To Indent or Not Indent that is the Question

[Lafayette]

I have tried different sources on the internet to answer this question, but I haven't found a precise answer.

In my novel I have characters telling stories that happened in the past. These retelling take up six to ten maybe twenty pages. My question is do I indent like this:

Then the giant with great sadness poke:

A long time ago ...................................................................................................................... ............​

...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
That is so sad said the congregation................................ ...............................................................................​

Saying all of this they all went home

And if I do indent do I use quotation marks where the giant said, "A long time ago.....?

My last question is are the rules for formatting different in an e-book?

 

[HareBrain]

Things like this often don't have a precise answer, because they're too rare for guidelines to have been formulated. So do whatever you think is clearest.

I would say that having more than one level of indentation risks looking fussy, and I don't think your example needs it.

 

[Wiglaf]

Wouldn't it be a block quotation with the entire story indented one inch, no quotation marks*, double spaced?

*except for quotes within the story

Then the giant with great sadness spoke:

A long time ago,...............................................................................................................................​

............................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................

...................................

Wutsesname said, "I shall...................................................................................................................

Sumbodee replied, "Not if I can prevent you!"

They entered into battle and................................................................................................................
​

............................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................
​

"That is so sad," said the congregation...............................................................................................................

​

Saying all of this, they went home.




Though for some reason, I want to increase the left margin and change font as well

 

[Wiglaf]

Block quotes.
I found some links:
Wikipedia
the OWL
Writing Commons

 

[Ursa major]

There is no need for any indentation to do what you want to do... which doesn't mean that you can't use it. As long as the introduction to the related story makes it clear that that's what it is, and that the reader is aware when the text returns to the storyteller's present.

You can give the reader other clues (whether or not you use indentation).

For instance, the story being related is no longer part of your book's main narrative, so one might imagine that the style of its telling would be closer to that of the storyteller's dialogue, if only because he or she is speaking it. (Note that if you are writing in close third person, it may be that the narrative style already takes account of who your Point of View character is, so the difference between the straight narrative and the related story might be less than otherwise would be the case.) Or, on the same theme, the style used may depend on whether the story being told is from the storyteller's own experience or is a tale that he or she has heard, in which case, the writing may reflect how the story has been handed down... so may use an older style and/or one more suited to the story being "performed" in front of an audience. (Note: the storyteller may adopt the "performing" style for their own story; it depends on the circumstances of the telling.)

Having said all that, the key thing is that the reader knows what has happened when it has happened (unless you deliberately don't want them to know) and that the reader can be as immersed in the told story as one hopes they are in the narrative's present. This means that you don't want to continually hit them over the head with the fact that they are reading a story within a story, particularly if there are dozens of pages of it. So whatever technique you use (indentation or the changes in writing style changes I mentioned or something else completely) you should veer towards the subtle end of the scale in its use... and if it's less than subtle-to the-point-of-being-almost-invisible, use it only for the beginning and end of the told tale.

What I have in mind is how flashbacks are written. Imagine a narrative using the past tense. When one drops into a flashback, this can be signalled by briefly switching into the past perfect tense (aka the pluperfect) -- the narrative of the bulk of the flashback would be in the past tense -- ending the flashback in the past perfect tense. (A present tense narrative would top and tail the flashback using the past tense.) This way, the reader is aware that the context has changed, but is able to immerse themselves in the flashback as if it were part of the main narrative (which, in one way, it still is).

Given that your related tales will be quite a big part of your book, do you really want the reader to be continually reminded that what they're reading is second-hand, that it is, in some way distanced from them? I would have thought not.

 

[Wiglaf]

Actually, I wouldn't indent at all. I would add an additional blank line before and after, increase the margin width, and possibly change the font from Times New Roman to an old style font. I believe block quotation is the proscribed standard by the Chicago Manual of Style and MLA formats for Americans. British rules may be different. But, from my understanding, it was an actual rule. Though, I may be mistaken.

 

[HareBrain]

I believe block quotation is the proscribed standard by the Chicago Manual of Style and MLA formats for Americans. British rules may be different.

Block quotations usually refer to material from other written sources. I'm not sure a story character relating a tale would be classed the same way. It's really dialogue (or monologue) rather than a quotation.

There's nothing to say the writer can't treat it as a block quotation. But I'm pretty sure it wouldn't fall within the "rule" for doing so.

 

[Brian G Turner]

In my novel I have characters telling stories that happened in the past. These retelling take up six to ten maybe twenty pages. My question is do I indent like this:

You don't need to indent at all - I don't think I've ever seen indents ever used that way.

Neil Gaiman books tend to have a lot of secondary characters tell stories to the main character. American Gods comes immediately to mind. No indents in there.

 

[Lafayette]

Thank you all for your suggestions and comments.

Right now, I'm not real sure which way to go. Presently, I favor indenting, but I do not want to get fussy. I have a feeling if I get too fussy I'll confuse the reader and I don't want to do that. As I'm writing I'm thinking of changing the font if e-book formatting will allow that.

It looks like more research is in store.

Again thanks.

 

[pambaddeley]

Unless you are intending to embed a particular font in your ebook, it's not a good idea to distinguish by a font - readers can change the font and font size to suit themselves so you can't enforce this except by - at least as far as I understand it - embedding the font in the book and then having a definition in the ebook's CSS (stylesheet) file that uses that particular font for those sections.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

You could try just having a scene break, and the whole story-being-told takes place in its own scene. And you could either wrap the whole thing in quotes (as speech should be, of course) or possibly italicise the whole thing to differentiate from the rest of the chapter. Indenting feels like a step too far, and could cause problems with formatting later (just a guess, that last one).

 

[pambaddeley]

Can confirm that any indenting in an eBook must be incorporated through styles that have the indenting in them. Indents done by tabs cause major issues in formatting.

 

[tinkerdan]

If you are self publishing then it might come down to how much trouble you want. I had something like that once and gave up when I either got it ignored or everything after the block also was indented: when trying to do the ebook.

For traditional publishing: they will make that decision for you.