Dialouge writing on college course
Answers
Learn dialogue rules for good punctuation
Before you can write conversations that bristle with tension or brim with excitement, you need to master the rules for punctuating dialogue. [Below is a brief guide but our 4-week course covers much more. At the end, you’ll submit a piece of dialogue incorporating what you’ve learned for professional critique. Learn more.]
The first rule: Remember to open and close speech marks to set dialogue apart from surrounding narration. At the end of a line of dialogue, if you use a dialogue tag, remember to use a comma before ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ instead of a full stop. The tag is still part of the same sentence. This is a mistake we often see in members’ critique submissions on Now Novel. An example of good dialogue punctuation:
“I wish you would use a comma and not a full stop before your dialogue tag,” she grumbled.
The second rule: If a character’s speech is interrupted by a dialogue tag or action, close and re-open speech marks. Commas always go inside the quoted speech, just before the closing quotation mark, and just before the speech marks re-open. Here’s an example:
“I wish you would stop interrupting,” she said, holding up her palm, “and let me finish!”
The third rule: Always start a new paragraph when a different character starts speaking. This way it’s clear who says what in a scene involving two or more characters.
The fourth rule: If one character speaks over multiple paragraphs, only close quotation marks at the end of the final paragraph. This is used when a character has a long monologue, such as when retelling an event or story. This prevents the reader from erroneously thinking a new character has started talking.