: 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

As a transcriber for various media outlets; in radio (every media conglomerate has their own style-sheet - use theirs - ans always default to AP; but for startups and those lacking SOPs for trascripted audio....

Most new/talk/shock-jock (shockshockshockshock.....) and laaaaaame political talk shows script like this....

[im the call screener and dont have to write this out, if the host even needs it...back in the day (early 2000s...we'd just let Adobe CoolEdit run...if anything interesting happened; we taped it; transcribed it; and put it on the wire...I dont wish to put my fmr media company on blast but if I uploaded multimedia, audio or text to "Chicago" any station affiliate could use it ....

[call screener me - note how many f#c7s I give] KABC...what do you want?

[caller] HI! I wanted to talk to Paul about all these meddling college kids messing up our town and lowering property values...I pay taxes and I'm goddamn sick of [click!]

[cs] line 2 you wanna talk to Paul?

[caller] yes ...my cat Mr. Snoogums ran up the old pine tree on Los Osos again; I tried 911, then the dispatch....no one will take my call??? Also I wanted to weigh in my [racism] against Obama....]

[cs]click!

[cs]line 3 you wanna talk to Paul about TODAY'S TOPIC? Should the city council be allowed to shut down the biggest Mardi Gras west of the real one?

[caller]Hello? Hi? Can-an anyone hear-er-e-r me-e-e-e?

[cs]turn your phone down sir...

[caller] is that better-er-er-er? can you-ou-u hear-ear-r me-e-e...????

[cs] click!

[cs]line 4 - anything useful to add line 4?

[caller] My name is General Johnson Boddington.
I was a light colonel over a hot LZ in the 'nam....let me tell you
....you young piece of s--- .... am I on with Paul????

[cs]no - this is the screener; and you never will be if you pop off like that again. Now explain to me what you'd like to say to our host ... use polite company speech please man!!!

[caller] apologies young man...were I to spout off like that....my CO would "make me kiss the gunner's daughter"...and there's no buts about that...

[host] Chris; do we have any legit callers or are you just pullin it back there?

[cs-me] well - it's a bit of both ....

[cs -typed only to host] vamp for a min. I gotta vet line 4. [no reply host gets it]

[cs to caller] ok, I need you to spell, pronounce, append or include any special titles; ill repeat it back.

[caller] you can call me General Boddington

[cs] and what branch of the armed the armed services did you serve?

[caller] The United States Army Air Corps ... and let me tell you this ...

[cutting him off - cs] Division? Battalion? MOS? (verify caller isn't completely full of shit)

[caller] The 336th; 2nd Battalion; I was a bombardier.

[cs] decorations?

[caller] what is this 20 questions? ok...I've got a bronze star and a unit
citation for victory in Panama. My MOS is ELINT (that checks) I wanna talk about this weird light we saw over Vandenberg AFB last night ..

[cs to host] Paul we've got General Boddington; he wants to weigh in on the blue bluish-green sphere we saw shoot across Vandenberg last night.

[Paul-host] line 4 your on the air......

[Paul-host] line 4 your on the air...... [severely annoyed]

[Paul-host] God-[cs dumps out]

[cs] Paul I had to to dump the GD you know what ...

[Caller] Well-elll-ell-el-ll-l I-i-i-i wanted-ed-ed-d to-to-o-o-o

[cs] Caller I'll ask you once more...turn the radio down....

[Caller] My bad...Linda can you turn the...yeah-- the...no ...right there...turn the...good Christ...LINDA!!! crashing noise female scream.....

[host] is everything ok?

[woman grabs phone] yes...we fine...ya see...the General gets very angry when I fail to carry out simple instructions.....

[host] That sounded bad though; is anyone hurt?

[female] no....we-we fine....the General just needs to take his medicine...there there...lie down...youse a good boy...

[caller] baby want medicine in bottle....

[female] little formula for baby??

[caller] yes use the sippy cup....

[female] get ready here comes the milk.....

[cs] click! sorry bout that Paul

****hysterical laughter from cs, boardop & host...cs lays down a bed of "Feels so Good" by Chuck Mangione to drown out uncontrollable laughter.

[CPU] clicks over to local news/traffic, ads, weather, public service announcements, network news....

[cs & host] tag show with apologies; jokes; teasers for tomorrow...bed is "Africa" by Toto; overlaid with credits, outtro, station ID, then Rush Limbaugh.

Credit to Phil Hendrie and talk show callers from Tampa to San Luis Obispo

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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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Think about using fonts more. Go wild and play with various fonts. Add a quick "font key" in the front of your book for the different fonts you use and their use in your book—font x for radio dialog, font y for drunken dialog, etc... It always surprises me that writers don't do more with fonts, using them as visual cues or a way to manipulate the mood.

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Your dialog itself is fine as-is, though I would suggest not using dashes and quotation marks to separate the infra-paragraph speakers. Unquoted italics may be appropriate, or just list them as quotations.

The technique you're using is treating the distant speakers as a kind of greek chorus, albeit one made up of named characters and not an undesignated mob. It works very well in the flow of the text provided, and is significantly superior to listing each voice on its own paragraph, as common typology demands.

Alternately, you could not list the dialog of those not present, although doing so would require a significant re-working of the text.

On a different note, it's slightly jarring to switch from "a sudden voice" to "my follower". FWIW.

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The first thing I would do is adopt a typography style to indicate radio communication that can be heard in the focus scene originating from somewhere else, and you should have been using it long enough for your reader to recognize what it means when this scene rolls around.

The second thing I would do is recognize the inherent social awkwardness in this scene and highlight it to distract from the awkwardness of the storytelling in this scene.

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