I was thinking how many times I have to explain the exact same grammar errors to people and decided to create this book to help. Happy Writing!
Chapter One: Dialogue Tags
Okay, so dialogue tags:
“I wrote two chapters today,” she said. Maria started dancing around the room like a crazy person. “That’s two more chapters than yesterday!” she crowed.
“Yeah, well, I wrote five chapters yesterday,” he said, “and two more this morning. Take that!”
Thomas sat down in the chair and smiled. “I’m such a fast writer,” he shouted. “You just can’t keep up.”
She groaned, “Aw, come on, Thomas. It’s not nice to rub it in.” Maria started to laugh.
"Well,"––Thomas chuckled uncontrollably––"you're just a sore loser."
Okay, so a couple things you’ll notice. When things that aren’t tags, (Maria started to laugh--Maria started dancing…) their sentences don’t have commas. They have periods.
But tags (she crowed, she groaned, she said) always include a comma, except in cases of exclamation points and question marks. And they are NEVER capitalized.
The one that’s split in the middle (he said) is surrounded by commas because it is continuing a sentence. The two parts equal a whole.
If you want to use a tag to take a breath, but it is two sentences, refer to the tag (he shouted).
If you want to take a breath and it's one sentence (such as the last one) you should use ––– andlakfdj–––
Recap:
“Give me that shoe, please,” She said. <----- Yeah, that’s wrong.
“Give me that shoe, please.” She said. <------ Yeah, that’s wrong as well.
Maria held out her hand, “Give me that shoe please.” <-----Wrong.
Maria held her hand out. “Hey, you idiot! Give me that shoe,” she said. <---- Perfect.
Think that covers it. Hope this helps ☺ Comment if you see something I missed or if this helps.
