Writing & Editing: A Self-Editor's Handbook

1.1 Dialogue Punctuation

1.1 Dialogue Punctuation

_________________________

     Note: I am aware that the British have their own rules regarding this topic, although the following seem to be more common in the literary world. (I’ve even read books written by British authors who also seem to agree with these guidelines, too.) 

     Do you get a lot of comments stating you need to fix your dialogue punctuation? Are you confused about speaker tags and action tags? Do you need help with formatting your conversations? Is this intro starting to sound like a poor infomercial? 

     People who know me well or have seen some of my critiques will know that I am incredibly finicky when it comes to dialogue punctuation. Many writers on Wattpad seem to struggle with this, but don’t feel bad if you’re one of them; unless you’ve been blessed with a magnificent English teacher, chances are you’ve never even heard of some of the five following rules. 

     Rules: 

     1. Always capitalize the first word of dialogue. *

     2. During a conversation, make a new paragraph whenever someone new speaks.

     3. Periods, commas, question marks, and exclamation points always go inside the quotations.

     4. If your dialogue is followed by a speaker tag, end it with a comma, question mark, or an exclamation point, and only capitalize the following word outside the speech if it’s a proper noun.

     5. If your dialogue is followed by an action/beat, end it with a period, question mark, or an exclamation point, and always capitalize the following word outside the speech.

     After reading through those rules, you may be telling yourself that you already know all of this. And if so, good for you! But for those of you who are confused and would like more clarification, I've created examples for each rule below. There's also a number of tips to help improve your dialogue at the end of this chapter.

     * Some of these rules have exceptions. Please read the full explanation of each one if you’re unclear about it or disagree with the stated rule – thanks! 

     ______________________________________________________ 

1. Always capitalize the first word of dialogue. 

     This error isn’t made too frequently, but it does happen. I’ll make this short. 

     Incorrect: “hi,” she said. 

     Correct: “Hi,” she said. 

     Exception: If the dialogue is interrupted by a speaker tag, do not capitalize the first word of the second half of the sentence. If you don’t know what this means, speaker tags will be explained in more depth in Rule #4. 

     Incorrect: “Hi,” she said, “How are you?”

     Correct: “Hi,” she said, “how are you?” 

     ______________________________________________________

2. During a conversation, make a new paragraph whenever someone new speaks. 

     If you’ve ever read a published book with conversations in it, this rule should not be completely unfamiliar to you. Surprisingly, I’ve stumbled upon numerous stories on Wattpad that have the conversations (or the entire chapter) clumped into one gigantic paragraph. Like this: