a) Lucy smelt the blooms suspiciously, as if trying to sniff out a clue. "Did Zak send them?"

b) "Did Zak send them?" Lucy smelt the blooms suspiciously, as if trying to sniff out a clue.

c) "Did Zak send them?"
Lucy smelt the blooms suspiciously, as if trying to sniff out a clue.


Am I right in thinking that a) or b) are correct, because the speech and narrative concern the same person and can therefore remain in the same paragraph?

Or in a), should the speech start a new line, even though the preceding narrative sentence concerns the person speaking?

I am never quite sure about this.

Any comments appreciated

Sammy


<Added>

Oops..'Lucy' in example c should be indented, ie new paragraph

<Added>

Dee, i think this question is a good example of what you were talking about in the FAQ Forum thread.
I hesitated about posting it, but I can't find the answer in New Hart's Rules and haven't the time to trail through old threads. :)

I would tend not to do c), because it's less obvious who's speaking. But I don't think there's a rule, it's more just. I'm sure I've done similar, particularly if what's said isn't terribly connected to the next thing.

I pointed at the table. 'Look at my gorgeous roses!' 'Did Zak send them?' Lucy turned away from the flowers and stared out of the window.

But you'd need to be sure the preceding text made it clear it was Lucy speaking.

Emma

Thanks, Emma.

I just remembered reading an interview with an agent who's bugbear was mistakes made whilst writing dialogue, and he made some comment like 'for God's sake learn how to do it, it's not that difficult.'
I agree with your comment about c), I hadn't thought about that.

Sammy

I would go for a) because giving us the action first allows us to understand the dialogue. The other way around, you hold the dialogue in your head, knowing that it won't make sense until you reach the end of the sentence. It sounds piccy, but a) definitely makes easier reading.

And yes, the speech should be part of the same paragraph.

Colin M

Thanks, Colin

For me it would be a or b, depending on what precedes and follows the line. However, I can't for the life of me think of an example to differentiate when I would use one or the other. Sometimes you just feel that one flows better than the other.

I definitely wouldn’t use c except in circumstances where the two separate lines would give more impact – at the end of a chapter, possibly, or if it was a twist ending of a short story.

Incidentally – I would use smelled.
Smelt, to me, has connotations of melting down ore. It isn’t wrong – it’s just much less commonly used as a past tense of smell than smelled.

Dee

Thanks for that, Dee.

I think you're right about 'smelt'. The conclusion from the past participle thread also seemed to be that, sometimes, something just 'feels' right.

Sammy

Yes, I agree that 'smelt' is one of the ones that does look more surprising.

Emma

I was trying to find that other thread when I posted, but couldn't. I was going to suggest "sniffed" instead, to get rid of the phrase "She smelled"

poo

One of my personal most hated things in reading is to come across a passage where you lose track of who's speaking. I found one the other day (can't remember the author) where I had to go back several times over a half-page to work out who was saying what and in the end I was certain it was wrong.

Writing dialogue would have several sections in the FAQ, to my mind. I often have to sit back and think about punctuation within a dialogue/character action combined sentence.

Jon

Whether you choose a, b or c will depend, to an extent, on what's going on in the rest of the scene. To make a dialogue come across as natural you need to avoid unintential repetition, and that includes structures as well as vocabulary. Variation is the key.

If it's clear who's speaking, then c can be a useful way of setting out the lines because you deliver a subtle sense of emphasis or even pause, a blink or a beat, when you start a new paragraph. Line breaks are important in prose as well as in poetry.

But as everyone else has said, the most important aspect is that it's clear who's speaking every time.