unreported speech

Guys,

I've written a story where the reader only gets to see one half of a telephone conversation. How do I best represent the gaps for the unreported speech of the other person?

I can imagine three possible ways:

(1) No gaps, e.g. "Hi Bob! How are you? Fine, thanks.". This way the reader has to guess where the gap is.

(2) Filled with periods or some such, e.g. "Hi Bob! How are you? ... Fine, thanks.". That's a bit more obvious, but I could end up filling the page with periods and that could grate.

(3) Have a new line in the gaps, e.g.
"Hi Bob! How are you?"
"Fine, thanks."
All very well, but that might have people thinking that each new line is another person speaking.

Can people suggest the least annoying way I can do this?

Thanks,

Erik

Look at my story "Romanian Holiday" where the story is told as a one sided conversation in a bar.

Well I'd go with (2). I think the ellipsis is the only way to convey the gap satisfactorily. In fact, I once went one better and used a double elllipsis:

"Yes, this is Amy speaking ... .... Yes, we are ... ... No, a very good journey, now we're looking forward to meeting you ... ... No, not at all ... ... No we fully understand you have to be careful ... ... Absolutely! ... ... No, that's exactly the sort of experience we're looking for ... .... You do?"

It only works if the conversation comes in short bursts, though. For longer exchanges you've got a major problem on your hands!

I like to do that through the eyes and ears of another character. (EX: Imagine a girl sitting in the principal's office. He has called her mother and she is listening to the one-sided conversation where her fate is being decided.)

That third party is free to quote certain sections of the conversation, gloss over or summarize others, and add his or her own thoughts. It gives the writer much more freedom.

My stories with phone conversations don't have the person on the other end. Some use italics to show who's on the other side of the conversation. Mine are:

"Oh, hi Mary? Yes, I did. Well, since you said you didn't mind, I thought I would get it over with. What's that? No, she was very cooperative and very polite. She did cry for a while during and afterwards while standing in the corner, but then, so did Benny. No, separate rooms. I don't like to do things that way. Punishment is one thing, but humiliating a child is another. I believe they both learned their lesson."

In this way readers can still see what's going on. Plus, I try not to keep the conversation going on and on.

I agree with bendover. The one time I told an entire story in that fashion I didn't put anything in to represent the "gap." I DID use the speaking character's words to indicate that she was responding to questions and remarks by the person at the other end. I don't think there was any lack of clarity. Since the entire story was told via a number of phone conversations, I DID have breaks to indicate the end of conversations (as well as having the one character say goodbye).

Here's part of one conversation:


Oh, right – the bad news: I broke up with Josh. Why? Well, Ms. Thorne told me to stay away from him. No, I don't do everything she says! But he's from sales, you know – and you can't always trust them. Oh, don't give me that. You've broken up with a bunch of guys yourself, and for stupider reasons than that. Anyway he'd been saying stuff about her, although it's all just rumors. Well, a lot of it anyway. So we're history.

What? Of course you and me are still friends. Silly! We don't have to agree on everything.

Oh, one more thing. Wish me luck – tomorrow's my quarterly performance review.


I think the reader gets a pretty good sense of what's being said at the other end of the line. Nor do I think it's annoying.

I've done a few of those in stories, only small parts, but its not annoying, by manipulating that one side of the conversation you can convey exactly what is being said on the other line and it can be an effective technique as well as making sense for the one reading it, as unless you're going to use a 3rd person omniscient style only one side should be able to be heard.

Ahhhh, I've always used the second approach myself, IMHO it works best because when the other person is speaking is clearly indicated by the dots ("...").

While I generally employ three dots, a longer period of speech by the 'unheard' party can be indicated by four or more of them.

AFAIC it's both challenging and fun, attempting to imply what the 'unheard' individual is saying via the other one's conversation with him/her... --C.K.

I agree that the best way to handle this situation is to indicate that the speaker is responding to questions or comments from the unheard party. In cases where this isn't possible, I like the play script format of inserting (pause) to show that the other person is speaking.

This kind of story would make for an interesting challenge contest I think.