![]() ![]() If you end a quotation with a question mark or exclamation point, then they will replace the comma. Questions and Exclamatory Statements in Dialogue However, this is not a technique you want to use all the time as it removes action beats and will lose its effectiveness. You can see how this makes a conversation seem quick and can also add tension. When doing this, the author will often just use the name of the person speaking as a tag. I’ve also seen authors employ a colon when they have a large cast of characters or want a quick flow to the dialogue. You can also use a colon to introduce dialogue, although this is not as common. When the dialogue tag is before the dialogue, your comma is outside of the quotation marks. When a dialogue tag comes before the dialogue, you’ll reverse this order. When ending with a dialogue tag, you’ll close your dialogue with a comma, close quotations, then add the dialogue tag. Notice how adding the dialogue tag changes the punctuation. By dialogue tag, I mean attribution, or ending a line of dialogue by indicating the speaker.Īt the end of that sentence, ‘Paul said’ is the dialogue tag. Place dialogue tags outside of the quotation marks. It doesn’t matter what the punctuation is it goes inside the quotation marks.Įnclose all your dialogue with quotation marks. Punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks, whether it is a period, or question mark, or exclamation point. That won’t always be the case, but we’ll get to that.Īlso, notice that the punctuation, in this case, a period, is inside the quotation marks. It starts with a capital letter and ends with a period. Notice that everything else about this sentence is normal. Quotation marks indicate to a reader that a character is speaking. Starting with the basics, when you write dialogue, you should enclose spoken words in quotation marks. Then I’ll take you through seven easy steps to writing your dialogue scene. ![]() How to format dialogue, what proper tags to use, and the overall purpose of dialogue in your story. You can’t play Moonlight Sonata if you know where middle C is- know what I mean? Don’t worry though, because that’s precisely what we are going to cover in this post! The fundamentals of writing dialogue. An exclamation point (!) or a question mark (?) is placed inside the quotation marks when it punctuates a quotation, but outside the quotation when it punctuates the main sentence.Like everything, though, before you nail your dialogue, you’ve got to know the fundamentals. Periods and commas are always placed inside the quotation marks.ħ 6. When several sentences are quoted together to form a paragraph, put just one set of quotation marks around the whole quotation. “I really don’t know,” he said, “whether she loves me or not.”ĥ 4. Only the exact words of a person are in quotation marks.Īlso, when splitting a quotation with a dialogue tag, do not capitalize words which do not begin new sentences. “Did you say your prayers tonight?” “I meant to, but I got to thinking about things, and –” “Oh, we are lost beyond all help! How could you neglect such a thing at such a time as this?” Remember to indent the beginning of each dialogue paragraph, just as you would in any other type of writing.Ĥ 3. Begin a new paragraph each time a different person speaks – this can help to cut down on the number of dialogue tags required. Presentation on theme: "Rules for Writing Dialogue"- Presentation transcript:Ģ Use quotation marks around the words which the character says:ģ 2.
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