: Re: A good approach to show dialogues over radio communication? The novel's in first person. I'm working on a scene where there are five people dispersed on different floors of a building, all talking

@Shakeerah107

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One thing to note is that people don't (or shouldn't) talk this way on the radio. Each person should have a name, number, or other identifier. You start each message (or at least the first few in each exchange) with the name of the person you're addressing, followed by your own. For instance, when I'm on first aid duty (my tag: Stadium 111), I hear:

Control: Stadium 111, Control. (I.e. Hey, Stadium 111, this is Control.)
Me: Go ahead, Control.
Control: Stadium 111, there's a patient with difficulty breathing in section 111 A [properly "alpha"], go check it out.
Me: I'm going now.
...
Me: Control, Stadium 111. [no answer] Control, Stadium 111, do you copy?
Control: Stadium 111, I copy.
Someone else: Control, Stadium 15, I have a patient unconscious in 15B, requesting paramedics.
Control: Stadium 15, medics are en route.
15: Thank you, Control.
Me: Control, 111. I'm taking the patient to First Aid East. Can I have an incident number?
Control: 111, your incident number is 13.

And so on. How strictly people keep to these rules depends on (a) how formal the situation is (militaries are fussier than first aid services) and (b) how much cross-chatter there is. (When 15 breaks in, Control and I both start addressing our messages more carefully, so things don't get messed up.) This should be a quick way to indicate radio chatter. Since the tags are there, you can break it up into separate lines of dialogue or keep it together, as you choose. (I'd recommend keeping it all together if the main character isn't following it closely.)

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