As I am always looking for ways to improve my writing, I've been struggling with the topic of speech in roleplays lately. I've been thinking about how I do it, and while I don't think it's bad, I think it could be better. 

How I do it generally comes down to writing a paragraph, and adding the speech where necessary. It works, and it's not [i]bad[/i] when it comes to readability, but it seems convoluted to me and it's easy to mistake one character for another. [b]I don't want to color code them.[/b] I primarily care about the 1x1's I do, and I only color-code my speech when everyone else does. Otherwise, I just use italics. 

[quote]EX: ... John had been walking around the town for a while now, looking for the specific shop she had told him to meet her at. After what seemed to be countless minutes of walking around, a hand waving in front of his face caused him to snap back to reality. [i]“John? John! How are you?”[/i] a feminine voice said to him. 

[i]“Uh.. I'm good, how about you?”[/i] John replied, looking at the woman. Her pale face ...[/quote]

So the rule of 'only 1 character speaks per paragraph' is something I've already gotten down. Not that I go out of my way to enforce it but it usually just happens because it writes easier for me.

What I've also thought of was using indents. 

[quote]EX: ... John had been walking around the town for a while now, looking for the specific shop she had told him to meet her at. After what seemed to be countless minutes of walking around, a hand waving in front of his face caused him to snap back to reality, followed by a feminine voice.

[indent][i]“John? John! How are you?”[/i][/indent]

He turned towards the woman and smiled (insert more description, fluff and shit).

[indent][i]“Uh.. I'm good, how about you?”[/i][/indent][/quote]

But this just makes it feel like I'm purposefully lengthening my post by making it look longer than it actually is. This is the same reason why I don't split my speech into different lines. It feels fake, like I'm making something longer than it is. The above method also has the effect that I can't really create a flow in my writing - as weird as it sounds, this style of writing speech just kills the flow in a post for me. Even though it's easier to follow and read.

I haven't given other styles of writing speech any thought yet, but I am wondering how you do it, what you prefer, what you think and any other insights you have. Feel free to illustrate.