Punctuating Shared Dialogue

JSSchley · Apr 22, 2011

So I find myself in a punctuation quandary I've never encountered. I thought I knew dialogue punctuation inside and out, but I can't find the answer to this one.

I'm writing a scene where two characters are praying the Lord's prayer together, one saying one line, and one saying the next. So neither one has complete sentences, so it's odd to end each turn with a period. Yet, ending a line of dialogue with no tag with a comma also strikes me as wildly incorrect. Should I just not punctuate at all?

Your thoughts? This is an example of what I've got to figure out:

"Thy kingdom come"

"Thy will be done"

etc.

Matera the Mad · Apr 22, 2011

You're not going to do it all the way through, I hope?

JSSchley · Apr 22, 2011

Yes. I'm going to do it all the way through the whole prayer, so it's critical that I know how to punctuate it. Then I'm going to include a few pages of Led Zepplin lyrics just for kicks, after which I plan to have my protag look in the mirror and describe herself from head-to-toe so that the reader knows what she looks like.

Got any suggestions on the punctuation, though? The other stuff is coming later.

(Sorry. That's overly snarky. But really. Let's give people the benefit of the doubt on the writing technique, shall we not? I'm not asking for a beta read. Just have a question about how to punctuate a couple of lines.)

RobJ · Apr 23, 2011

JSSchley said:
Sorry. That's overly snarky.

Yeah, I think I'll pass. But good luck.

dpaterso · Apr 23, 2011

Methinks this is a notable Exception To The Rules, and you can do it any way you darn well like, as long as it's clear to the reader. Me, I'd precede the prayer with a simple explanation, e.g. and just for fun's sake,

They knelt and prayed together, each taking it in turn to say one line:
"Our Father,
Which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
...
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever,
Amen."

Shrug, each to their own.

-Derek

bonitakale · Apr 23, 2011

I'd use commas.

"Thy kingdom come,"
"Thy will be done,"
"On Earth, as it is in Heaven."
"Give us this day,"
"Our daily bread,"

VoireyLinger · Apr 23, 2011

JSSchley said:
So I find myself in a punctuation quandary I've never encountered. I thought I knew dialogue punctuation inside and out, but I can't find the answer to this one.

I'm writing a scene where two characters are praying the Lord's prayer together, one saying one line, and one saying the next. So neither one has complete sentences, so it's odd to end each turn with a period. Yet, ending a line of dialogue with no tag with a comma also strikes me as wildly incorrect. Should I just not punctuate at all?

Your thoughts? This is an example of what I've got to figure out:

"Thy kingdom come"

"Thy will be done"

etc.

I'd use ellipses for breaks that do not call for a full stop.

mccardey · Apr 23, 2011

I'm going to say em dash. But I'm going to say it really hesitantly and hope that if it's incredibly wrong people just shuffle around a bit and then change the subject. Rather than, say, pointing and laughing.

jimbro · Apr 23, 2011

dpaterso said:
Methinks this is a notable Exception To The Rules, and you can do it any way you darn well like, as long as it's clear to the reader. Me, I'd precede the prayer with a simple explanation, e.g. and just for fun's sake,

They knelt and prayed together, each taking it in turn to say one line:
"Our Father,
Which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
...
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever,
Amen."

Shrug, each to their own.

-Derek

I agree with the first line of what Derek has to say, and his example seems like a good one to me.

My characters are usually not the type to recite prayers, but the issue of shared dialog is worth looking into. I don't know the best way to handle this, but I think it is an interesting question, and I hope this thread has plenty of followup. I'll be watching it.

Bufty · Apr 23, 2011

Brilliant - straight to the point - everyone will get the image - everyone knows the prayer, and dragging it out achieves nothing.

dpaterso said:
Methinks this is a notable Exception To The Rules, and you can do it any way you darn well like, as long as it's clear to the reader. Me, I'd precede the prayer with a simple explanation, e.g. and just for fun's sake,

They knelt and prayed together, each taking it in turn to say one line:
"Our Father,
Which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
...
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever,
Amen."

Shrug, each to their own.

-Derek

Duncan J Macdonald · Apr 23, 2011

JSSchley said:
So I find myself in a punctuation quandary I've never encountered. I thought I knew dialogue punctuation inside and out, but I can't find the answer to this one.

I'm writing a scene where two characters are praying the Lord's prayer together, one saying one line, and one saying the next. So neither one has complete sentences, so it's odd to end each turn with a period. Yet, ending a line of dialogue with no tag with a comma also strikes me as wildly incorrect. Should I just not punctuate at all?

Your thoughts? This is an example of what I've got to figure out:

"Thy kingdom come"

"Thy will be done"

etc.

I'll toss my hat in the ring for ellipses. For example:

"...Forgive us our debts..."
"...As we also have forgiven our debtors..."

Or, for special emphasis:

"...For Thine is the Kingdom..."
"...The Power..."
"...And the Glory..."

However, I must also agree with those who consider going through the entire prayer in that manner slightly tedious. In the words of Monty Python, "Skip a bit, brother."

**Edited to add**
I see another pitfall to watch out for. You could change the entire tone of the passage from reverential to farcical depending on where and how often you shift the dialogue. Each break in the flow of the prayer adds emphasis to that break.

JSSchley · Apr 23, 2011

Thank you to all of you for the input!

I'm tempted to go with em-dashes, although I'm a very em-dashy writer and usually try to edit them out. Ellipses look strange to me, even over only three lines (and just fyi, that's all this is--three lines of dialogue, because as many have pointed out, all one needs to do is establish that the two characters are praying in a particular manner).

Do folks find ellipses not distracting? That was the suggestion of one of my first writing buddies I asked when I started to bang my head up against a wall over this. I just have a personal dislike of them, I guess, perhaps because they're used so often online that I feel it makes the writing look like an instant message.

Bufty · Apr 23, 2011

The ellipses seem to serve no purpose here - each line of dialogue is complete for each speaker they are each contributing a line, not starting to say something and tailing off.

Go with whatever you think works -the reader will follow, and a publisher (if any) will change it if he feels it necessary.

maestrowork · Apr 23, 2011

I favor the em-dashes.

absitinvidia · Apr 23, 2011

I'd go with ellipses before I used em dashes, unless you want to convey a very rushed prayer.

Ms Hollands · Apr 23, 2011

I'd go with Derek's suggestion. You're basically quoting something that already exists. It will also give people like me, who get far to impatient with stuff like that, a chance to skip over it easily with their eyes.

And if you don't agree, please just use full-stops at the end of each line. The person is finishing a phrase, whether it's a sentence or not. That would therefore be the correct syntax. Remember: your characters can be grammatically incorrect when you quote them, but the punctuation is your choice, not theirs: keep it standard even when their phrases aren't.

Lost World · Apr 24, 2011

Ms Hollands said:
I'd go with Derek's suggestion. You're basically quoting something that already exists. It will also give people like me, who get far to impatient with stuff like that, a chance to skip over it easily with their eyes.

And if you don't agree, please just use full-stops at the end of each line. The person is finishing a phrase, whether it's a sentence or not. That would therefore be the correct syntax. Remember: your characters can be grammatically incorrect when you quote them, but the punctuation is your choice, not theirs: keep it standard even when their phrases aren't.

Totally. If this were something unique, like a prayer never written, I'd say write it out with em-dashes, elipses, whatever floats your boat. But actually writing them out alternating lines in the Lord's Prayer is pointless. Just tell the reader that's what they did and move on.

absitinvidia · Apr 24, 2011

Bufty said:
The ellipses seem to serve no purpose here - each line of dialogue is complete for each speaker they are each contributing a line, not starting to say something and tailing off.

This is why this punctuation is tricky, because what you say above applies just as well for em dashes as it does for ellipses.

To be perfectly honest, as a reader, I'd skip this entire section, because I know The Lord's Prayer, so punctuation is irrelevant. Once I figured out that the characters were alternating lines, I'd skip ahead to the next action.

JSSchley · Apr 24, 2011

VoireyLinger said:
I'd use ellipses for breaks that do not call for a full stop.

Ms Hollands said:
I'd go with Derek's suggestion. You're basically quoting something that already exists. It will also give people like me, who get far to impatient with stuff like that, a chance to skip over it easily with their eyes.

And if you don't agree, please just use full-stops at the end of each line. The person is finishing a phrase, whether it's a sentence or not. That would therefore be the correct syntax. Remember: your characters can be grammatically incorrect when you quote them, but the punctuation is your choice, not theirs: keep it standard even when their phrases aren't.

See now, periods are the one thing I really wouldn't consider. That, to me, is more jarring rhythmically than anything else because a period usually indicates a pitch fall, so if I were reading it, I wouldn't "hear" the shared intonation.

Re: the "easy to skip" "don't know why you'd quote the whole prayer" etc. ... please see post #12.

Ms Hollands · Apr 25, 2011

JSSchley said:
Re: the "easy to skip" "don't know why you'd quote the whole prayer" etc. ... please see post #12.

I read the thread entirely and I understand your reasons. As a reader, however, I'd skip it whether I know your reasons or not. I'm sure I'm not the only reader who skips bits I consider boring/superfluous/annoying. Give me an easy out as a reader, please!

Regarding the punctuation, I can only emphasise that as an author, only you can decide whether you to stick to the rules. I think you'd be crazy to use em-dashed, but the editor will have the final say anyway.

Bigglesworth · May 4, 2011

Em-dashes for me, too. The characters are effectively interrupting each other.

Bufty · May 4, 2011

Just curious.

How can character B be said to interrupt character A when character A deliberately stops speaking to allow character B to speak the follow-on line?

Bigglesworth said:
Em-dashes for me, too. The characters are effectively interrupting each other.

JSSchley · May 4, 2011

Bufty said:
Just curious.

How can character B be said to interrupt character A when character A deliberately stops speaking to allow character B to speak the follow-on line?

And therein lies the problem with this. The only punctuation that actually is designed to capture this kind of prosodic rhythm is the ellipsis, and yet it's kind of a nightmare to use because it looks like three punctuation marks instead of one.

Bigglesworth · May 4, 2011

Bufty said:
Just curious.

How can character B be said to interrupt character A when character A deliberately stops speaking to allow character B to speak the follow-on line?

In the sense that its a break in the uniformity of the delivery. Admittedly, em-dashes are usually used to signify characters 'aggressively' talking-over each another, but that's not always the case.

This is consensual interruption =)

maestrowork · May 4, 2011

It's not a matter of active interruption but an abrupt break, which the em-dash is used for as well.

Ellipses are used for trailing speech or omission.

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