----- Original Message -----
[What should I do] about splitting [dialogue] paragraphs that are [all] by the same character? I usually do it for emphasis or to show that there's a brief pause between them. Like when a character suddenly changes his/her topic.
-- My Characters Won't Shut Up! --
Paragraphing IS supposed to be divided by character; actions + dialogue. However, sooner or later one will run across: Run-On Dialogue.
Run-On Dialogue is when one character talks, and talks, and talks...for whole paragraphs at a time.
Oddly enough, this problem isn't all that common, but it can happen to new writers who still haven't quite figured out how to break up their dialogue with actions and descriptions.
Far more common is the creation of whole paragraphs of Internal Dialogue and Introspection, especially when one writes in First Person POV, or Third Person Close POV. This is known as Narration Run Amok.
When only one character is acting and talking, or acting and thinking, this can make for walls of text the size of a skyscraper.
Wall of Talking?
Well hopefully you're breaking all that talking up with body language, actions, and descriptions.
Seriously, that's what you do first:
Break up your lines of Dialogue with:
- Actions
- Description
- Body Language
Next!
Sub-Divide those lines of dialogue into paragraphs by:
- Change in Action
- Change in Location
- Change in Thought or Ideas
Example: Change in Thought
or Idea
Did you know that you're supposed to write someone arguing with themselves as two different people complete with paragraph breaks, even though they're the same person?
I sure didn't.
Then my editor sent me that particular manuscript page covered in red ink.
Example: All three in 3rd Person Close POV:
Excerpt from Death & The Maiden
Standing with her back against her room's closed door, Michiru clutched her bathrobe to her throat and gasped for breath. She'd known that Koyomi and Aso were...dating, but she hadn't quite realized they'd gone that far.
She winced. Idiot...! Of course they've gone that far. The Yomi half of Koyomi's personality was openly lecherous, at least around Michiru, and Aso was a known womanizer. She'd had more than one run-in with his openly adoring and half-naked harem.
Michiru sighed heavily then turned to her right to set her bath things on her battered dresser next to her aged brass bed. It was beginning to look like she was the only virgin in the dorm. In fact, according to the gossip her classmates shared, she was very likely the only virgin in the whole senior class.
She was seriously beginning to feel rather...left out.
Michiru scowled and jerked opened the middle drawer of her dresser to yank out a pink flannel nightgown. Stupid virginity! She flung the night gown on the neatly made bed and slammed the drawer closed. It wasn't that she was saving herself for marriage or anything. She doubted she'd live that long. She just wanted to give her virginity to someone she liked - that liked her back.
However, the way things were going, she sincerely doubted she'd live long enough to go on a proper date, never mind get the chance to lose her virginity. Damn it!
Michiru stomped across the room to pull the heavy curtains closed. It was too damned cold at night to leave them open. The cracked windows did little to keep heat in the room. She then moved to the fireplace opposite her bed and knelt to light the paper covered fire log in her fireplace, then added a few actual wood logs. The aged fireplace was the room's only source of heat and the paper coated fire log only lasted a few hours.
Once the log was well and truly lit, she slipped out of her bathrobe and pulled her night gown over her head, tugging it down over her nudity. Stupid zombies! Why were they all in her town anyway? If it hadn't been for them, she'd have been able to live a normal life and gotten herself a normal boyfriend.
Michiru flopped back on her bed to stare at the cracked, water-stained ceiling. So what should I do? She didn't want to die a virgin! That would be completely pathetic.
Note how the character's Actions and Mood Swings (the back and forth in Thought,) allowed for paragraph breaks.
Hopefully that helped.
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