Pacing, and Dialogue

1
Pacing, and Dialogue

• A few minor points to clear up

2
Minor Point 1

• Sometimes, you really have to hyphenate.
• I don't want to over emphasize this point.
• People classified as dwarfs typically pay 1,500
  more in medical expenses than normal height
  people.

3
Minor Point 1

• You add a hyphen because the two words are acting
  as one if they're separate, the reader has to
  pause and figure it out.
• over-emphasize acts as a verb
• over emphasize you have to think about
• normal-height acts as an adjective
• normal height people might be normal-height
  people or normal height-people

4
Minor Point 1

• This is especially important for noun phrases and
  adjectives.
• mother of pearl mother-of-pearl
• red light district red-light district

5
Dialogue Format

• A new speaker starts a new paragraph.
• Good heavens, Lowell! Why are there no cucumber
  sandwiches?
• There were no cucumbers in the market this
  morning, sir.
• No cucumbers?
• None sir, not even for ready money.

6
Dialogue Format

• If the same person continues speaking, with some
  description in between, you don't need to start a
  new paragraph.
• French songs, I cannot possibly allow, Lady
  Bracknell went on, following him into the other
  room. People either look shocked, which is
  vulgar, or laugh, which is worse.

7
Dialogue Format

• You need a comma to introduce a quote, unless
  you're working it into the sentence.
• Cecily said she didn't like novels that ended
  happily. Miss Prism replied, The good people
  ended happily and the bad, unhappily. That is
  what fiction means.

8
Dialogue Format

• Final punctuation usually goes inside the
  quotation marks for narrative, this is true
  almost all the time.
• Cecily said she didn't like novels that ended
  happily. Miss Prism replied, The good people
  ended happily and the bad, unhappily. That is
  what fiction means.

9
Pacing

• Punctuation, or the lack of it, can make a
  sentence sound slower or faster.
• I never in my entire life saw anything like
  this.
• I never, in my entire life, saw anything like
  this.
• I never, in my entire life, saw anything, like
  this.

10
Pacing

• A pause can also put emphasis on a particular
  word or phrase.
• The intersection was just like any other except
  that it wasn't.
• The intersection was just like any other, except
  that it wasn't.
• -Bassam Elshorafa

11
Pacing

• This can be particularly helpful for dramatic, or
  comedic, effect.
• They had come to the very midst of the Dead
  Marshes, and it was dark.
• You will bring us a shrubbery!!
• -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers Monty Python,
  Monty Python and the Holy Grail