Non-verbal dialogue?

How do you handle a conversation/dialogue that includes a participant that either can't or doesn't speak?

Are the "She nodded," "She turned away, embarassed," and other non-verbal parts of the dialogue punctuated as parenthetical action within the verbal parts of the dialogue in a single paragraph?

OR

Do the non-verbal responses get treated as if they were verbal and get separated into their own paragraph?

i.e

"Do you understand," he asked. She nodded. "Fine then. Go do as you were told."

OR

"Do you understand," he asked.

She nodded.

"Fine then. Go do what you were told."


Ina similar vein, how do you mange scenes where there is a completely non-verbal commuication going on -- a series of short actions and reactions that flows like dialogue but without words. Something like he kissed her. she kissed back. Encouraged, he grabbed her butt. She responded by grabbing his butt. etc, etc, ad nauseum.

Weird Harold said:

How do you handle a conversation/dialogue that includes a participant that either can't or doesn't speak?


"Do you understand," he asked.

She nodded.

"Fine then. Go do what you were told."

Click to expand...

As a reader I would prefer this way. I would see that one of the characters was not speaking with words.

It actually depends on the tempo of the scene itself. Sometimes the gestures is the dialouge in a very profund way.

-------

"Christine?" he said. "Honey?"

No reply, just a hostile glare.

"Come on, you can't still be pissed off. It was just a kiss."

Glare turned to stare, and steaming anger.

"Just a friendly peck on the lips..."

Her voice was a whip. "The pussylips, Roger! You kissed...her cunt!"

"Well, if you put it that way..."

--------

Other times then the dialuge is faster, your first example works much better.

Yeppers

I agree with Tulip mate, the 'she nodded' is almost lost in the single line and could cause much retracing of the eyes and brain to pick up on the thread of the thing.

With the 'she nodded' on it's little tod, it's easy to pick up on, even though it will extend you story into multiples of extra pages adding para's it's worth the effort.

Your non verbal can be condensed into sentences, but again if it's an important diversion from the thread, new line.

What the official thought on this would be God knows, like Tulip I'm speaking as a reader not an English professor.

pops..........

I think that with dialogue you are supposed to break it up (in 3 lines, as in your second way).

For simple narrative text, you can write it all in a single paragraph, or break it up. It is mostly a matter of the author's style and what elements he/she is trying to bring out.

Pacing.

Emphasis.

This kind of thing.

Certainly breaking out the 'non verbal' is easier on the reader, but it also depends on the style of the story. Assuming your not going for anything out of the ordinary, I would prefer your second choice.

Will's

Take your choice.
The rule that a new speaker requires a new paragraph is
a grammatical rule etched in stone. Breaking it confuses
your readers no end. The issue you raise is not etched
in stone -- not even etched in mud. So do it either way.
I've done it both ways, depending on how things are
going. If the major communication is from the verbal one,
I tend to use a single paragraph. If not, not.

Re: Yeppers

pop_54 said:

I'm speaking as a reader not an English professor.

Click to expand...

What!?! Do I still get credit for the extra "effort"? And who the hell's classroom were we using?

Perdita

(Sorry, Harold, but I'm stunned at this news.)

Re: Re: Yeppers

perdita said:

What!?! Do I still get credit for the extra "effort"? And who the hell's classroom were we using?

Perdita

(Sorry, Harold, but I'm stunned at this news.)

Click to expand...

OOPS!!!!!!! Umm sorry my dear, well you see, ummm!!!

pops

PS: Love the festive over shoulder boulder holders.

This is the answer:

Uther_Pendragon said:

Take your choice.
The rule that a new speaker requires a new paragraph is
a grammatical rule etched in stone. Breaking it confuses
your readers no end. The issue you raise is not etched
in stone -- not even etched in mud. So do it either way.
I've done it both ways, depending on how things are
going. If the major communication is from the verbal one,
I tend to use a single paragraph. If not, not.

Click to expand...

There are so many rules in the English language that when you find yourself in a position to just write, then just write. You know you are going to come back to edit the piece, so don't worry about it until you do start editing. Now when you are editing as we all do, I'm sure, you have to remember that rules are meant to be broken if you can break them in such a way as to make the story feel right only by doing it that way. And this, only after years of doing it the right way in the first place.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

For your earlier question, I agree with hiddenself. It's all about emphasis. But you cannot go on like this indefinitely. Decide what you want to emphasise. All emphasis is no emphasis.

Weird Harold said:

Ina similar vein, how do you mange scenes where there is a completely non-verbal commuication going on -- a series of short actions and reactions that flows like dialogue but without words. Something like he kissed her. she kissed back. Encouraged, he grabbed her butt. She responded by grabbing his butt. etc, etc, ad nauseum.

Click to expand...

In this context though, it might get a little too choppy if you go -

He kissed her.

She kissed back.

Encouraged, he grabbed her butt.

She responded by grabbing...

Here, I hope, you do have much more than just relating the actions though. That would make it less choppy - if you could spend more time with each character. Either describing more of what he/she did or by getting into emotions, feelings.

I'm a big believer in having lots of white space in a story. My rule of thumb is: when in doubt as to whether to start a new paragraph, start a new paragraph. Interrupting a paragraph of monologue so you can include her tacit responses is going to wreck havoc on the flow. Give her her own paragraph to nod or shrug.

On the other hand, in the "He kissed her. She kissed him back" example, I would keep those in the same paragraph. They're both sharing a kiss.

On the other hand, when you have a tacit participant in a dialogue you don't want to have to keep on showing every nod, shrug, and shake of the head. You've got to modify your dialogue to avoid this. Example:

"Are you coming with me?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Then let's get going."

Can be done as "Are you coming with me?" he asked. "Good. Then let's get going."

---dr.M.

DP said:
In this context though, it might get a little too choppy if you go -

He kissed her.

She kissed back.

Encouraged, he grabbed her butt.

She responded by grabbing...

Here, I hope, you do have much more than just relating the actions though. That would make it less choppy - if you could spend more time with each character. Either describing more of what he/she did or by getting into emotions, feelings.

Click to expand...

Actually the comment was raised by a long story that I'm reading and not a story I'm working on. There is more detail and description in the action/response scenes, but it's choppy reading whether it's split into paragraphs or lumped into one gigantic paragraph (as the author tends to do.)

dr_mabeuse said:

I'm a big believer in having lots of white space in a story. My rule of thumb is: when in doubt as to whether to start a new paragraph, start a new paragraph. Interrupting a paragraph of monologue so you can include her tacit responses is going to wreck havoc on the flow. Give her her own paragraph to nod or shrug.

Click to expand...

Paragraphing and white space is really the main point of this question, but it's specifically directed at non-verbal interactions because that's an area where I find a lot of disagreement between the way I think it should be done and the way many inexperienced authors do it.

In my own writing, I tend to think of everything, narrative and dialogue, as following the "One speaker, one paragraph" rule; expanding the definition of "speaker" to "character."

On the other hand, in the "He kissed her. She kissed him back" example, I would keep those in the same paragraph. They're both sharing a kiss.

Click to expand...

For a single kiss, I tend to agree. The problem arises when two or more are sharing a long scene where they're "sharing" more than single kiss. It seems that many authors carry it to the extreme of putting an entire scene into one paragraph.

On the other hand, when you have a tacit participant in a dialogue you don't want to have to keep on showing every nod, shrug, and shake of the head. You've got to modify your dialogue to avoid this.

Click to expand...

This is a very good point.

I think it applies to the second question as well as the first -- Extended action/response scenes should be modified to eliminate the choppy feel of switching back and forth between the character's actions.