Please stop doing this one weird trick!

[conuly]

Yes, it's true that each time you switch speakers you start a new paragraph, but that does not mean that you stay in the old paragraph right up until the moment somebody else speaks.

As soon as the action switches from Alice to Bob, that's when you start the paragraph.



1. Alice shook her head. "I don't think that works, Bob." Bob turned around in confusion.

"Why not? It makes perfect sense to me!" Alice sighed as she struggled to explain.

"It just... doesn't!"

2. Alice shook her head. "I don't think that works, Bob."

Bob turned around in confusion. "Why not? It makes perfect sense to me!"

Alice sighed as she struggled to explain. "It just... doesn't!"

You see? One of these definitely flows better.

On an unrelated note, if somebody says they welcome otherwise unsolicited editorial corrections of spelling, grammar, general word choice, exactly how much should one take them at their word, and how many suggestions are too many?

Comments

[alexseanchai]

in these examples it's not even a flow issue, like, it would be a flow issue if the dialogue had dialogue tags, but since none of it does, we're looking to the sentences with actions to tell us who's speaking, and if the same person's action and dialogue are in different paragraphs, we're getting confused about who's speaking