I have a question for anybody. I have a character who speechifies a bit and I want to demonstrate that he pauses in these speeches, but I don't want to write "he pauses".
What I did was to break his speech into paragraphs, at times. Anybody know the correct way (or if there is a correct way) to punctuate this? Here is an example--
“None of you will of course mind dying.” Malcolm stated slowly. “You’ve got better places to be than this spiritual shit-hole, and you’ve been waiting for me to arrive for quite a long time, I suspect--
--If you don’t mind me saying, I’d be thanking me for what I plan to do. They claim when you get there, angels will be waiting, and eternal bliss will be the reward for your cowering servitude.”
I tried the dashes to promote continuity. Anybody?
Caption: Anon.
6 comments:
I have a question for anybody. I have a character who speechifies a bit and I want to demonstrate that he pauses in these speeches, but I don't want to write "he pauses".
What I did was to break his speech into paragraphs, at times. Anybody know the correct way (or if there is a correct way) to punctuate this? Here is an example--
“None of you will of course mind dying.” Malcolm stated slowly. “You’ve got better places to be than this spiritual shit-hole, and you’ve been waiting for me to arrive for quite a long time, I suspect--
--If you don’t mind me saying, I’d be thanking me for what I plan to do. They claim when you get there, angels will be waiting, and eternal bliss will be the reward for your cowering servitude.”
I tried the dashes to promote continuity. Anybody?
Normally a dash shows the speech was interrupted. An ellipsis in the middle of one character's speech would show a pause.
How about having your character pause by doing something, such as taking a drink, checking his/her watch, reflecting on a post in EE's blog, etc.?
Unchosen Captions:
Dammit, I hate it when the family come around unannounced. --anon.
Your opening's fine, the middle's so-so but I'm afraid your ending is way too melodramatic...--WO
HAHA!! That was good! :-)
Scott,
BTW, I agree with EE in that usually a dash signifies an interruption, while an elipsis signifies hesitation or a pause.
I also like wes' suggestion. Maybe you can have him doing other things, like giving the evil eye to his weredingo or something. ;-)
Just a thought.
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