Can I use parenthesis in a conversation
I wrote a dialogue as follows:
Then he said to her: "I told you I won't do that! (And I think you shouldn't either)".
Somebody then asked me: How is a speech in a parenthesis?
I'd like to know if you can understand that it is something said in a lower tone, as if it didn't belong to the main line of thought or not. Is it usual in writing?
I've seen some posts such as the following and they look pretty dubious to me: http://www.writingforums.org/threads/can-you-use-parentheses-in-dialogue.61993/
The questions, then, are:
- Is it correct?
- Is it usual?
- Is it understandable?
- Are there alternatives?
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Then he said to her: "I told you I won't do that!” In an undertone, he added, “And I think you shouldn’t either.”
Unfortunately, I think that’s the best you can do. I’ve hardly ever seen parentheses used as punctuation within dialogue, so if I saw it now, I would have no idea how to interpret them.
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I definitely came across it multiple times in the Harry Potter series. First of all, yes, it is correct and used in the older books. Second of all, no, it isn’t really usual nowadays, though back then it was more usual. Third of all, it can be understandable, but I guess it depends on the readers age or education level, or if they ever came across it. Personally, when the parenthesis is used, I always thought the person was muttering the thing inside the text, for example, “Your parents died from a serial murderer (which I think you probably already knew), but strictly speaking, you cannot tell this to anyone” (just a random dialog thing I made). Finally, you can use commas instead of it, for example: “Your parents died from a serial murderer, which I think you probably already knew, but strictly speaking, you cannot tell this to anyone. Honestly, IMHO, I don’t recommend you using them, merely because many people do not know what it is, and will become very veryconfused, as I did. this is probably not going to be read by you as it is late, but I hope others find it and benefit from it Hope I helped you, reader!
EDIT: I also found it in the older Charles Dickenson books (which I didn’t read, just because I was surfing the net and saw that)
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I agree with Seth Gordon. Parentheses in dialogue are so rarely seen, they could be interpreted in many ways. I would recommend being explicit in dialogue.
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Is it correct? Strictly speaking, it's not wrong, but it's really hard to hear someone saying a parenthesis.
Is it usual? No. In fact, I can't remember ever seeing it.
Is it understandable? I guess, although I would do a massive double take and think that the author was being too bookish.
Are there alternatives? Yes. I'd use M-dashes, commas, or stage business as noted in Seth Gordon's answer.
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