#dialogue puntuation
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aj-eddy · 5 years ago
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Crash Course in Dialogue Punctuation
A lot of people have trouble when it comes to punctuating dialogue, and that’s okay. It’s not an uncommon problem, and it is something that can be corrected.
 There are three types of dialogue: direct dialogue, indirect dialogue, and internal dialogue.
Direct dialogue is a person or character’s speech and is written between quotation marks. For instance, “You can have one cookie,” his mother said.
Indirect dialogue is a report or recount of someone speaking and is written into the description or blocking of a scene. For instance: His mother said he could have one cookie.
Internal dialogue is the equivalent of thought. It doesn’t need to be enclosed in quotation marks, but it can be written in different ways—some authors write thoughts in normal text font, others italicise it to set it apart from the narration.
 Direct dialogue is usually written with a dialogue tag, such as ‘said’, ‘whispered’, ‘muttered’, ‘shouted’, ‘stammered’, and all the other words that are synonymous.
 The first thing about punctuating dialogue is that dialogue always begins with a capitalised word, no matter whether the dialogue is before the dialogue tag or after it. The only exception to this is when interrupted dialogue resumes. (There are examples of all of these below.)
 It’s best to write dialogue in a paragraph of its own—you should start a new paragraph every time you change subject/focus (whether it’s a description of a character or setting, a new action, thought, or shifting focus from one character to another), place/setting, time, or a person’s dialogue. This helps distinguish shifts between characters, topics, and settings.
 When writing an uninterrupted single line of dialogue without a dialogue tag, the entire sentence including the punctuation (full stop, question mark, or exclamation point) at the end fit between the quotation marks. For example,
“Please don’t go.”
“What were you thinking?”
“No!”
If the dialogue is a single line of interrupted dialogue, the punctuation at the end of the sentence is replaced with an em dash (which is written by typing two hyphens/dashes without a space between the last word and the quotation marks—most writing programs will automatically correct it to a longer dash, however not all do). For example,
“Please don’t—"
 When writing a single line of dialogue with a dialogue tag following, you finish the dialogue with a comma inside the quotation mark and a full stop after the dialogue tag. The dialogue tag should be lower case unless it’s the person’s name (keep an eye out for this because if you’re writing on an iPad, iPhone or something else, it sometimes corrects it to a capital letter when it shouldn’t be).
“Please don’t go,” he begged.
“No,” Ryan replied.
If the dialogue is a question or a line that is amplified by an exclamation mark, they replace the comma with the question mark or exclamation mark, but make sure to keep the dialogue tag in lower case unless it’s a name.
“Do you have to go?” he asked.
“Shut up!” Alex bellowed.
When writing the dialogue tag first, the comma goes at the end of the dialogue tag, the dialogue is capitalised (because it’s a sentence in and of itself), and a full stop (or question mark or exclamation mark) at the end of the dialogue, but inside the quotation mark. For example,
He said, “I love you.”
These rules not only apply to dialogue in fiction, but also to quotes in essays. The only difference being, if you’re putting in a reference, you introduce the quote, insert the quote but leave out the punctuation at the end of the sentence (unless it’s a question mark), close the quotation marks and enter the reference and then put the period or punctuation mark on the outside of the reference. This clarifies that the reference belongs to that quote.
 When writing a single line of dialogue with a dialogue tag and action, the rules are similar to those above. The only difference is the dialogue tag is followed by a comma and an action if the tense shifts (if this is a bit confusing, I did write another post on shifting tenses here - that hopefully helps), or the action and tag are combined in one sentence.
“Are you coming or not?” he asked, pulling on his jacket.
“I’ll be right back,” he called over his shoulder as he ran towards the door.
If the dialogue tag goes before the dialogue, the action goes before the dialogue tag.
He reached out and gently brushed a stand of hair back behind her ear, whispering, “You’re safe now. I promise.”
She turned and screamed, “Run!”
 When the dialogue is split into two sentences, things get a little more complicated. If a line of dialogue is interrupted by a dialogue tag and then resumes the same sentence, you put a comma at the end of the first line (inside the quotation mark) and after the dialogue tag (and action if included) before resuming the dialogue in lower case. For example,
“We went to the carnival,” Mike said, “and I got to ride the Ferris wheel.”
“I wanted so badly to make you proud,” he said, fighting back tears, “but you never cared.”
When separating the line of dialogue into two sentences, you do the same as above, but replace the comma that comes after the dialogue tag (or action) with a full stop and capitalise the start of the dialogue that follows.
“He needed you,” she said. “But you were never there.”
“We’re too late,” she said, sitting back from his still body. “He’s gone.”
This, however, changes if the action comes first. In this case, the first part of the dialogue ends in a full stop, the sentence including the action is capitalised and ends in a comma after the dialogue tag.
“That could actually work.” He stood up and turned to face Noah, adding, “But I’m still mad at you.”
“Shut up!” He waited for the room to fall silent before continuing, “If we’re going to do this, then we have to do it right.”
 If dialogue is interrupted by an action or a thought with no dialogue tag, there are two ways of writing it.
If the action or thought interrupts the single line of dialogue, you end the first part of the sentence without punctuation and then put the action or thought between two em dashes. For example,
“We were meant to be a team”—at least she thought they were—“but you were only in this for yourself.”
If the dialogue can be split into two sentences, then the punctuation is similar to the earlier examples, except the commas are replaced with full stops. For example,
“I love you.” He paused, letting out a deep sigh. “I’ve always loved you.”
“Jack?” He sounded surprised. “What are you doing here?”
 If you write a line of dialogue that trails off, the rules are the same as your usual line of dialogue except you use and ellipsis (…) instead of a comma at the end of the dialogue. For example,
“I don’t remember…”
“If only…” he whispered.
“Maybe if I…” His voice trailed off as he began to tinker with the machine.
 If you write a line of dialogue that follows an action but has no dialogue tag, then you use regular sentence structures (with full stops). For example,
He patted her head. “Don’t ever change, kid.”
 The final rule is don’t overload your paragraphs. Try and stick to one or two segments of dialogue per paragraph—whether it’s a line of dialogue with an action or dialogue tag, or two parts of dialogue split by a dialogue tag, thought, action or description.
An example of what not to do—
“Alright.” His father rose from his chair, shoving the last bite of his toast into his mouth as he dumped the plate in the sink and grabbed his jacket and a traveller mug of coffee. “I need to head off to work. If you’re looking for Alex, he’s working an extra shift at the gas station,” he called over his shoulder as he headed towards the door. “I’ll see you when I get back tonight.”
If you were to fix this, you’d just need to break it up more.
“Alright.”
His father rose from his chair, shoving the last bite of his toast into his mouth as he dumped the plate in the sink and grabbed his jacket and a traveller mug of coffee.
“I need to head off to work. If you’re looking for Alex, he’s working an extra shift at the gas station,” he called over his shoulder as he headed towards the door. “I’ll see you when I get back tonight.”
 Hopefully this helps.
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wordsnstuff · 7 years ago
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Dialogue Puntuation
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-- Here’s a quick guide to punctuating dialogue in your story, since quite a few of you have expressed confusion surrounding the subject. A question about this subject was asked by @sakurahiwatari and I decided to make it into its very own post. Happy grammar-ing!
New Speaker ~ When there is someone new speaking, start a new paragraph. Always.
Multiple Paragraphs Of Dialogue From One Speaker ~ Sometimes there are multiple paragraphs of dialogue without a pause from a single speaker, so to punctuate these paragraphs, end each one with a terminal mark before continuing onto the next. Start the next paragraph of continuing dialogue with a new quotation mark, but don’t add one to the end of the last to let the reader know the speaker isn’t finished, or they’ll assume it’s somebody else and get confused.
Paragraph With Multiple Lines Of Dialogue ~ Insert your dialogue tag of choice or description of action following the first sentence, then continue with what the current speaker is saying. There are exceptions, but this helps the reader keep track of who is saying what.
Names In Dialogue ~ If there is a name in a piece of dialogue, or a nickname for that matter, enclose it with punctuation. If it is at the beginning or end of a sentence, put a comma between it and the rest of the line. If it is in the middle, put a comma before and after it.
Elipses ~ Use this when a character trails off. Don’t overuse this though. It truly shouldn’t show up very often and get’s quite distracting to the reader’s own narration when it keeps popping up.
When The Speaker Is Interrupted ~ Use an em dash where the speaker is interrupted, then where they continue their line.
When The Speaker Is Cut Off ~ Use an em dash, then close the quotation. This is mostly used when the speaker is cut off right in the middle of a word, such as “help m—” or “enou—”.
Quote Inside Dialogue ~ When a speaker is quoting someone or something else, the part they’re quoting should be enclosed in single quotation marks (”He is weak. ’Stop it son, stop it!’ Right, not doing that.”). When the single quotation marks end or begin next to the double quotation marks, put a space between them.
Dialogue Stopped By Action Or Thought Instead Of Dialogue Tag ~ When dialogue is interrupted to describe what a character is doing or narrate what a character is thinking, you pause the dialogue without a terminal mark, enclose the action or thought between two em dashes, then continue. For instance: “You wanted a ring”—she played with the little loop on her finger—”but you never cared enough to ask for one.” This rule applies to narration interrupted by action or thought as well.
Questions In Dialogue With A Dialogue Tag ~ The question mark is enclosed in the quotation, the dialogue tag is not capitalized because it is part of the same sentence.
Dialogue Interrupted By Dialogue Tag ~ Commas go at the end of the first quotation and at the end of the dialogue tag. This applies to splitting the dialogue into two sentences, but the dialogue tag would end with a period and the second sentence would begin with a capital letter.
One Line With A Dialogue Tag And Action ~ Dialogue is within quotation, tag follows and is separated from the action by a comma. This is also the case when the action and dialogue tag come before the dialogue, but the dialogue tag is always between the action and dialogue.
When A Dialogue Tag Is Before The Dialogue ~ A comma is put outside the quotation, between it and the tag.
Dialogue Tag After Dialogue ~ Line ends with a comma, then quotation mark, then dialogue tag, uncapitalized. This is because it is all one sentence.
Single Line Of Dialogue, No Tag Or Action ~ Line ended with terminal mark inside of quotations.
Direct & Indirect Dialogue ~ Direct dialogue is when someone is speaking, indirect dialogue is when someone is described as saying something. Indirect dialogue doesn’t require quotation marks, and an example would be: She told him that she was sorry.
If you want to learn more and get more detail about punctuation in dialogue, here is a helpful article where I got a lot of my information.
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