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Q&A How to break up dialog if some of the dialog is not in quotes?

Despite the sources that ScottS cites, I believe this idea that you should use a new paragraph for a new person speaking is bogus. Paragraph rules are paragraph rules. You use a new paragraph for a...

posted 6y ago by Mark Baker‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2020-01-03T20:41:57Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34768
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 · 2019-12-08T08:28:03Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34768
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T08:28:03Z (almost 5 years ago)
Despite the sources that ScottS cites, I believe this idea that you should use a new paragraph for a new person speaking is bogus. Paragraph rules are paragraph rules. You use a new paragraph for a new thought. A new person speaking is often a new thought, but not always. In particular, dialogue that is incidental to action can often involve more than one person speaking in the course of a single moment of action that should clearly be written in one paragraph.

> Tom said "Hello, baby," while Harry whistled and Dick tipped his hat to the lady.

Splitting that into three paragraphs would clearly be absurd. As would splitting the following:

> Tom said "Hello, baby," while Harry exclaimed "Yowza!" and Dick whispered "Oh boy!" under his breath.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-04-02T23:34:12Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 4