In writing, the exact reproduction of someone's spoken or written words, typically shown in quotation marks.
From 'direct' (Latin directus) + 'discourse' (Latin discursus, 'running about, conversation'). The grammatical term became standard in linguistic analysis during the 19th century to distinguish quoted speech from paraphrased versions.
Direct discourse lets you hear a character's exact voice on the page—when you write 'She said, "I'm leaving,"' instead of 'She said she was leaving,' you preserve the original tone, dialect, and personality that might be lost in translation.
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