Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Q. What should I do when a speaking character changes subject without interruption?

ACCOUNTANT

. . . So you can't claim the donation as a write off. Now about distributing the W-2's . . .

I use a double dash.

ACCOUNTANT

. . . So you can't claim the donation as a write off. --Say, are you going to Pride this year?

I also like to use the double dash to indicate an interruption:

ACCOUNTANT

Say, are you going to Pride this--

MAX

-- No! I just like show tunes, okay?

ACCOUNTANT

Be that way.

Labels: format

8:58 PM

5 Comments:

Yeah, I use a double dash bumped right up against the word when someone is being interrupted.

Then there is the double dash with a space before and after a word, which indicate pause, or a degree of fluidity in speech. (e.g. the quick back and forth banter on Gilmore Girls.)

And then there is "...", which is similar to dashes with a space, but also different. It's more of a pause, without indicating fluidity. It indicates fluidity within a single character's lines of dialogue instead of linking that of two characters.

It's kind of hard to explain, now that I think about it, and is more or less something I intuited simply by reading a bunch of scripts.

Or maybe I could be entirely wrong. Am I, Alex?

By  Anonymous, at 12:34 AM  

There's no right or wrong punctuation, there's only what seems to work.

But that's more or less what I do.

By  Alex Epstein, at 8:37 AM  

I like using (then). Is this wrong?

By  Unknown, at 4:53 PM  

Read the State Of Play script. It's dash-lerious! I like to use the double dash but sometimes I get all dashed out. Plus too many dashes can distract. Contact me if you want State of Play. Anyone.

By  Carson Reeves, at 10:41 PM  

I ran into this problem 5 minutes ago, came to this site and now have an answer. thank you.

By  Joe, at 12:28 AM  

Post a Comment

Back to Complications Ensue main blog page.