Direct Speech [DS]

Examples of Direct Speech

Understanding what direct speech looks like is easy once you have seen a few examples. Remember, there are only two things you need to do for your speech to qualify as direct speech:

• Use punctuation to separate the speech from the rest of your dialogue. This is usually in the form of inverted commas or speech marks.
• Use a reporting clause or action beat.

So, let’s look at a few examples from texts you might have already read.

"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.

This is the clearest kind of direct speech. It uses speech marks, and the reporting clause comes at the end of the quote. Plus, it uses the most common reporting clause we have: the word “said” followed by the name of the person speaking.

It is important to understand, though, that the reporting clause can come before or after the speech itself.

But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, "Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang.

As you can see, when you do that, you need to put a comma between the reporting clause and the speech.

You can also put the reporting clause in the middle of a piece of dialogue. In fact, this is very common in fiction.

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"

It doesn’t matter where the reporting clause goes – as long as there is one! Plus, you can replace “said” with pretty much anything else.

“You are sure he used a key?” he inquired at last.

“My dear sir…” began Enfield, surprised out of himself.

You can also use an action beat instead of a reporting clause. It tells you who spoke, but it does it by describing another action they do. For example:

“And do you also believe that I am so very, very wicked? Do you also join with my enemies to crush me?” Her voice was suffocated with sobs.

How is Direct Speech Different From Free Direct Speech?

Back in the 1980s, Mick Short and Geoffrey Leech proposed a difference between direct speech and free direct speech. However, Mick Short has recently suggested that free direct speech is actually a “minor variant within the DS category”.

Basically, he argued that the level of narrator interference doesn’t change that much between direct speech and free direct speech. Personally, I (along with many other academics) still see a difference between the two. The reporting clause allows the narrator

When speech is “free’, it means that there is no reporting clause. So, free direct speech is similar to direct speech – without the reporting clause.

You often use free direct speech when you already know who is talking. For example, you might start off a conversation by using direct speech and then switch to free direct speech once your reader knows who would be taking turns talking. For example:

"It's in the cupboard," Sade barked.
"I'd appreciate a little more kindness," I replied calmly.
She tutted, rolling her eyes. "You don't deserve anything," she hissed.
"I don't know why you're making this into such a big deal."

In this exchange, we use direct speech to establish that Sade and the narrator are taking turns speaking. Then, the final line is in free direct speech because we know it’s the narrator’s turn to talk. As long as the dialogue is on a new line, we know it’s the narrator now.

Writers often use this because it can become quite repetitive to hear reporting clauses over and over again. They trust their reader to understand who’s talking based on the information they already have.

Although, if I were to continue that exchange, I would probably go back to direct speech. Why? Well, Sade is probably going to blow up in anger over what the narrator just said. So, I’d want to use a reporting clause or an action beat to show how she reacts.

How is an Action Beat Different from a Reporting Clase?

Often, writers choose to replace their reporting clause with an action beat. This still counts as direct speech. The action beat is functioning in the same way that the reporting clause would.

However, that doesn’t mean that an action beat is just a surrogate for a reporting clause. It does a lot on its own.

You’ve probably heard of “show, don’t tell” before, right? If not, it’s something you definitely need to brush up on! Using action beats in the place of reporting clauses is a very useful way of achieving this goal.

Why does it work? Well, it helps you to replace the adverbs that lots of people use to describe the way a character has said a piece of information. I’m thinking about things like “He said angrily”.

The “angrily” here is a tell rather than a show. Why? Because anger can be different for every person. Personally, I rant when I get angry. However, I know people who get so quiet they’re barely doing more than whispering. The kind of anger a character shows is a great way to look into their character.

Plus, “angrily” is the conclusion that the narrator came to about their words after seeing all the cues that they gave off. Why not just give your reader the cues and let them come to the conclusion themselves? Trust your reader

They should be able to hear how the words are said and see the body language of the character. Something as simple as saying a character “balled their fists” is going to communicate anger in a way that actually sticks in your reader’s heads.

So, action beats can be a great way to avoid telling because you can focus on the subtle things like body language instead.

Direct Speech and Narrator Interference

Mick Short and Geoffrey Leech mention the idea of narrator interference very briefly in Style in Fiction. In fact, Short mentions it in passing in almost every single text I’ve read of his that talks about speech presentation! However, he doesn’t say a great deal about it. It is fleshed out a little more in the Lancaster University linguistics site.

I think it’s a fascinating idea that we should explore more. It will help you understand how to use your new knowledge about direct speech when you’re writing your own dialogue or analysing other people’s texts.

Narrator interference is about how much control the narrator has over how they present the words of the person they’re quoting. The more interference there is, the more the narrator gets to have a say in how we interpret and react to the words.

On the scale of different kinds of speech presentation, direct speech doesn’t have a lot of narrator interference at all. In fact, there is only one type of speech presentation that has less interference: free direct speech. Of course, if someone lies about what was said, they have all the interference in the world. However, we’re talking about fiction and real quotes right now.

However, that isn’t to say there isn’t any narrator interference at all!

The reporting clause allows the narrator to influence what we think about the quoted person’s mood and intentions when they’re saying the words. In a written text, they can also control graphological things like the use of punctuation and text features like bold and italics. In a spoken text, the narrator gets to use their own tone and body language to influence how we interpret the words.

How Can You Use This in an Essay?

If you want to write about speech presentation in an essay, it’s useful to consider why a writer has chosen one kind speech presentation over the other.

However, it isn’t always going to be relevant to analyse the fact that the writer is using direct speech. After all, it is the most common type of speech presentation out there.

You should focus on when writers break rules, conventions and expectations, not when they follow them. That’s when they want to foreground their language. They want it to stand out and be noticed. Breaking conventions is a conscious thing you choose to do. So, when you break them, you must be doing it on purpose.

There are a few different cases where it might be useful to analyse direct speech in an exam:

• A writer has chosen to use a different type of speech presentation for the majority of their work, and then they switch to direct speech. This would be a form of internal deviation.
• We already know who is talking and the writer has been using free direct speech because of this. If they switch back to direct speech, it probably means the reporting clause is important.
• You would expect another kind of speech to be in its place because of the genre or mode of the text.
• You already know that the person they are quoting didn’t say what the narrator is claiming they said. If this is the case, it’s likely that they want to receive their interlocutors.

It is important to focus on when writers break rules rather than when they stick to them. They want their foregrounded language to stand out. So, think about why that might be the case.