Emma, I knew why the two dashes were there - I just thought it looked awkward to place them where they were placed. I particularly disliked having a dash immediately after the quote marks opened.

I love Harry's version. However, if you're worried about the attribution then could you have Fergus doing something at the start? Like

Fergus rubbed his nose. 'If you get the process right in sculpture – this your jacket, Una? – I think you always reach the goal. Even if it’s not the goal you set out for.'

Deb

You could put "Fergus said" first. Not so usually done, I know, but can work depending on how the dialogue goes before and after.

Maybe it's a bit of a horses for courses situation, Deb. Two dashes after attribution doesn't look odd to me. But then I am very used to theatre stuff where you often have "blah blah blah - " so maybe I am automatically reading that as an interruption where others wouldn't. Can only really report how it comes across as an individual reader, I suppose.

Snowy, that's interesting. Though my drama days are a while ago, I too basically think of dialogue scenes as playwriting. There's usually very little in among the speeches telling how they're said. Unless I explicitly want my narrator to show what he/she's thinking about, a propos the other speakers, when I'm writing at my best, I manage to show everything about how they say things in the punctuation and rhythm. (Which is why you'll very, very rarely catch me using any attribution except 'said', or tagging an adverb onto it. 'He joked' and 'She said enquiringly' give me an unpleasant little jolt when I read them. It's are like seeing the shadow of the sound-boom in a movie shot, or an out-of-tune instrument.)

Emma

Unlike you two I think of the two crafts as very different. In theatre you are basically instructing the actors, who interpret; the audience see only the result. In a novel you are interacting directly with the end-user, the reader. So I think the writer has quite a different goal when writing dialogue for these two different applications.

Emma, what about (as I suggested two msgs back) having Fergus perform an action at the start of the speech to show it's his?

Deb

Deb, it's always an option, and generally I'm a great believer in using an action as an attribution, but the problem here is that the narrator, Una, wouldn't notice it, for various reasons to do with her state of mind and her character: she's in an emotional state, and she's an academic who automatically concentrates fully on the discussion at hand: [I've changed to Snowy's version, pro tem]

When I suggest that though I need to go to Sheriff Hutton there’s no need for Morgan to come if she doesn’t fancy it – we can pick her up on the way back – Mark raises no objection. Nor does he suggest that he, too, stays behind. ‘So is that the last stop on your pilgrimage?’ asks Fergus. ‘Yes. Unless you count the journey home. Not that London is my home these days.’ ‘I’ve always wondered about that,’ he says, to my surprise. ‘Must have been such an anti-climax.’ ‘Depends whether you think the goal was the most important thing, though,’ says Morgan. ‘Or if the process – the journey – matters as much.’ ‘If you get the process right in sculpture,’ says Fergus, ‘ – this your jacket, Una? – I think you always reach the goal. Even if it’s not the goal you set out for.’ Morgan nods. ‘Sometimes I think the more surprised I am, the better it turns out to be when I stand back. But only sometimes.’ Fergus says, ‘One of the things I always think when I’m reading books about artists is how unlikely it all sounds. I mean, compared to when you’re there in the studio with the plaster bandage all hot and wet in your hands and a maquette that won’t stand up and five minutes to get it right before it all goes wrong and dries that way forever. I’m not sure art historians understand the doing of it. Even if they read letters and things. When you’re doing it you don’t think, I want this to be a new stage in my developing sense of spatial form. You think, how can I get the bloody thing to stand up, or would it work better lying down anyway?’

Emma

That seems to work well in context.

Deb