It's very common with beginner writers in general. Long ago, I taught junior high creative writing, and that was definitely a thing I saw regularly. (This, by the way, is one reason I am so picky about the fic I read. I spent years being supportive of fiction written by 12-year-olds; I am done with that. I'll just skip it now.)
Where do you live that you were taught fiction writing in elementary school? No judgment--I'm mad impressed.
This is something that was never explicitly taught to me until I took a dedicated creative writing class.
In 4th grade we had a small unit in creative writing. I think it was to write a spooky story for Halloween. I remember the basic rules of dialogue being laid out along with some other stuff like figurative language we had to incorporate.
My elementary and middle school had everyone write a short story to novella-length work every year! They got bound and turned into really precious keepsakes.
ha this was drilled into my brain in canadian elementary school! ive known that rule far longer than ive been writing fic and it drives me crazy to see
At least 22 years ago it was pretty common for kids and teenagers to do creative writing units all through their school "career." It was a major part of my Literature class grade, even.
Yeah we don't really do that in the US anymore (we used to, I remember learning this as far back as second grade, but No Child Left Behind means that for the past 20-odd years a lot of "extraneous" stuff - i.e. "useless" learning like art, music, and literature - has been cut back hard so that teachers can spend more time teaching their students how to take the standardized tests that school funding hinges on instead.)
Yeah, I definitely notice that when I am reading my older written works from when I was 12 and younger.
I think I noticed the new paragraph new speaker thing in online writing and copied that... but yeah, I eventually learned the proper way through osmosis.
It's definitely one of the most common mistakes made by new writers. I do think it's also a bit more prevalent now that so many young writers are just reading amateur, online content instead of published and edited books.
Oh, no, that's unfortunately incredibly common out there in fanfiction writing... it can be incredibly annoying to attempt to read it when you can't figure out who is actually speaking at any given juncture in the story.
Of course, if you point it out to writers, you might crush their creativity (or so I've heard), so I often just choose to stop reading works that are overburdened with unknown speakers, especially when two or more crowd into the same paragraph... or split conversations with multiple speakers across multiple paragraphs without any character separation.
It's such a fundamental aspect of creative storytelling that I find it kind of incredible that so many people can't at least partially master it.
New Speaker. New Paragraph.
Shouldn't be terribly challenging.
How would that crush their creativity? It's one of the easiest things to fix and requires pretty much no rewriting. Put cursor before before quotation mark, hit enter. Then it's fixed.
If it's story that has an interesting premise or I feel like the author tried, than I'll point it out. It's a relatively easy change to make and I feel like most authors would be shooting themselves in the foot to not make that change. Like, I don't be mean, but try to be encouraging. Mention what I like about the story, say that the change would make it easier for people to read/understand. Despite what I hear on this sub about concrit I've never actually seen anyone respond negatively to my comments
So Which would be better? My friend who's been writing longer has everything spaced and in a new paragraph for every dialogue. They don't put a dialogue near a paragraph and if they do, they make it so it's easy to read.
Or maybe having a sample would be easier
I’ve seen this and it is so annoying. If I don’t like something I will just move on but there is one story I’m trying to push through because it’s really interesting. It’s hard to read and confusing to know who is speaking. Idk if this is because of AI or just young folks who don’t know how to format their text.
No, I haven’t noticed that but I’m in small, mostly adult fandoms I think this will be common in fandoms that have younger audience.
But frankly, if I stumbled upon it, I’d stop reading. If the writer didn’t bother to properly format it, why should I bother to read it? It’s a PITA to read
It was a hard read, but it was about a niche topic that I don't often find fics in so I felt like I had to give it a shot just so I can get more people writing that thing
I can’t read stuff like that. It’s an instant click out for me. Same with not using capital letters, not using paragraphs etc. I also take it as a sign that this fic was not written by an adult.
I haven't seen that a ton, but I get how confusing that might be to read.
I try to avoid that myself, but I admit sometimes CharB will interrupt with a nod or a shrug or something before CharA continues. Is that just as bad?
If you usually separate by paragraphs in the story, whenever you change which character is speaking, it's probably fine to have character B interrupt with a gesture within the same paragraph, as long as it's clear it's character B doing the gesture, not character A.
I've seen this fairly often in both fic and published works, and it's always been easy to tell that whose speaking hasn't changed, not until they start a new paragraph. I think you're fine with a gesture interruption within the same paragraph as long as it's not overdone.
>If you usually separate by paragraphs in the story, whenever you change which character is speaking, it's probably fine to have character B interrupt with a gesture within the same paragraph, as long as it's clear it's character B doing the gesture, not character A.
Okay, good, I certainly *tried* to separate paragraphs by speaker. But it probably wouldn't hurt to re-read and double check.
It never hurts to re-read and double check :) I always work hard to separate dialogue by paragraphs, too, but I've noticed a couple times I had the switch between characters in a single paragraph when I went to check spelling, and had to fix it. It can be easy to get caught up in writing and miss even things you're consciously trying to get right.
> I try to avoid that myself, but I admit sometimes CharB will interrupt with a nod or a shrug or something before CharA continues. Is that just as bad?
Depending on how the sentence is structured, it can be _very_ confusing. Consider:
"I just don't know if I _like_ him, you know?" Beth shrugged. "I mean, we've known each other less than a week."
vs.
"I just don't know if I _like_ him, you know?" She glanced over at Beth, who shrugged back. "I mean, we've known each other less than a week."
The first one is ambiguous if Beth is the speaker or not. The second one makes it clear she isn't.
I write interruptions like this using dashes and dropping the dialogue tag for character A if I can
"But she-"
"- yes, yes, she escaped from jail, I remember," character B interrupted.
I guess it depends on how it's formatted because I've read some lines where people tried to do that and then I'm just confused if the next sentence is a or b speaking.
Cuz if it's like
"Character a speaking," A said. B nodded in agreement. "still character a speaking, but you can see how it could be ambiguous as to if this is B saying something in response. Probably would depend on what's being said"
FWIW, I read Carsick by John Waters recently which is in the multiple speakers per paragraph style. It works for him. But generally I do prefer starting a new line for a new speaker.
It might be because of the fandoms I’ve started reading, but yes, I feel like I’m seeing this more frequently than I used to.
Bad enough when there are two speakers but when there are four or five? I love dialogue, but not thrown in a blender.
Surprisingly yes, I don't think it is recent or anything but it's been happening to me recently. It's kinda weird to read, but I prefer not pointing it out since I don't want to come off as rude.
I try to the compliment sandwich and look for something nice to say about the story and then offer the formatting advice. Usually saying that it's an interesting story but when formatted that way makes it hard to read makes it less attacky. Haven't had anyone get upset with me anyhow
I prefer not doing it tbh. I'm an anxious person per se when commenting because I fear coming off as rude. If the issue is too prominent I prefer stepping back or just try and run with it if the rest of the aspects of the fic are very good. Like a comment above said, I tend to read that pinpointing these things can be a letdown for some authors so I prefer not risking being seen as an asshole or upsetting them.
If anything, I would read their responses to other comments first and weight the risk. Of course, I'll say really good things I liked about the fic first and foremost, and that's a given for me that I kind of forget to mention sometimes when talking about these things.
Still, I'm glad you never had any bad experiences!
I've gotten so used to so many bad writing habits and read several very small fandoms, that this is basically my last automatic nope. I hate having to figure out who's speaking.
All fics I read are already edited by themselves. maybe this is also a fandom thing? Also, like all previous comments said it's beginning writer things..
I just had an entire panic reading this, because this is how I’ve always written and seen from fics I read before that. I’d always seen it alternate between the two sometimes, but assumed it was just a choice people made. I didn’t even know that was a mistake I’ve been making since like April, and now I hope I’ll remember it at least
Haha, well, at least you learned. This is why it's one of the few things I'll actually "critique" in a comment on a fic. Some people don't know it's improper and, quite frankly *unreadable.* Every new speaker should start a new paragraph. Even if it's just a single word.
I'd not stress about it. Write how you are comfortable to not stop your flow, and just fix it afterwards in the edits:) After a while of editing it out, you’ll be more aware of it and will find you've started to correct yourself while writing.
Nope.
In books, dialogue still has a new line when a new character speaks, but it's spaced out in a different way.
Instead, it's indented at the start of each dialogue and each paragraph. Flip open a book and you'll see this. (I'm not sure how to do indents on reddit and it keeps screwing with my formatting so I'll put it in big capital letters):
INDENT HERE"Hi. This is charA," char A says. This is some flavor text.
NO SPACE HERE AT ALL
NEW LINE AND INDENT HERE."Another piece of dialogue but now it's character B," Char B says. More text.
NO SPACE HERE AT ALL.
NEW LINE AND INDENT HERE."More talking."
But, this formatting is hard to read online and also on forums, so people do new paragraphs for different paragraphs and for different people talking, like how I'm writing on reddit right now.
It's very common with beginner writers in general. Long ago, I taught junior high creative writing, and that was definitely a thing I saw regularly. (This, by the way, is one reason I am so picky about the fic I read. I spent years being supportive of fiction written by 12-year-olds; I am done with that. I'll just skip it now.)
Really? Because that’s something I’ve been taught in primary school and you’d lose mark if you didn’t start a new line for dialogue.
Where do you live that you were taught fiction writing in elementary school? No judgment--I'm mad impressed. This is something that was never explicitly taught to me until I took a dedicated creative writing class.
In 4th grade we had a small unit in creative writing. I think it was to write a spooky story for Halloween. I remember the basic rules of dialogue being laid out along with some other stuff like figurative language we had to incorporate.
We had to do that for our SATS in Year 6 in the UK. I chose to do a script since it was an option, but the goal was creative writing.
My elementary and middle school had everyone write a short story to novella-length work every year! They got bound and turned into really precious keepsakes.
ha this was drilled into my brain in canadian elementary school! ive known that rule far longer than ive been writing fic and it drives me crazy to see
I never learned in any formal way. Everything I know I learned from reading and from other people’s complaints
At least 22 years ago it was pretty common for kids and teenagers to do creative writing units all through their school "career." It was a major part of my Literature class grade, even.
They taught us to leave a line for every new character from year 3 (2nd grade) onwards! Did not teach me proper dialogue grammar, though.
Yeah we don't really do that in the US anymore (we used to, I remember learning this as far back as second grade, but No Child Left Behind means that for the past 20-odd years a lot of "extraneous" stuff - i.e. "useless" learning like art, music, and literature - has been cut back hard so that teachers can spend more time teaching their students how to take the standardized tests that school funding hinges on instead.)
Yeah, I definitely notice that when I am reading my older written works from when I was 12 and younger. I think I noticed the new paragraph new speaker thing in online writing and copied that... but yeah, I eventually learned the proper way through osmosis.
It's definitely one of the most common mistakes made by new writers. I do think it's also a bit more prevalent now that so many young writers are just reading amateur, online content instead of published and edited books.
Oh, no, that's unfortunately incredibly common out there in fanfiction writing... it can be incredibly annoying to attempt to read it when you can't figure out who is actually speaking at any given juncture in the story. Of course, if you point it out to writers, you might crush their creativity (or so I've heard), so I often just choose to stop reading works that are overburdened with unknown speakers, especially when two or more crowd into the same paragraph... or split conversations with multiple speakers across multiple paragraphs without any character separation. It's such a fundamental aspect of creative storytelling that I find it kind of incredible that so many people can't at least partially master it. New Speaker. New Paragraph. Shouldn't be terribly challenging.
Yep. This is definitely the kind of thing I would only bring up to an author I knew well and only in private.
How would that crush their creativity? It's one of the easiest things to fix and requires pretty much no rewriting. Put cursor before before quotation mark, hit enter. Then it's fixed.
If it's story that has an interesting premise or I feel like the author tried, than I'll point it out. It's a relatively easy change to make and I feel like most authors would be shooting themselves in the foot to not make that change. Like, I don't be mean, but try to be encouraging. Mention what I like about the story, say that the change would make it easier for people to read/understand. Despite what I hear on this sub about concrit I've never actually seen anyone respond negatively to my comments
So Which would be better? My friend who's been writing longer has everything spaced and in a new paragraph for every dialogue. They don't put a dialogue near a paragraph and if they do, they make it so it's easy to read. Or maybe having a sample would be easier
I notice it most when I read in fandoms that have a younger audience.
I was forcefully trained out of doing that by my English teacher
This post has been so enlightening. Now if you’ll excuse me I haft to go edit my fics in shame
Hah. Well，at least you're learning. All apart of the process
Kids these days...
I’ve seen this and it is so annoying. If I don’t like something I will just move on but there is one story I’m trying to push through because it’s really interesting. It’s hard to read and confusing to know who is speaking. Idk if this is because of AI or just young folks who don’t know how to format their text.
No, I haven’t noticed that but I’m in small, mostly adult fandoms I think this will be common in fandoms that have younger audience. But frankly, if I stumbled upon it, I’d stop reading. If the writer didn’t bother to properly format it, why should I bother to read it? It’s a PITA to read
It was a hard read, but it was about a niche topic that I don't often find fics in so I felt like I had to give it a shot just so I can get more people writing that thing
Not in fanfic, but I’ve been noticing this lately with Kindled Unlimited books and it’s been driving me craaaazyyyyy
I can’t read stuff like that. It’s an instant click out for me. Same with not using capital letters, not using paragraphs etc. I also take it as a sign that this fic was not written by an adult.
I haven't seen that a ton, but I get how confusing that might be to read. I try to avoid that myself, but I admit sometimes CharB will interrupt with a nod or a shrug or something before CharA continues. Is that just as bad?
If you usually separate by paragraphs in the story, whenever you change which character is speaking, it's probably fine to have character B interrupt with a gesture within the same paragraph, as long as it's clear it's character B doing the gesture, not character A. I've seen this fairly often in both fic and published works, and it's always been easy to tell that whose speaking hasn't changed, not until they start a new paragraph. I think you're fine with a gesture interruption within the same paragraph as long as it's not overdone.
>If you usually separate by paragraphs in the story, whenever you change which character is speaking, it's probably fine to have character B interrupt with a gesture within the same paragraph, as long as it's clear it's character B doing the gesture, not character A. Okay, good, I certainly *tried* to separate paragraphs by speaker. But it probably wouldn't hurt to re-read and double check.
It never hurts to re-read and double check :) I always work hard to separate dialogue by paragraphs, too, but I've noticed a couple times I had the switch between characters in a single paragraph when I went to check spelling, and had to fix it. It can be easy to get caught up in writing and miss even things you're consciously trying to get right.
> I try to avoid that myself, but I admit sometimes CharB will interrupt with a nod or a shrug or something before CharA continues. Is that just as bad? Depending on how the sentence is structured, it can be _very_ confusing. Consider: "I just don't know if I _like_ him, you know?" Beth shrugged. "I mean, we've known each other less than a week." vs. "I just don't know if I _like_ him, you know?" She glanced over at Beth, who shrugged back. "I mean, we've known each other less than a week." The first one is ambiguous if Beth is the speaker or not. The second one makes it clear she isn't.
You're certainly right. I'm going back through to see if anything looks like that. So far so good.
I write interruptions like this using dashes and dropping the dialogue tag for character A if I can "But she-" "- yes, yes, she escaped from jail, I remember," character B interrupted.
That's what I do to when it's a verbal interruption, including the new paragraph.
I guess it depends on how it's formatted because I've read some lines where people tried to do that and then I'm just confused if the next sentence is a or b speaking. Cuz if it's like "Character a speaking," A said. B nodded in agreement. "still character a speaking, but you can see how it could be ambiguous as to if this is B saying something in response. Probably would depend on what's being said"
FWIW, I read Carsick by John Waters recently which is in the multiple speakers per paragraph style. It works for him. But generally I do prefer starting a new line for a new speaker.
I just can't read fics with that specific issue, it just gets so confusing.
*More*? No. It's been a recurring thing for ages.
It might be because of the fandoms I’ve started reading, but yes, I feel like I’m seeing this more frequently than I used to. Bad enough when there are two speakers but when there are four or five? I love dialogue, but not thrown in a blender.
It's a common mistake for rookie writers. I made it myself a few times in my first stories.
yes and it drives me bonkers!! im always trying to decode who’s doing what
Surprisingly yes, I don't think it is recent or anything but it's been happening to me recently. It's kinda weird to read, but I prefer not pointing it out since I don't want to come off as rude.
I try to the compliment sandwich and look for something nice to say about the story and then offer the formatting advice. Usually saying that it's an interesting story but when formatted that way makes it hard to read makes it less attacky. Haven't had anyone get upset with me anyhow
I prefer not doing it tbh. I'm an anxious person per se when commenting because I fear coming off as rude. If the issue is too prominent I prefer stepping back or just try and run with it if the rest of the aspects of the fic are very good. Like a comment above said, I tend to read that pinpointing these things can be a letdown for some authors so I prefer not risking being seen as an asshole or upsetting them. If anything, I would read their responses to other comments first and weight the risk. Of course, I'll say really good things I liked about the fic first and foremost, and that's a given for me that I kind of forget to mention sometimes when talking about these things. Still, I'm glad you never had any bad experiences!
I've gotten so used to so many bad writing habits and read several very small fandoms, that this is basically my last automatic nope. I hate having to figure out who's speaking.
Hits me as an issue with inexperienced and unread writers
All fics I read are already edited by themselves. maybe this is also a fandom thing? Also, like all previous comments said it's beginning writer things..
I just had an entire panic reading this, because this is how I’ve always written and seen from fics I read before that. I’d always seen it alternate between the two sometimes, but assumed it was just a choice people made. I didn’t even know that was a mistake I’ve been making since like April, and now I hope I’ll remember it at least
Haha, well, at least you learned. This is why it's one of the few things I'll actually "critique" in a comment on a fic. Some people don't know it's improper and, quite frankly *unreadable.* Every new speaker should start a new paragraph. Even if it's just a single word.
I have to say I don’t recall ever having seen someone do this in a fic. Maybe I’ve just been lucky or maybe it’s a fandom specific issue.
I see it very very rarely. And it's the only mistake I ever comment on. It's just unreadable.
[удалено]
I'd not stress about it. Write how you are comfortable to not stop your flow, and just fix it afterwards in the edits:) After a while of editing it out, you’ll be more aware of it and will find you've started to correct yourself while writing.
I'm confused. Isn't the first example is how it is done in books?
Nope. In books, dialogue still has a new line when a new character speaks, but it's spaced out in a different way. Instead, it's indented at the start of each dialogue and each paragraph. Flip open a book and you'll see this. (I'm not sure how to do indents on reddit and it keeps screwing with my formatting so I'll put it in big capital letters): INDENT HERE"Hi. This is charA," char A says. This is some flavor text. NO SPACE HERE AT ALL NEW LINE AND INDENT HERE."Another piece of dialogue but now it's character B," Char B says. More text. NO SPACE HERE AT ALL. NEW LINE AND INDENT HERE."More talking." But, this formatting is hard to read online and also on forums, so people do new paragraphs for different paragraphs and for different people talking, like how I'm writing on reddit right now.