Help with proper structure.

The first looks better to me, since it's the same person speaking both times. Maybe try,

"Pray to me," he said, pointing down. He added, "Just the captain," for the soldiers were also sinking to their knees.

For clarity, keep characters to their own paragraphs. Like this.Notice how this reduces or eliminates the need for dialogue tags.

Hope this helps!

I'm not sure if it's an "official" rule, but I've always kept one person's dialogue within the same paragraph for clarity's sake. So I would go with the former. And BMustang's example works even better for clarity!

A new paragraph indicates a new speaker. Omit the return.

I'd go with Brutal Mustang's suggestion. It eliminates an unnecessary dialogue tag and gets the actions in the proper order.

Personally, I don't like cluttering up dialogue with too much narration. A little bit helps set the scene, but when one paragraph has five different sections of dialogue with actions between them, it drives me insane.

"Pray to me," he said, pointing down, then added, "Just the captain," for the soldiers were also sinking to their knees.

or

"Pray to me," he said, pointing down. When the common soldiers sank to their knees, he added, "Just the captain."

But I like Brutal Mustang's approach too. There are multiple ways to handle it, but generally you wouldn't change paragraphs if it were still the same speaker, unless it represented a major change of direction/subject.

Gynn said:

Hey guys. Could you please help me figure out how to structure these sentences? It looks wrong! Thanks.

"Pray to me," he said, pointing down. "Just the captain," he added, for the soldiers were also sinking to their knees.

Is it fine like that

Click to expand...

Yes. No need to make it two sentences.

ETA: Personally, I prefer the above construction rather than adding extra lines of dialogue. Yours is quicker and more concise.

I prefer your first example. I like the way it flows.

Yes, first one looks better. No need to start from a new line.

Or you could try this (if you really want to keep the dialogue together):

"Pray to me," he said, pointing down, and the soldiers all sank to their knees. "No. Just the captain."

I'm with the ones saying keep it like your first example. I just don't see the need to break that up into two or three different paragraphs.

I like how rwm said it, that way you can take out, he added. Since you already said, he said.

You could even eliminate the tags altogether if you feel like it.

"Pray to me." He pointed down, and the soldiers all sank to their knees. "No. Just the captain."