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How to use dialogue snippets as a narrative tool

8/5/2023

Does your novel’s narrative have several consecutive snippets of dialogue that reflect a non-viewpoint character’s state of mind? If so, how do you punctuate them? And is there an alternative to using speech marks?

What’s in this post?

The difference between dialogue and narrative
Using speech snippets as a narrative device
Different styles of punctuation
Using free indirect speech as an alternative
Should the snippets be capitalized?
Keeping the text lean and engaging

The difference between dialogue and narrative

Dialogue is the conversation between two or more characters. It’s what people say out loud and is often indicated by opening and closing quotation marks (or speech marks). Depending on your style of choice, these marks can be either singles ‘blah blah’ or doubles “blah blah”.

Narrative is the telling of the story – how an external narrator or viewpoint character reports on the events taking place in the novel.

In the example below, the dialogue between the characters is in quotation marks. The surrounding text is narrative, and through it we learn what the viewpoint character – Milo – is thinking and what he can see and hear as the journey progresses.

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. The country was going to hell in a handcart and they had the audacity to talk about ‘defence of the realm’. Jesus.
The driver turned right at the junction, taking them over the bridge and south of the river.
Milo banged on the glass partition and shouted, ‘Hey, you’ve gone the wrong way, mate. We need to go north.’
‘Don’t worry yourself, sir,’ the driver said, his voice tinny through the intercom. ‘I’ve been told exactly where to take you.’

Note the following:

I’ve used single quotation marks in line with British English-style convention.
Each new speaker’s dialogue starts on a new line.
The full stop after realm sits outside the closing quotation mark because this isn’t direct speech.

Here’s how it might look using US English style:

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. The country was going to hell in a handcart and they had the audacity to talk about “defence of the realm.” Jesus.
The driver turned right at the junction, taking them over the bridge and south of the river.
Milo banged on the glass partition and shouted, “Hey, you’ve gone the wrong way, mate. We need to go north.”
“Don’t worry yourself, sir,” the driver said, his voice tinny through the intercom. “I’ve been told exactly where to take you.”

Note the following:

I’ve used double quotation marks.
Each new speaker’s dialogue starts on a new line.
The full stop after realm sits inside the closing quotation mark.

Using speech snippets as a narrative device

Sometimes the narrative can include snippets of speech to inform readers about a character’s state of mind or a types of behaviours.

Although full sentences are used in the speech snippets, it’s not conventional dialogue. Rather, it’s narrating character’s recollection of utterances that give the reader a flavour of another character’s perspective.

Here’s an example punctuated using British English style. Note the following:

I’ve used single quotation marks in line with British English-style conventions.
Adamson’s speech snippets are not given a new line but incorporated into the narrative.
Commas and a conjunction separate the speech snippets.
Commas and a conjunction separate the speech snippets. These replace any full points that would have appeared if the actual conversation had been reported and rendered as dialogue.
The commas sit outside the speech marks to indicate that this is Milo’s narrative rather than conventional dialogue.

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that ‘It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, ‘Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?’, ‘Got to look after our own, you know’ and ‘Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians’.

And here’s an example punctuated using US English style, which some people might find a little trickier because of the question mark and the punctuation convention. In the three examples below:

I’ve used double quotation marks in line with US English-style conventions.
Adamson’s speech snippets are not given a new line but incorporated into the narrative.
Commas and a conjunction separate the speech snippets. These replace any full points that would have appeared if the actual conversation had been reported and rendered as dialogue.
Most of the commas still sit inside the speech marks as per US English style. The tricky bit is deciding what to do with the snippet containing a question mark.

Option 1: Allow the question mark to do the separating

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that “It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap,” “Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?” “Got to look after our own, you know,” and “Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians.”

Option 2: Recast so that the snippet with a question mark is at the end of the sentence

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that “It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap,” “Got to look after our own, you know,” “Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians,” and “Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?”

Option 3: Add a separating comma after the closing quotation mark to emphasize the separation

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that “It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap,” “Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?”, “Got to look after our own, you know,” and “Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians.”

If you’re an editor who doesn’t have the scope to suggest a recast, I think Option 1 is fine. The question mark acts in place of a separating comma and avoids cluttering punctuation.

Option 3 indicates a clear separation but it’s a break from US-English style and clutters the paragraph with a comma that isn’t strictly needed.

Using free indirect speech as an alternative

Free indirect speech (also called free indirect discourse) is an alternative that could work for writers worried about getting tangled up in how to punctuate snippets of direct speech in narrative.

Free indirect speech reads like direct first person dialogue but retains a third-person viewpoint. Here’s how it might work in our example.

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that it was all about the defence of the realm, old chap, democracy had lost its way, we had to look after our own, and government was best done by our lot, not civilians.

Note how I’ve experimented with just a little italic for emphasis – old chap and our lot.

That’s so that although Milo is reporting the kinds of things he heard his boss say, the reader pays attention to the some of the tone of his boss’s voice and some of the language that Milo finds particularly grating.

Keeping the text lean and engaging

It’s worth paying attention to how many dialogue snippets you’re using. If they’re in a single sentence of the narrative, there’s a risk the prose won’t flow well and the reader will get lost. In the example I provided above, there were four, and that’s probably about the limit.

So what should you do if you’re passing an editorial eye over a sentence with lots of snippets?

Option 1: Can you create the same impact with fewer snippets?
Check whether all those snippets need to be there. Are some of them conveying similar information? If that’s the case, could you retain only those necessary to convey the essence of the character’s thought processes to the reader?

The example below has eight snippets.

During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that ‘It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, ‘The old-boy network has to be protected’, ‘Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?’, ‘Got to look after our own, you know’, ‘The old ways are the best ways’, ‘We know who our friends are’, ‘A little corruption keeps the wet blankets in check’, and ‘Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians’.

Yes, Adamson might have uttered all of those statements, but capturing the essence of his mindset can be still achieved my omitting at least three of them.

I recommend you pick the utterances that are most powerful. That way, you'll ensure your reader remains engaged.

Option 2: Create two sentences from one
If editing out some dialogue snippets isn’t an option, try breaking the sentence into two.

During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that ‘It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, ‘The old-boy network has to be protected’, ‘Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?’, ‘Got to look after our own, you know’, ‘The old ways are the best ways’ … that sort of thing. The bullshit had continued – more of the same on the lines of how ‘We know who our friends are’, ‘A little corruption keeps the wet blankets in check’, and ‘Government’s best done by our lot, not civilians’.

Option 3: Mix up dialogue snippets and free indirect speech
Another option is to combine two different literary tools – direct speech snippets and free indirect speech. Here’s how it might work.

During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that ‘It’s all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, ‘The old-boy network has to be protected’, ‘Democracy’s lost its way, don’t you think?’, ‘Got to look after our own, you know’, ‘The old ways are the best ways’ … that sort of thing. The bullshit had continued – more of the same about how they knew who their friends were, how a little corruption kept the wet blankets in check (Adamson had winked at that one), and how government was best done by our lot, not civilians.

Again, I experimented with just a little italic to draw attention to Adamson's tone and its grating effect on Milo, and added an action beat in parentheses to highlight Adamson's readiness to break the law.

This option ensures the use of direct speech isn’t overworked, and instead gives the reader a different way to access the information in the narrative about how Adamson’s mind works.

Should the snippets be capitalized?

Whether or not you should capitalize the snippets is a style choice. I've chosen to capitalize them in the examples I provided because I wanted to indicate that this is how these full sentences would have been rendered if we'd been shown the actual conversation as it happened.

If I was dealing with partial dialogue, I'd approach the text as in the next example.

Milo fumed. Stuck-up establishment idiots. They didn’t have a clue. Like that jerk Adamson barking on about his so-called obligations. During their previous meeting, Milo had nodded and smiled in all the right places while his boss informed him that it was ‘all about the defence of the realm, old chap’, how democracy had ‘lost its way, don’t you think?’, that they had to ‘look after our own, you know’ and government was best done by 'our lot, not civilians’.

Summing up

Using snippets of direct dialogue as a narrative tool can be a superb way of conveying a non-viewpoint character’s mindset and behaviour.

However, writers and their editors need to ensure that readers won’t be tempted to skim. For that reason, pay attention to:

consistent punctuation that supports readability, clarity and style
brevity that captures the essence of the character’s perspective
whether different tools could be combined to make the prose more interesting.

Related resources

Book: Editing Fiction at Sentence Level
Book bundle: Transform Your Fiction series
Courses: The Fiction Line Editing Bundle
Course: How to Line Edit for Suspense
Course: How to Write the Perfect Fiction Editorial Report
Course: Narrative Distance: A Toolbox for Writers and Editors
Free resources: Dialogue
Free resources: Line craft

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.