Speech Marks

[Paul Whybrow]

I’ve just finished reading Kingdomtide written by Rye Curtis, which I greatly enjoyed and that will surely be turned into a film soon.

The author doesn’t use speech marks, which occasionally meant me having to re-read sections, but mostly things flowed smoothly.

Here's an example:

Your dad mentioned you want to volunteer for the Forest Service, said Lewis. Goddamn Friends of the Forest program.
The girl said nothing.
You're welcome to if that's what you want.
He told me you would be a good influence.
I don't figure he's right about that. I don't know what I'm doin most of the time.
I don't need a good influence, the girl said. I'll be eighteen in November. I plan to leave.

We’ve discussed this subject before:

https://colony.litopia.com/threads/quotation-marks—why-bother.2045/#post-33522

https://colony.litopia.com/threads/quotes-within-dialogue.1935/#post-31876

Using speech marks means it’s likely that one will make a mistake, as I’ve noticed while narrating my Cornish Detective novels turning them into audiobooks; I tend to commit an error when adding a speech mark to the end of a paragraph where the character hasn’t finished talking yet.

Quoting – the multi-paragraph rule - Baxter Communications

Also, a page looks a lot cleaner without speech marks—less cluttered and not so intimidating. I may experiment with leaving them out.

What do you think?

 

[Steve C]

It would be great if we could leave out commas as well! I can't, get the, hang ,of putting, them in, the right, place.,,,

 

[KateESal]

Leaving out speech marks, or adopting other methods (using dashes, for example) tends to have a Brechtian effect on me...makes me constantly aware I'm reading a story rather than being fully immersed in events. The effect wears off eventually, but it can present an extra challenge when it comes to engagement, simply because it's not what I'm used to. I suspect many other readers feel the same way.

That said, it's subjective and of course some people are much more comfortable with changes to widely accepted forms of punctuation than others.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I think it's unhelpful and perhaps a tad pretentious. I had to read that twice to be sure who was talking when. Can he not cope with speech marks or something?

 

[RK Wallis]

I'm not keen. How do I know the difference between speech and thought? Speech marks are invisible to me like said, but they still guide me.

 

[Hannah F]

Speech marks are there to denote speech. Leaving them out - I've seen this before - is both irritating and often confusing. I don't see the point. When I know someone is about to speak, i.e. open speech marks, I start to think in their voice. It brings the characters alive in my head.

 

[Jonny]

I can take them or leave them. One of my favourite authors (Roddy Doyle) never uses them. He uses a dash. His dialogue is so authentic that it never confuses me.

The first full length novel I wrote I did the same (although not sure why) but in subsequent drafts I replaced the dashes with quotation marks.

 

[CageSage]

One of my short stories is done without speech marks. I wanted to get a dream-like tone, and after trying several different styles, found the lack of speech marks made it feel more ethereal. But it's a short piece with only two characters (three, if you count the monster).

 

[gbhunt]

If you avoid speech marks, do you use more speech and thought tags? That might also be intrusive.

 

[CageSage]

This example is the first few lines of the story I did without speech marks.

Fires passed through the other day, the white-bearded old man said. He stood next to the ancient River Red Gum and gazed across the lake. They’ll be back tomorrow.

Milli shuffled her feet.

I have to find her before the wind turns it back this way. She’s alone and I’m the only one who knows what she needs, where she hides.

The Muldewangk are not your friend, the old man said, his face stern.

Oh, I know. The fishies say she’s so ugly they’d rather run into the fire-front than face her. They’re idiots. Muldewangk are shy, they’re quiet. Live in a sucking mud-hole. Milli smiled. And slimy and venomous and they make horrible noises worse than fart-games with the boys. She crossed her arms over her chest and blew her contempt for such tales through pursed lips.

They are all that and more. The old man brushed away the ash that littered the air and settled on his skin. Don’t you think you should be afraid of a creature so large, so dangerous, so ugly? If men fear her, why don’t you?

Men fear them because Muldewangk live in mud, Milli said. It doesn’t mean they’re bad. Not all the way bad. Just ugly, is all.

What do they do with the mud? Do you know, little girl? Do they capture their prey with it? Does this monster like the taste of little girls who go out in the night air? He wasn’t smiling.

It should be clear from the para breaks and action beats who is speaking, but I'm happy to hear if that isn't the case. It's also hard to read those things in what we've written, so ...
It's much clearer to me now that the second and third para should be joined, but as it was published this way, this is how it remains.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

One of my short stories is done without speech marks. I wanted to get a dream-like tone, and after trying several different styles, found the lack of speech marks made it feel more ethereal. But it's a short piece with only two characters (three, if you count the monster).

That can work

 

[Hannah F]

This example is the first few lines of the story I did without speech marks.



It should be clear from the para breaks and action beats who is speaking, but I'm happy to hear if that isn't the case. It's also hard to read those things in what we've written, so ...
It's much clearer to me now that the second and third para should be joined, but as it was published this way, this is how it remains.

It certainly works, but I do have to concentrate really hard.

 

[David Y]

Sally Rooney, author of Normal People has an interesting take on this. When asked why she omitted them in her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, she said (and I quote, ha-ha) "I mean, it’s a novel written in the first person, isn’t it all a quotation?" Which might be fair except Normal People isn't.

 

[Mythobeast]

This is of interest to me because I'm currently writing a section where nobody actually speaks or moves. They're all communicating via the equivalent of Morse code while laying in a hot tub. This has been a tremendous challenge, because I don't like using quotes if something isn't spoken aloud. I may just go with a separate font for the signaled conversation, but I can't imagine going completely without quotes.