Punctuating Dialogue
Never make a mistake again
Use a comma between dialogue
and tagline
“Fred, I want you to take that new
truck back to the dealership,” Mary
snarled, “right now!”
“No way will you get me to,” Fred
paused, “return that truck.”
Only the words spoken are surrounded by quotation marks.
Tag lines with “said”
You can use said, but your writing
style improves if you can occasionally
use other versions of “said” that
emphasize an emotion.
ALWAYS keep commas and
periods inside the quotation marks
“ I do not know,” interrupted Albert.
Albert interrupted, “I do not know.”
Which one is correct?
The teacher growled, “Everyone needs to
line up at the door”
The teacher growled, “Everyone needs to
line up at the door.”
An uninterrupted speech needs
quotation marks only at the
beginning and the end.
“My mother was right. I never should have
married you. You only think of yourself, and
I’m always the one who has to suffer.”
“Oh cry me a river.” ” I’m the one who
came out on the losing end of this
marriage!” “Why didn’t you listen to your
mother?”
Which one is correct?
Tag interrupting a sentence
"That is," Wesley said, "that neither
you nor me is her boy...“
Start a new indented paragraph
each time the speaker changes.
“You can be so cruel some times!”
Mary wailed.
“Oh I suppose you’ll go crying to your
mother now,” Fred sighed.
“At least she understands me,”
sobbed Mary.
When only two people are talking
you do not have to keep using their
names. Use them every few lines to
keep it straight.
“I understand how you feel, alright?”
“You do?” gasped Mary.
“Aw, you know I do.”
“And do you care about me?”
“Of course I do,” Jacob nodded.
“So you’ll take the truck back?”
“Over my dead body!”
Exclamations and Questions
An exclamation point or question mark is
placed inside the quotation marks when it
punctuates the quotation. It is placed
outside when it punctuates the main
sentence.
For example:
I almost fell over when he asked, “That won’t be
a problem for you, will it?”
Did the teacher really say, “Finish by
tomorrow”?
Exclamations and Questions
When using exclamations and questions in
your dialogue be sure to properly
punctuate the words following the marks. If
the sentence continues and the following
words are not proper nouns then you DO
NOT capitalize the next word.
For example:
“Did you hear Mr. Marcoux?” asked Steve.
“Watch out!” warned John.
“No homework tonight!” Mrs. Tomao asserted.
Quote within a quote
“Have you read ‘The Most Dangerous
Game’ yet?” he inquired.
Ellipses and em dashes
Use ellipses … to show faltering,
fragmented speech
Use em dashes – to portray abrupt,
broken off dialogue
Ping Pong vs. Descriptive
Dialogue
“Did you see that?” Tony asked excitedly.
“I sure did,” Janet replied quickly.
“I have never seen anything like that before,” Tony firmly
said.
“Did you see that?” Tony yelled as he slammed on the
brakes of his Mercury. Janet was
nearly thrown into the windshield, but Tony’s strong hand
against her sleeve held her back. The
bright lights from the night sky lit up the car like a neon sign.
“How could I miss it?” she stuttered. Both of them stared out
the window toward the hillside.