# Implied dialogue



## Gamer_2k4 (Mar 3, 2016)

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:



			
				Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis said:
			
		

> "No, sir," said the woman. "Not nearer than Sterk. I dare say as they might fix you up at
> Nadderby."
> She spoke in a humbly fretful voice as if her mind were intent on something else. *Ransom
> explained that he had already tried Nadderby.*
> ...



As you can see, Ransom first speaks in implied dialogue, but it's clear it's not a character decision, as he speaks explicitly shortly afterward.  What's the consensus for this kind of writing? Is it customary to write all dialogue in full, with this story being an exception, or is this acceptable? Either way, why?


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## Harper J. Cole (Mar 3, 2016)

Yes, I think it's necessary when one character is telling another something that the audience already knows. It can be boring for the readers if a character spends a few paragraphs describing the events that they just read about in the previous chapter.

HC


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## Flint (Mar 3, 2016)

HarperCole said:


> Yes, I think it's necessary when one character is telling another something that the audience already knows. It can be boring for the readers if a character spends a few paragraphs describing the events that they just read about in the previous chapter.
> 
> HC



Yeah, I agree.  

I've seen this happen loads of times in books. It can happen quite a lot when you have a group of people who split up and then meet up later on and catch up on what happened while they were separated. If the book has already described what happened, I doubt anyone really wants to sit and hear it all over again – unless we need a little reminder of something important, I guess.


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## ppsage (Mar 3, 2016)

I think maybe the technical terms are summarized speech and quoted speech? For me quoted speech is the easiest and most powerful source of immediacy (the feeling that it's real) available to the writer, and I think, when it's constant and unrelenting, it loses its effect, sometimes completely. Summarized speech is filtered through the narrator, and so has the ability to add that consistent attitude to the material, which, since it's summary, can often also have greater information density without becoming dumpy. In the fiction I like to read it's at least half and half and often two or three to one, summary over quoted. A balance is of course necessary, but for me when it tilts toward quoted, the narrative seems thinner and sketchy.


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## Bishop (Mar 3, 2016)

It's used to gloss over something that the reader already knows, or would take a long time to actually have in dialogue, but it's something the audience has seen. The best example in my mind is if two characters recap what happened to them when the other wasn't around. We likely already had that experience in another chapter, and don't need it spelled out step-by-step by the character.


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 3, 2016)

Yes, but in Gamer's example, it is just one line of the dialogue that is left out. That seems unusual. And the dialogue could have been shorter: *Ransom explained, "I already tried Nadderby."*


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## Aquilo (Mar 3, 2016)

There's a number of ways to get dialogue across:

 Free Indirect thought (FIT), 
Free Indirect Speech (FIS), 
Direct Speech (DS) 
Direct thought (DT) etc.

Ughh, wiki quote might help break these down, lol: 



> *Quoted* or *direct speech*:
> He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. "And just  what pleasure have I found, since I came into this world?" he asked.
> 
> *Reported* or normal *indirect speech*:
> ...


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## Jack of all trades (Mar 3, 2016)

EmmaSohan said:


> Yes, but in Gamer's example, it is just one line of the dialogue that is left out. That seems unusual. And the dialogue could have been shorter: *Ransom explained, "I already tried Nadderby."*



It could be the editor added in the line. Or that the character was prone to lengthy speeches and this was a way to avoid that. It could be that someone forgot the quotes and the typesetter made what was there make more sense to him. It is fun to speculate. We will probably never know.


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## Bishop (Mar 4, 2016)

EmmaSohan said:


> Yes, but in Gamer's example, it is just one line of the dialogue that is left out. That seems unusual. And the dialogue could have been shorter: *Ransom explained, "I already tried Nadderby."*



It might be implied that he explained the whole chain of events surrounding that.

"I saw Nadderby at the coffee shop. They mispronounced the name again, we had a good laugh... I sat down and ordered a green tea, which Nadderby thought was weird..."

We don't need that above. But if the reader saw that scene already, and we see that he "explained that he had tried Nadderby" we can infer that they gave some details about the story that might be relevant in their current conversation.


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## Sam (Mar 4, 2016)

Yes, it is perfectly acceptable. 

If you've spent five pages writing about Ransom trying to find Nadderly, without success, you don't want to have to go through that all over again ten pages down the line, even in dialogue.


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## Patrick (Mar 4, 2016)

What's more fascinating is the fact Nadderby became a person, and has now become a person called Nadderly whom they're all trying to find. I, for one, am not waiting for bleedin' Nadderly.


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## Glhadiator (Mar 4, 2016)

My two bits.

Not only does this technique avoid repetitive dialogue, it also implies to the reader that perhaps his response was long and labored. In some cases it can be used to convey a message in brevity to the reader even though it wasn't information that was previously written.

In real life we all know someone that will take an hour to explain how they are a person of 'few words'. The writer can duplicate that behavior in their writing to show the reader they are dealing with a 'wordy' person but it can have the same glassy eyed reaction that it does in real life.


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## Bishop (Mar 4, 2016)

Patrick said:


> What's more fascinating is the fact Nadderby became a person, and has now become a person called Nadderly whom they're all trying to find. I, for one, am not waiting for bleedin' Nadderly.



Hey, I never said I was paying attention, I just said I knew the answer.


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## Kyle R (Mar 4, 2016)

Gamer_2k4 said:
			
		

> What's the consensus for this kind of writing? Is it customary to write all dialogue in full, with this story being an exception, or is this acceptable? Either way, why?



Looks to me like we've entered the realm of _telling_ versus _s__howing_. 

Like others have pointed out, sometimes _showing_ can drag the pace of the story down. Telling's a good alternative, for various reasons. Either to save time, to avoid rehashing, or simply to skim over something that isn't dramatically important or engaging.

_Telling_ also works well to cover larger events of time (not just conversations). You can cover whole seasons, even, in a few short words, rather than showing everything (if you want to, that is).

For example: Summer turned to fall, and Brenton fell back in love—this time, with a girl from across the bay.

^ Or you could spend a full chapter or so showing it. Or a mixture of the two. It's really the writer's choice. :encouragement:


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## Bishop (Mar 4, 2016)

Kyle R said:


> Looks to me like we've entered the realm of _telling_ versus _s__howing_.



Brace yourselves.


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 4, 2016)

For me, when I read "John explained *that* he was blind", I assume he said something like "I'm blind." I don't see this as him explaining how he became blind, or what it feels like to be blind, or the laws about being blind.

That's why I thought the dialogue would have been shorter than the narration for the original example.


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