writing dialog

[robintes]

this is an old horse chestnut but we are dealing with the ebook revolution here, with a totally new type of media with some possible unique features not possible with the printed word.

For example we all know the problem - and tedium of laying out dialog properly punctuated. when you have more than two interlocutors then formal punctuation is almost essential or the reader will rapidly get lost especially if it spans several pages.

SOOOOOOOOOO

I though why not give each character its own font sufficiently different to know whos speaking.

Is that a silly idea, has someone already done this

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by robintes

I though why not give each character its own font sufficiently different to know whos speaking.

I (personally) would not like it. But I can't speak for everyone.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by robintes

I though why not give each character its own font sufficiently different to know whos speaking.

Is that a silly idea, has someone already done this

Yes. Absolutely years ago. Probably since printing had more than one font. It IS a silly idea. Periodically people revive it. It's very hard to read.
Well written dialogue can be followed with a minimum of speech tags and action tags/beats.
See "Witches Abroad."

Also the ‽ refuses to quite die too. The interrobang isn't needed either.
“Do you really understand what I mean?” exclaimed Jean.

[robintes]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Yes. Absolutely years ago. Probably since printing had more than one font. It IS a silly idea. Periodically people revive it. It's very hard to read.
Well written dialogue can be followed with a minimum of speech tags and action tags/beats.
See "Witches Abroad."

Also the ‽ refuses to quite die too. The interrobang isn't needed either.
“Do you really understand what I mean?” exclaimed Jean.

thank you for your for your frank and worldly wise response, much appreciated - Robin said laconically

One of the paradoxes (dreaded word fraught with logical argument) is as follows

Take your sentence above

Do you really understand what I mean

Imagine you take each word and separately put a vocal stress on it and observe how it alters the meaning of the sentence
Sometimes this can be trivially subtle and other times can completely alter the meaning of a plain spoken sentence - I hope this makes sense.

Question How to write this dramatic dialogue so the reader will understand

No doubt playwrights have solved this long ago - but that's way out of my bailiwick

Would this work

Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean


I heard otherwise that the reason that legal english is so hard for the layman to understand is that no punctuation is used in their interminable sentences because it is deemed that a comma may alter meaning leading to courtroom battles. Victorian literature often featured this - rather pompous - style IMHO

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by robintes

this is an old horse chestnut but we are dealing with the ebook revolution here, with a totally new type of media with some possible unique features not possible with the printed word.

For example we all know the problem - and tedium of laying out dialog properly punctuated. when you have more than two interlocutors then formal punctuation is almost essential or the reader will rapidly get lost especially if it spans several pages.

SOOOOOOOOOO

I though why not give each character its own font sufficiently different to know whos speaking.

Is that a silly idea, has someone already done this

The ability to use different fonts is not in any way part of an "ebook revolution," but has long been possible in print. What you call the "tedium of laying out dialog properly punctuated" is one of the bare minimums an author owes to a reader: clarity. Moreover, your idea of different fonts for different speakers isn't addressing punctuation at all; presumably you want to avoid using tags to indicate who's speaking. In addition to the visual cacophony, changing fonts wouldn't aid the reader in knowing that--we already have an handy-dandy tool called paragraphs to indicate shifts from one speaker to another. Tags are still needed in any lengthy dialog.

Originally Posted by robintes

thank you for your for your frank and worldly wise response, much appreciated - Robin said laconically

One of the paradoxes (dreaded word fraught with logical argument) is as follows

Take your sentence above

Do you really understand what I mean

Imagine you take each word and separately put a vocal stress on it and observe how it alters the meaning of the sentence
Sometimes this can be trivially subtle and other times can completely alter the meaning of a plain spoken sentence - I hope this makes sense.

Question How to write this dramatic dialogue so the reader will understand

No doubt playwrights have solved this long ago - but that's way out of my bailiwick

Would this work

Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean
Do you really understand what I mean

Now you've shifted gears entirely; what does this have to do with changing fonts for different speakers? An author can certainly use italics to stress a key word or phrase. This is not a new thing.

[skb]

I can't help feeling that in a scene at a pub with lots of people talking, the page would look like a ransom note.

I also think that even when the case wasn't extreme, all fonts aren't created equal, as far as readability goes. Finding a bunch of fonts that were easily readable but sufficiently different from each other would be tricky.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by skb

I can't help feeling that in a scene at a pub with lots of people talking, the page would look like a ransom note.

I also think that even when the case wasn't extreme, all fonts aren't created equal, as far as readability goes. Finding a bunch of fonts that were easily readable but sufficiently different from each other would be tricky.

I would add that of late, I've seen some closed-captioning on streaming video that uses a different color for each speaker, although not, thank the Gods, different typefaces. I would say that in that specific environment, alone, the different colors make sense, only because it's hard enough to read as fast as people speak, in excited utterances, and for those, it's helpful.

@robintes: HOWEVER, as a voracious lifetime reader and speaking as a professional in the book production biz, both print and ebooks, please, Mother of God, don't use different typefaces for different speakers.

How in the name of Odin will using, say, Minion instead of Helvetica address the myriad instances of emphasis, as shown in the prior post? Using Face A, instead of Face B, won't solve the "which word" emphasis issue. That, in fact, is for the writer's skill to address, not typography tricks.

As an ebook formatter, I can say with surety that trying to use different typefaces to indicate different speakers, will be disastrous. Not for the reasons you think; (although I love Catlady's imagery of visual cacophony), but because the reader can, 9x out of 10, override your choices and read the entire kit and caboodle in a single font.

Hell, the reader doesn't even have to do that deliberately; on the Kindle Paperwhite family of devices (PPW, Voyage, Oasis, etc.), when the reader does not actively choose to use "Publisher Font," the fonts are simply overridden. All of them. Accent fonts, fleurons, chapter head fonts, all. Every single stinkin' face, obliterated. (Not meaning face alterations, like italic, bold; just the main typeface choices by the book designer.)

Thus, if, as a writer, you were to rely upon this typography to convey meaning, to your reader, to tell them who was speaking--what would be the result of this visual deafness, all of a sudden? (h/t to Catlady).

I assume you see my point.

Hitch

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I would add that of late, I've seen some closed-captioning on streaming video that uses a different color for each speaker, although not, thank the Gods, different typefaces.

Dern, you snagged my idea. I was going to facetiously point out that now with color eink we could use different colors for different characters.

[gmw]

I can't add much to the entertainment already offered except - perhaps - consideration of another practicality: some books have a LOT of characters. If every character had their own font then trying to find enough fonts that are distinguishable to the casual reader would be ... effectively impossible. So you might decide that only half-a-dozen are going to interact at the time, so you only need 6 fonts that will be switched around as needed, but then you're going to need tags or other tricks to inform the reader who has which font this time around.

Anyway, I really hate ebooks that embed fonts and try to force them upon me, it steals away one of the reasons I like ebooks: getting to choose a font that's easy on my aging eyes.

No, if we want a solution to remove textual tags, we should instead layout dialogue as if it is coming through as text messages, switching alignments and putting little faces/avatars next to each line of speech. We could have smiling, frowning, laughing, shouting versions of each face/avatar to impart this context without text tags. Then we start can start using emoticons, and animated GIFs to really enhance the experience.

...

...

I'm joking, I'm joking ... although I imagine someone will try such a thing soon, if they haven't already.

[robintes]

I followed upon snips of Witches (not my genre) but was immediately struck by the similarity of his definition style to that of HG2G Hitchhikers,,,, and its SF theme as shown by Vonnegut 5 years earlier than discworld

eg
3. “This planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

vs

The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

[robintes]

Catlady
Q
Now you've shifted gears entirely; what does this have to do with changing fonts for different speakers? An author can certainly use italics to stress a key word or phrase. This is not a new thing.
UQ

apologies for jumping OT CL

OBTW can anyone offer up some text clip for a 3 part dialog to use as a test bench here

I certainly agree that whatever is published must enhance the reading experience and any bad form that interrupts the Reader's immersion is to be wholly deprecated

So much of my early reading was spoilt by publishers using 9pt pica in nasty paperbacks, after a page or two i got eyestrain.

So my Kobo Forma is like a Rolls Royce Limo - I can float along for hours and forget about Covid and what a horrid world lurks outdoors

[robintes]

GMW
Q
We could have smiling, frowning, laughing, shouting versions of each face/avatar to impart this context without text tags. Then we start can start using emoticons, and animated GIFs to really enhance the experience.
UQ

Now there's a thought

[robintes]

To quote Quoth an excerpt from his pub Under the stone of destiny
moz-extension://132665c5-0ed7-461c-8c6c-82967b752a5c/reader.html?filename=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.corvidspres s.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsamples%2FUnder_the_Stone_of_D estiny_(sample)_-_Ray_McCarthy.epub

Q
“Ain’t got none,” responded Kevin. “Me and my brother is starving.”
“You should be in the Dalrinath City Institute for the Poor.” Barry was curious because the dirty clothes with the odd rent were expensive. The taller lad that had spoken looked just like… Someone he’d seen? The memory seemed evasive, elusive, he was sure a face in the newspaper.
“It’s full,” said Kevin, “anyways, it’s like slavery, we’d never leave. I don’t want to end buried in their cabbage patch.”
“I think you are being unfair, I’ve visited it and it’s not like that. Perhaps though you are bit old for it. You seemed younger at first. Where’s your parents anyway?”
“Me mum was a doxie and two days ago someone strangled her.”
“I’m Barry McKay,” he said, “just call me Barry. What are your names?” He thought this was very unlikely or it would have been mentioned last night in the Livery Stable. Murder was rare and prime material for gossip. There was something else, he thought. His thoughts seemed fuzzy.
“I’m Kevin and this here, my younger brother is Meg… Meggels.”
“Either your mother was very inadequate or you’ve been on the street a lot longer than two days. Meggels doesn’t much look like you either?”
“Maybe we has different dads.”
“Meggels?” What kind of a name was that? he thought after inadvertently repeating it.
“He don’t really talk, Mister Barry,” explained Kevin. “You know, upset about it all.”
UQ

Do you feel this is a suitable template for dialog - on an Ereader?

OBTW this is not intended as any form of criticism of the authors work, it was simple an excerpt by chance from one of the poster's Publications

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by robintes

I followed upon snips of Witches (not my genre) but was immediately struck by the similarity of his definition style to that of HG2G Hitchhikers,,,, and its SF theme as shown by Vonnegut 5 years earlier than discworld

Nothing to do with dialogue. Yes, very occasionally Adams and Pratchett make similar jokes. However that's irrelevant.

I've read EVERY Adams and Pratchett Book. I probably still have nearly all of them. Overall they are not similar. Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five is nothing like Adams or Pratchett.

Try your ideas on a 20,000 word novella and see how anyone likes them. As Hitch explains, paper will work better than ebooks.

We've come along way since the Romans went backwards and had less punctuation than Greeks. English has become more stable since the 18th Century.

I recommend you read "The English Language" by Robert Burchfield, who worked on the supplement to the OED. It will give context.

Hitch recommended "Self Editing for Fiction Writers" by Brown and King. It's very good.

It's true that most books on writing are poor on dialogue as they are aimed at formal writing and journalism. You'll get a little help from R.L. Trask's Guide to Punctuation (was on his website and is sold as Penguin Guide to Punctuation). About one third of "Eats Shoots and Leaves" is on the apostrophe.

Not much help on Dialogue:
Strunk & White: Elements of Style
Harold Evans: Essential English
Ernest Gowers: The Complete Plain Words
and almost any book on English Grammar
Academics in the past seem to have ignore novel writing, fiction. Most authors learn by reading lots and writing lots.

If you want to be experimental and appeal to Literary types rather than ordinary readers then read all of James Joyce's work. There isn't much actually, because part of his experimental nature was taking a day to do a paragraph, or a 20 year break.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake
Get the book on paper. Don't try to read an ebook version.
"Finnegans Wake is a difficult text, and Joyce did not aim it at the general reader"

A Professor of Literature I know admitted he couldn't finish Joyce's Ulysses.

I mentioned the Interrobang because the font idea you mention is old and so is the Interrobang. Typographic innovation doesn't work well. We have added bold, italics, oblique, underline, strike-through, underline and SMALL CAPS. All have to be used very sparingly in fiction and indeed most writing.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by robintes

Do you feel this is a suitable template for dialog - on an Ereader?

And you have completely destroyed the layout! The fresh paragraph (either by top margin or a first line indent, but not both and not nothing) is the established method in English of indicating a new speaker.