Indirect speech:
She said that she wanted to go to the town.
Notice that in both cases the conjunction ‘that’ has been
used. In the second example the first person ‘I’ has
been changed to the third person ‘she’. The tense has been
changed from the present to the past.
Indirect speech needs no inverted commas.
‘That’ is added between ‘said’ and the reporting of the
speech.Writing a play
When writing a play, inverted commas are not needed be-
cause only speech is used. The character’s name is put at the
side of the page and is followed by a colon. Stage directions
for the actors are usually shown in italics or brackets:
RUTH: Cathy’s accepted the invitation.
BRIAN: Oh good. I hoped she would come.
RUTH: (Glaring at him) I think she’s got a cheek. When
I think of all the trouble she caused, I can’t
believe it.
BRIAN: You invited her.
(Ruth flounces out of the room, slamming the
door.)Revising the points
◆ The start of a paragraph must always be indented.
◆ Paragraphs must deal with only one topic.
50 / PART ONE: THE BASICS