By: Lindsay Biondy
There’s a lot of nuances about dialogue that make it really difficult to master: where to put the quotation marks, when to indent and when to not, how to indicate who’s talking, etc. Hopefully these tips will help you out.
Quotation Marks
Use quotation marks around the entire dialogue to indicate what the character is saying. Make sure all punctuation is inside the quotation marks.
“I want to buy a puppy.”
Dialogue Tags
To indicate who’s speaking, replace the period with a comma and put a dialogue tag outside of the quotation marks. Unless the dialogue tag begins with a proper noun, it’s not capitalized.
“I want to buy a puppy,” she said.
A dialogue tag can come in the beginning, middle, or end of the sentence.
Dialogue Tags at the End of a Sentence
Keep the comma within the quotation marks and end the dialogue tag with a period, as you would any sentence.
“I want to buy a puppy,” Sally said.
Or
“I want to buy a puppy,” said Sally.
Dialogue Tags at the Beginning of a Sentence
Attach the comma to the end of the dialogue tag and put the ending punctuation within the quotation marks.
Sally said, “I want to buy a puppy.”
Dialogue Tags in the Middle of a Sentence
Use this technique to add suspense or importance to certain parts of the sentence. By putting a dialogue tag in the middle, you break up the dialogue into two phrases. In the first, put the comma inside the quotation marks, then use one again after the dialogue tag outside the quotation marks to reintroduce the dialogue. The ending punctuation mark, again, stays within the quotation marks.
“What I want,” she started, “is for you to talk to me.”
Be careful when employing this, however, because you can’t place a dialogue tag anywhere in the middle of a sentence. Only place it where a natural pause could occur in a person’s regular speech. This, for example, doesn’t flow well:
“What I want is,” she started, “for you to talk to me.”
Dialogue Tags in Between Two Sentences by the Same Speaker
The only difference between this and injecting a dialogue tag in the middle of a single sentence is that you A) use a period at the end of the dialogue tag and B) capitalize the first word of the second sentence.
“I don’t know,” he said. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
Questions
When someone is asking a question, keep the question mark inside the quotations, but end the dialogue tag with a period.
“Do you me to go to the store?” Josh asked.
Or
“Do you want me to go to the store?” asked Josh.
Asking about Other People’s Quotes
If you’re asking a question about what someone else said, put the question mark outside of the quotations, because you yourself are asking a question, not quoting one. In this case, don’t put any punctuation within the quotations.
Did she say, “I want to go to the store”?
If you’re asking a question about someone else’s question, put the question mark inside the quotations. This will mark that both you and the speaker are asking a question. Do not use two question marks.
Did she ask, “How do I get to the store?”
Dialogue within Dialogue
Sometimes you’ll need to write dialogue for a character who is quoting another character. In that case, use double quotation marks as usual, then single quotation marks within. Put a comma after the statement that’s in single quotations.
Luke asked his teacher, “Was it Martin Luther King who said ‘I have a dream,’ or was is Martin Luther King Jr.?”
Paragraphs
In general, always start a new paragraph when a new speaker begins to talk. This makes it more pleasing to the eye and easier for the reader to know which character is talking, even if you use dialogue tags.
“Where do you want to eat?” I asked.
“I don’t know, wherever you want,” she said.
“Cheesecake Factory?”
“Okay.”
However, if the same character talks twice in a row, don’t start a new paragraph.
“Even though we fight a lot, I still love you,” I told her. I waited for her to answer, but she was silent. “Don’t you still love me?”
“I don’t know.”
If the same character is saying a monologue, and their speech goes on for more than one paragraph, start each new paragraph with an open quotation mark, but only use a closed quotation mark when the speaker is completely done talking, not at the end of every paragraph.
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Hello Lindsay.
WOW! I wish I had your posting as a reference piece for the past 25 years or so of being a writer. It is clear, concise, confident, well-organized…very easy to follow and understand. You present excellent examples that clarify each direction. I have two pieces of feedback for your post, so please allow me to share.
1.) I tripped over your first few mentions of dialog tags because I wasn’t sure what they are. In your [awesome] examples, I can infer the definition of a dialog tag, but it took me reading and re-reading a few examples in order to feel confident that I understood what they were. In order to offer your reader a sense of security, it might be a good idea to define which portion of the sentence is the actual dialog tag portion. It’s not 100% necessary because it can be inferred. But for me, that inference took some elbow grease and I felt like I might not be smart enough to “get it” / might be missing your point.
2.) Do these dialog tips apply across the board to ALL cases of writing? For instance, are there differences in the rules for presenting quotes in articles published in scientific journals? Are there differences in marketing reports passed around boardrooms? It might be helpful to explain where/to what kind of writing these tips apply.
BRAVO on creating a detailed, easy-to-read, informative reference post!
Thank you so much for your feedback! I’ll definitely take it into consideration and apply it to the post.
I was wondering if you could give me some tips on how to clean up my dialogue in my piece “The Most Unlikely of Places Part 6”. The court room scene. I don’t want to give each individual “speech” a tag because I feel like it would be redundant but some of the readers have expressed that it is very hard to tell who exactly is speaking. Any advice would be much appreciated! Thanks.
Hey fearfulwriter, I can definitely help! I’m going to take some time and really go through it, but I just want you to know that I see your comment and I’d love to help!