If you use a table, you should add a blank cell between speaker and speach, so you get some space between the cells. Like
<tr>
<td>First child:</td>
<td> </td>
<td>"I am Jack."</td>
</tr>
In another thread it was recommended to make each row a single table to avoid a possible break of the table at a page-break.
I think, you don't need table-width="100%", because the text takes the space it needs and widens the table if necessary instead of a line-break.
In css you could get a table-like layout with:
<head>
<style type="text/css">
p.speaker {
text-align: left;
margin-bottom: -1.25em;
font-size: 1em;
font-style: italic;
text-indent: 0em;
}
p.speach {
margin-top: -1.25em;
margin-bottom: -1em;
margin-left: 8em;
font-size: 1em;
text-indent: 0em;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p class="speaker">First child:</p>
<p class="speach">"I am Jack."</p>
<p class="speaker">Second child:</p>
<p class="speach">"And I am Jill."</p>
</body>
I think, it looks fine, though it might be a little tricky with the margins.
George