)
Original score: 1