Novel Editing, Plotting Help, Writers Resources
Brenda Hill
Grammar Hints
Dialogue, Internal Dialogue, and Narration:
To make a story interesting, you have Dialogue, Narration, Internal Dialogue, and Direct Internal Dialogue.
Dialogue is one character talking to another. A character can also talk to a pet, an inanimate object, or anything, and if it is aloud, it is considered dialogue and should be enclosed in quotation marks.
“Are you going to the company dance?” Marisa asked.
Internal Dialogue is what a character is thinking and you do not use quotation marks. Dialogue: “I’m not sure,” Karen replied. Internal Dialogue: She wanted to go more than anything, and had been dreaming of the day when she could get all dressed up and feel beautiful. But her car’s engine started making strange noises and the repair bill wiped out her savings, so now she couldn’t afford to buy a dress.
Narration: That evening she tried on the blue cocktail dress she borrowed from her sister. Internal Dialogue: It was a little loose in the bust line, but maybe, if she kept her arms down, no one would notice.
Direct Internal Dialogue: But why go if I can’t dance? she thought.
Now we have something a little different. Instead of she/he did this or that, we now have the character thinking a direct active thought. It reads like dialogue, but instead, the character is thinking.
Direct Internal Dialogue has gone through phases. At one time it was enclosed in quotation marks, then they disappeared. Next came italics, which are still used today. However, more and more publishers are dropping the use of italics because the new generation is saying, like dialect, it’s too hard to read. But it’s still your choice, or your publisher’s choice. I, personally, have completely dropped them.
If the terms are confusing, just remember that to write a saleable novel, you do not have to remember what the different terms are called as long as you recognize them and know how to use them. For those who disagree, I cannot remember how to properly diagram a sentence, but I recognize a complete sentence when I see it.
SOME TROUBLEMAKERS
What is the correct word?
a) If you could invite anyone, WHO would you invite?
or
b) If you could invite anyone, WHOM would you invite?
ANSWER:
It's whom. Think of who/whom as the same as he/him. Then try turning the sentence around into a declarative:
I would invite __________.
a. he - who
b. him - whom
Since the answer here would be "him," you'd use "whom."
Another troublemaker is LIE or LAY.
a) No matter how many times I chase my dog, Sparky, off the furniture, he loves to LAY on the sofa.
or
b) No matter how many times I chase my dog, Sparky, off the furniture, he loves to LIE on the sofa.
ANSWER:
It's lie. When your character, human or pet, reclines, it lies. Shanna was lying on the sleigh bed.
To place something, i.e., silverware on the table, you lay it. The hen laid the golden egg, because she placed it somewhere.
lay laid laying: I'll lay the silverware on the table. I laid the silverware. I am laying the silverware.
lie lain lying: I want to lie down. She has lain there since early this morning. She is lying on the new sleigh bed.
Capitalization, from:
http://www.dailygrammar.com/archive.shtml
"Get in here, Miss Saunders." Capitalized because it's the title of a specific woman whose last name is Saunders.
"Get in here, Missy." Capitalized because it identifies a specific person whose nickname is Missy and whose last name is Saunders.
"Get in here, missy." Not capitalized because it is a generic nickname (like buddy) for an unidentified person whose name or nickname is not known to the person who is speaking.
"Get in here, missy." Not capitalized because it is a generic nickname (like buddy) for a person whose name, although it is known to the person who is speaking, is not used because the person speaking chooses to call Miss Saunders "missy" instead of calling her by her first name, AND "Missy" is not her nickname.
