Painting the Medium

[Shreddies]

It's more of a question regarding program capabilities, but I'm not sure where to post it.

Anyways, I had an idea for a pair of people that acted like 'creepy twins' to the point where they often speak at the same time or alternate which one is speaking halfway through the sentence, overlapping their dialogue when they do. But I'm not sure if this idea is easily translatable to writing.

I thought of maybe applying an extreme kerning during the voice transitions and have portions of their speech overlap. But the software I'm using (OpenOffice) wont let me pull one letter over another.

Does anyone know if there's a way to overlap text in a writing program, or have other ideas of how to display this on paper?

 

[Trick]

I've done this exact thing! How funny. I'd advise against getting too unique with the formatting, as it makes it hard to read. It's a lot like writing dialects by misspelling, a little bit is often fine but more than a line or two is just plain confusing. It's usually better to explain it via the POV your using. Here is a seat-of-my-pants example of how I did it (not saying it's the best way or anything, just what I went with):

(Obviously I set up the scene with two creepy, identical men entering the room where my MC is with his mentor, Charlie)

______________

One spoke, "Hello, Charlie,—"

"—How are you?" said the other.

Their voices were so similar, it was hard to tell when one stopped and the other began.

"Ah," One said, "Fresh—"

"—Meat" The other finished.

They stared at me like a meal they were eager to taste for the first time. I gulped, in spite of myself, under the pressure of their identical, beady-eyed gazes.

_______________

Hope that helps; I'm no expert so take this with a grain of salt, of course.

 

[Letharg]

I would agree with Trick in that a unique formatting is often quite hard to read and can deter a reader. But I'm not sure the dots are what you are looking for either. For me, three dots in a line signal a pause before the continuation, if you want them to seamlessly take up each others sentences it would not work for me with dots. Though Trick's example did an excellent job of portraying creepy men!

 

[BWFoster78]

Trick,

In your example, the ellipses make is feel like one character is trailing off. Should that be emdashes instead?

Thanks.

Brian

 

[Trick]

Trick,

In your example, the ellipses make is feel like one character is trailing off. Should that be emdashes instead?

Thanks.

Brian

I think you're right there. I can't remember the exact punctuation I used (don't have access to it while at work) but em-dashes do seem more expedient in terms of flow.

I edited the other post to see if it works better.

 

[Penpilot]

I think you're right there. I can't remember the exact punctuation I used (don't have access to it while at work) but em-dashes do seem more expedient in terms of flow.

I edited the other post to see if it works better.

BW is right. Here's a link that shows the various ways that an em-dash can be used. Em Dash

 

[TheCatholicCrow]

I think the only other way I've ever seen this done is in some printed forms of Shakespeare when the meter is completed between more than one character the dialogue of character A begins at the left side of the page (as usual) but at the part where they break and Character B completes the "line", their words begin directly below where the previous line ended.

Depending on how prominent these characters are, idk whether or not it would be a method better suited for plays.

I'd have to look up an example and I don't remember which play I saw it in (could have been R&J, Midsummer's Night, All's Well, Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth or Othello. I strongly suspect it's in one of the last two but it's possible that it was in all of them but I just didn't notice) would look something like --
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, -- this where you complete the--
,..., ...............................................................--sentence as if it is one thought.

[really difficult to imitate on a forum-BTW]

Now that I think about it, we discussed it in a HS lit class (which means it was either Othello or Macbeth) and the phrasing gets awkward and even breaks meter as the character begins to fall apart.

It'd be difficult to format but the option is there and it's one that I personally like. Hope this helps!

 

[Shreddies]

Thanks for the advice. I think I found what I was looking for, Text Boxes.