The Written vs. Spoken Prose Conundrum
Thoughts about how to reconcile written literary prose with its spoken form.
In fiction, we have a bit of a problem when it comes to spoken versus read prose.
For example, I would argue that the following prose:
This is completely crazy, Jim thought.
When read to oneself, it is redundant. Why? The full italicized sentence already signals to readers that it is directly thought. (Or in the case of some books, like Assassin’s Apprentice or Eragon or many others, it signals direct thought between two or more characters.) Regardless. It’s a clear hint to the reader that Jim is thinking. Therefore, given the context is clear, something like this:
This is completely crazy.
Is typically sufficient, and I would argue, perhaps the most efficient form of such prose.
But read that second snippet aloud. Now we have a problem. Without the prose announcing itself as to who is thinking, we’re in a bit of trouble.
You could improve that second version for audio with something like the following:
Jim shook his head. This is completely crazy.
But that only replaces our first problem with a second one: now, as a listener, you don’t know if Jim is thinking that something is crazy or he is speaking those words.
I’ll grant you that you could argue every line of dialogue in a book must be labeled with, at the very least, a ‘said’ tag. But this, unfortunately, is also not always the case! Nor does it need to be!
Think of fast-paced dialogue in a scene where it’s clear there are only two characters (a little off the cuff here from some Orn world dialogue):
Ferrin looked at Len. “Source peg?” he asked.
“Got it.”
“Target pegs?”
“Yep.”
“Good. Then let’s go.”
In this case, when reading this prose, everything is just fine: it’s clearly quick, mechanical dialogue between Ferrin and Len. But hearing this as spoken? It begins to get murky. Perhaps four dialogue beats are enough to stay within the realm of comprehension. But if this were to carry on and on, a listener would begin to forget who was saying what. Perhaps even a reader too! (And granted again, you could even argue that this sort of dialogue could be compressed into a summarized dialogue.)
But still. I’d argue it’s a very tough problem to perfectly cover both the written and spoken versions of any fiction text. And to be honest, I’m not sure what the perfect solution is, or even if there is one.
My software brain also yells at me that perhaps there are two subtly different versions of a manuscript: one for being read, and one for being spoken. But maybe my level of craft just isn’t revealing to me what otherwise seems ‘obvious’ to others.
(By the way, I will be doing a post eventually on direct thought, free indirect discourse, and free direct thought—you may have noticed I continually mention them only in italic fashion—but I need some time myself to think about how to make such a post useful.)