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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/40547
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

My characters are well read and some like to recite poetry. My MC is particularly fond of Paradise Lost and is known to quote a few lines here and there.

In one scene he is thinking some of the lines and the attribution is in the same paragraph, so I am confident that readers will make the connection.

I have a scene where the MC and the secondary protagonist are captured and he has decided the best way to get her out - so she can organize his rescue - is by going along with an assumption made by their captors that they are a couple.

The following dialogue has quite a bit of Milton.

> “You love Paradise Lost so much, what would Lucifer have done?”
> 
> “Courage never to submit or yield. He would have fought and lost. Sweetheart, it was our lives at stake, I had no choice. These ministers of vengeance would have shot us”
> 
> “Awake, arise or be forever fall’n.”
> 
> A soft smile warming his voice, M said, “Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe.”
> 
> “Beautiful.”
> 
> “Yes, he was a genius to be sure. I am glad that you have been reading more Milton.”

My question is, have I made it clear that these characters are quoting or must I find a better way?

If it is not clear, how best to make it so?

Original score: 2