: How should tv broadcast dialogue be formatted in a story? Supposing a character or characters are watching a show on TV (news maybe) how should that be formatted in the text? I've found some

@Merenda569

Posted in: #Dialogue #Fiction #Quotes

Supposing a character or characters are watching a show on TV (news maybe) how should that be formatted in the text?

I've found some explanations on how to format TV broadcasts in a screenplay (in this website) but not how to do it for prose in a book.

Some explanations I've found around say to use block quotes for news paper articles. That seems like a start but there are some other things I'm not sure on. Like how are dialogue tags used for people speaking on TV? Or should a TV broadcast be treated differently than newspaper quotes?

I've done some searching but there isn't a whole lot of advice. A lot of people are saying formatting is often up to the publisher.

A similar question is How to format news, poems, text messages, and other kinds of written text? but how to format TV dialogue wasn't answered there.

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@Candy753

@Candy753

I see it as if you were reporting the dialogue between a couple of people sitting a table over from you in a public place.

If you want the words, write it as dialogue. Quote it normally and attribute it however works.


Angela turned on the TV and flipped channels to the news.

"An explosion rocked Central City today," said a red-haired
anchorwoman. "No reports of causalities yet but a ping pong factory was completely
destroyed."


The narrator can also comment on it.


She glanced up at the screen. The weather guy was gone
and now the red-haired anchor was back, droning on about the
government shutdown.


If it's a very long quote though, then setting it aside like you would a song might make sense.

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