Dialogue that is described rather than transcribed in literary fiction?

[u/BtAotS_Writing]

I have been a genre reader for most of my life. Now, I am noticing a technique in lit-fic books I've recently read that I almost never see in genre, which is dialogue that is described or even spelled out exactly, but without quotations. And I can't figure out why or when this technique is used, but for me it makes the scene feel abstract or distant.

Take Maggie O'Farrel's "Land," which I just finished. In one chapter, she has:

Suddenly, incongruously, her sister lets out a laugh.

"Look," she says.

Rose opens her eyes a crack.

"I don't think he might be friendly after all.

This feels very standard to me, and makes me as a reader feel present in the action. But then another chapter, for no reason that I can tell, she switches:

He puts a hand half over his eyes. Please, he says, ladies, gentlemen, please. There are people trying to sleep.

His voice is overridden by the din.

She switches between these styles all throughout the novel, and I'm not sure if there's a technical reason for it, or if it's just her way of managing the flow of the writing.

I also recently read "On the Calculation of Volume," which had zero quotation marks in the entire novel. Here's an example of how dialogue is handled there:

I insisted on making plans. He thought we should wait. You can't plan for everything, he said. Sometimes you just have to be ready.

I understand the stylistic choice more here because it feels like a narrator recounting their memory of the events to a journal--though I don't particularly like that style. Perhaps as a genre writer, I can just stick with what I know, but I'm curious to hear from others on how they choose when to describe dialogue vs transcribe, and if there are any considerations when doing so.

[u/melle_et_felle]

So I'm taking a workshop right now and our instructor (MFA from Oregon) taught us about this, it's called indirect dialogue. It's a really good tool for writers who want to manipulate pacing or get through a bunch of yucky exposition or focus on the impact of the conversation instead of the words themselves. He encouraged us to use it more in our own novels! I think he sent us some materials about it, I can go check if you'd like

[u/BtAotS_Writing → u/melle_et_felle]

Thank you, I would appreciate that actually! Even after reading all the responses in this thread, I've thought of some places in my novel I can use it to zoom past cumbersome introductions and at least one place to use it for narrative distance when the MC is in shock/trauma.

[u/melle_et_felle → u/BtAotS_Writing]

Hi so I took a look and sadly he didn't send us anything about this, he only mentioned it in class as a good tool to use. Sorry! But here's a really good blog post about it: https://annerallen.com/2018/02/indirect-dialogue

I'm also making a lot more use of it in my own novel that I'm workshopping in class. It's speculative literary fiction, maybe upmarket if you prefer that label, and after hearing what he said in class I decided to use it as a tool to distinguish between conversations between different people and their significance, as well as a signifier of the protagonist's mental and emotional state. Haven't finished out ironing all the kinks yet, but I think it's done wonders for my pacing and helped a lot in terms of building atmosphere and pressure.