Regarding dialogue...

[Alistair Crook]

Iirc, in one Jasper Fforde book, undenoted text in long, shifting conversations was used as a plot point for rooting out people who existed only within the fourth wall, sorta. I believe it's something rotten, could be wrong.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

It's a turn off for me, if I can't understand what characters are talking it makes me focus less on the story.

Trying to read Requiem For A Dream was a chore because of that.

 

[SckizoBoy]

...Just a suggestion from a person on an online video game forum, though, so feel free to use or discard my advice as you see fit. ^.^

No, no, that's plenty helpful... particularly to someone who has no literary education whatsoever! >_<

It was an idea at first and I started rolling with it. However, thinking further on it, it may be better for it to be an overtly Socratic dialogue instead... (will have to see how well it reads back...)

 

[Queen Michael]

For context, the dialogue would be a largely philosophical discourse.
Have you read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, OP? It has a very similar idea to what you're thinking of: "philosophical discourse where the participants are essentially the same person, with that similarity being used to highlight a deeper meaning." But the reason this isn't an exercise in frustration is because the work is a play - a post-modernist play, but a play nonetheless - and it specifies who is talking with every line.

I read it a year ago, and I really liked it. However, I didn't feel that they're basically the same person -- Rozencrantz was sillier than Guildenstern. (Or maybe it was the other way around. It was a year ago.)

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

No, no, that's plenty helpful... particularly to someone who has no literary education whatsoever! >_<

It was an idea at first and I started rolling with it. However, thinking further on it, it may be better for it to be an overtly Socratic dialogue instead... (will have to see how well it reads back...)

Ooh, that sounds interesting. Best of luck! It sounds like a rather intriguing concept you've got going.

I read it a year ago, and I really liked it. However, I didn't feel that they're basically the same person -- Rozencrantz was sillier than Guildenstern. (Or maybe it was the other way around. It was a year ago.)

Well, they both are and they aren't, in my opinion. I read the play as a metatheatrical commentary... and one thing that got brought up a lot was how Shakespeare wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as essentially the same person (see all the parts where they get each others' names/their own names confused). At times, they seemed like the same person. But at other times, yes, they're different. (Rosencrantz is the sillier one, you're right! ^.^ That's especially pronounced in the film version, if you've seen it.) But that's just my opinion. I wrote an embarrassingly long essay on that play and its metatheatrical commentary, so that's probably tainting my opinion.

...I can't believe I just wrote that sort of thing on a forum. This is why I love the Escapist.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Ooh, that sounds interesting. Best of luck! It sounds like a rather intriguing concept you've got going.

Thanks... though at the moment, I'm getting a little too stuck into several scenes with dramatic oratory... shoulda been a speechwriter for the 18th century! -_-

 

[smearyllama]

Stuff like that was why I couldn't read No Country For Old Men. Cormack McCarthy's writing style was really difficult to read, since he didn't differentiate between characters well, and didn't use quotation marks.
I'm not really a fan of it.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Well, yeah, the topic of discussion is relevant to the story (see subject above), as it details first the ideal of what war should be like, with differing opinions, but then the two characters converging in line of thought as the scale moves down as they discuss the struggles (i.e. the practical reality of conflict) of fighting and then the individual's own challenges.

So you're trying to make the subtle point that no matter your views on war, or which side you're on, it always comes down to the same senseless bloodshed?

Hmm, to be honest that's hardly an earth-shattering revelation, and like LiberalSquirrel said, there's probably better ways of getting that point across.
Generally, your writing should be perfectly clear at all times, except when absolutely necessary to convey certain circumstance (e.g. the narrator being unreliable for whatever reason).

Anyway, good luck.