using direct speech in a composition

The sentence and the paragraph are the basic tools of composition writing. Using them in different ways, you can turn out letters, factual essays, descriptive essays, argued essays and short stories.
But there may be occasions, especially when you are writing short stories, when you want to use direct speech in compositions. The rules for writing direct speech are rather different from those ordinary sentences and paragraphs, so we shall study them and look at the advantages of using direct speech.

DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH
You are writing a DIRECT SPEECH whenever you write down the actual words that someone uses.
You are writing INDIRECT SPEECH or REPORTED SPEECH whenever you report what someone has said without using his exact words.
Examples:
Direct speech:
a. “I can see that you are misbehaving, Dana,” said the teacher. “Don’t be rude.”
b. “Take care!’ shouted the fireman to the crowd. “The building is about to collapse!”

Indirect speech:
a. The teacher said to Dana that she could see that she was misbehaving, and told her not to be rude.
b. The fireman shouted to the crowd to take care, since the building was about to collapse.

WHY USE DIRECT SPEECH?
Direct speech is seldom used in descriptive essays or in argued essays, for very good reason that there are seldom any characters to speak it. But when you are writing a story where there are several characters, writing a conversation between them in direct speech can be very useful:
1. It helps to describe the characters. Everyone speaks differently, and the way you make your characters speak will tell the reader a great deal about them.
2. It can help to provide excitement and tension in your story. Arguments, quarrels and moments of action are given added life by the use of direct speech.

RULES FOR WRITING DIRECT SPEECH
Two things are important when writing direct speech:

a. The direct speech must be separated from the rest of the writing.
b. The reader must know which character is speaking.

Follow these rules and there will be no difficulty:

1. Each separate speech must begin and end with inverted commas. Nothing must come inside the inverted commas which is not either part of the speech or the punctuation which belongs to it.
Examples:
“I think I shall go home to sleep,” he said. “I am tired.”
“I am bored by this film,” she complained. “Let’s go.”
NOT
“I think I shall go home to sleep, he said. I am tired.”
“I am bored by this film, she complained. Let’s go.”

2. All punctuation which belongs to the speech must come inside the inverted commas.
Example:
“How do you know?” he asked.
NOT
“How do you know”? he asked.

3. It must be absolutely clear who is speaking. If there are only two speakers, you do not need to put ‘said X’ or ‘said Y’ after every speech. But you must put ‘said X’ after the first speech that X makes, and ‘said Y’ after the first speech that Y makes.
Example:
“Good morning,” said the doctor.

“It’s not a good morning,” said Mrs Tai. “It’s raining.”

“How may I help you?”

“My feet are very sore again. I can hardly walk.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

4. If there are more than two speakers in the conversation, then it is even more important that the reader knows exactly who is speaking. If there are more than two speakers, you will have to use ‘said X’ and ‘said Y’ more often.
Example:
It was very dark inside the storage room, and the air smelt of rotting cloth. “I don’t like this at all,” said John.

“Neither do I,” said Fusheng.

“It was your idea,” said John. “You wanted to come here to see whether you could find any spiders.”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

“Well, whose idea was it? It wasn’t mine.”

5. In direct speech, you are allowed to use these shortened forms:

I’m You’re He’s/She’s We’re They’re I’ll You’ll
He’ll She’ll We’ll They’ll Shan’t Won’t Don’t
Doesn’t Didn’t Isn’t Wasn’t Hasn’t Hadn’t Haven’t
Mightn’t Mustn’t Wouldn’t Couldn’t Shouldn’t Oughtn’t Can’t
Aren’t I’ve You’ve We’ve They’ve I’d You’d
He’d/She’d We’d They’d


6. Some punctuation points.
A. Note the punctuation in this sentence:

“I don’t like this at all,” said John. “I think we should go.”

The speech is separated from the ‘said John’ by a COMMA. The FULL STOP for the end of the sentence comes after the said ‘said John’. The next sentence, which is the next part of his speech, begins with a capital letter.

B. Suppose the speech is a question:

“Do you like this?” asked John. “I don’t”
Here, the speech is separated from the ‘asked John’ by a question mark. Even so, the question mark still behaves like a comma, and is followed a small letter.

C. You may sometimes find a speech like this:

“I think,” said John, “that I must be very clueless.”

Here, the ‘said John’ does not end the sentence. So it is followed by a comma, NOT a full stop, and the speech continues with a small letter.


ADDING TONE AND MOODS
Humans use their voices to indicate their moods. Unfortunately, we have no way of writing down the tone of a voice. The best we can do is to choose a verb which describes the way in which the speech is spoken.
Most speeches have ‘said X’ or ‘said Y’ after them. But the verb ‘say’ tells us nothing about the tone of the speaker’s voice or its loudness. If you wish to make it clear that a speech was spoken in anger, or was loud, or very soft, then you will have to use a different verb. There are many to choose from:

1. For neutral speech (where the tone of voice does not matter).

Say, ask, enquire, reply, respond, answer.

2. For loud speech.

Shout, yell, bellow, scream, screech, howl, roar, thunder.

3. For soft speech.

Whisper, murmur, mutter, hiss.

4. For angry or commanding speech.

Order, command, complain, demand, announce, retort, interrupt, threaten.

5. For other moods.

Growl, snarl, snort, grunt, groan, wail, stammer, cry, gasp, exclaim, coo, jabber, yelp, whimper.



Reference:
How to Write Compositions Book 1
Andrew Leslie