Now I'm not sure whether this is something that's an accepted teaching with regards to structuring paragraphs, or just something that is commonly used...
I'm talking about paragraphs that are structured as follows:
"Quote," attribution, "continuance"
You see this throughout literature.
My question is, can I break this norm?
"Quote," attribution, "continuance," further explanation, "completion of quote."
Here's an example:
“Dawn once told me about a problem she once had with her step-mother." Wendy cast a furtive glance at Dawn, to check that she allowed Wendy to continue, "The one where she found her step-mother..." she reduced her volume considerably, "with someone who was not her father."
I've emboldened the narrative away from the quotation to illustrate what I mean.
Is this acceptable?
Granted, this is a fairly trivial example, but the the principle of what I'm asking remains.