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Topic : Normal structure for Dialogue paragraphs Now I'm not sure whether this is something that's an accepted teaching with regards to structuring paragraphs, or just something that is commonly used... - selfpublishingguru.com

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Now I'm not sure whether this is something that's an accepted teaching with regards to structuring paragraphs, or just something that is commonly used...

I'm talking about paragraphs that are structured as follows:

"Quote," attribution, "continuance"

You see this throughout literature.

My question is, can I break this norm?

"Quote," attribution, "continuance," further explanation, "completion of quote."

Here's an example:

“Dawn once told me about a problem she once had with her step-mother." Wendy cast a furtive glance at Dawn, to check that she allowed Wendy to continue, "The one where she found her step-mother..." she reduced her volume considerably, "with someone who was not her father."

I've emboldened the narrative away from the quotation to illustrate what I mean.

Is this acceptable?
Granted, this is a fairly trivial example, but the the principle of what I'm asking remains.

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The problem is that the prose in the middle is stage business, and there are only so many times you can interrupt with stage business. I think you have to punctuate the non-dialogue bits as sentences, not interrupters.


“Dawn once told me about a problem she once had with her step-mother." Wendy cast a furtive glance at Dawn, to check that she was allowing Wendy to continue. "The one where she found her step-mother..." She reduced her volume considerably. "...with someone who was not her father."

The continuing dialogue can have ellipses and dashes and whatnot to indicate that the speaker hasn't actually stopped speaking, but I'd be hard-pressed to think of an example where you can interrupt with prose more than once.

ETA @what actually gives a decent example, although I note in my comment that it only works if the entire piece is structured in the same loose way.

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