Most of what you need to know about the mechanics of writing dialogue can be summed up in a few rules. The vast majority of fiction published since the 18 century has followed these rules, although some great writers, including William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, have violated them.
In the following paragraphs, Mr. Faulkner and Mr. McCarthy will help us review dialogue rules.
The first rule is that all direct quotations, namely, the exact words of a character, should be set apart from the rest of the text by quotation marks.
The second rule is that every time a new character speaks or the speaker changes, his or her first line of dialogue should be set apart with a paragraph break. (This isn't always true. -Lumna10.) Also, the first word of a direct quotation always starts with a capital letter. (That is true the first letter of a Dialogue is always capitalized. -Lumna10).
Here's an example that illustrates these rules:
"Do you think quotation marks are necessary?" asked Mr. Faulkner.
"Some people say yes; some people say no."
"I don't use quotation marks myself," said Mr. McCarthy. "I think they just clutter up a page."
(For me I would prefer a period where the comma is because that first sentence within the dialogue is a complete sentence with a subject and an active verb. It is as complete a sentence as the dialogue tag. I believe it was on channel Writer Brandon McNulty says you should always use the word said in a dialogue tag. But in my third year here on Wattpad some viewer yelled at me for using it too much. I don't remember their name and I don't think they're actually here on Wattpad anymore as I haven't heard from them since. -Lumna10)
Remember that these rules of punctuation serve two purposes: to set dialogue apart from the rest of the narrative and to identify who is speaking at any given time. The quotation marks and the paragraph breaks serve the first purpose, and the second purpose is served by identifying each speaker with a dialogue tag, which in its most basic form is simply the name of the character or a pronoun standing in for the name plus some variation on the verb said. In the exchange above, asked Mr. Faulkner and said Mr. McCarthy are dialogue tags; other common tags include he said, she said, he replied, she shouted, and so on. (So here according to Professor James Hynes feel free to use other dialogue tags instead of Said.)
The rules for punctuating dialogue tags get a little tricky. The first rule is that the dialogue tag is not part of the actual quotation; thus, it should never be included within the quotation marks. The following example is incorrect:
"Do you think this fellow Hynes, said Mr. McCarthy, has any idea what he's talking about?"
(The last comma during the dialogue tag needs to switch to a period. The dialogue tag of any speaking character consists of either their proper name or pronoun replacement and an active verb. Those two things make a complete sentence. The first comma in the first part of the dialogue before the quotation that needs to be inserted can stay as the sentence is transitioning beyond the dialogue tag. And has since it is a verb of an already started sentence you do not need to capitalize its first letter in contrast to our first example. -Lumna10.)
The reason it's incorrect is that there and one at endof quotation marks, one at the beginning of the quotation and one at the end, when there should be four sets of quotation marks: one at the beginning, a second one just be four sedialogue tag, a third one right after the dialogue tag and a fourth at the end, as shown below:
"Do you think this fellow Hynes," said Mr. McCarthy, "has any idea what he's talking about?"
My own person edit to this mostly corrected example up above.
"Do you think this fellow Hynes," said Mr. McCarthy. "has any idea what he's talking about?" (Do you see how much smoother your story dialogue floats when you completely acknowledge the dialogue tag is a separate description. Putting a period after a complete dialogue tag sentence is something I really recommend doing. It is no different than surround descriptive regular narrative sentences that start with except, but, within all being surround by commas because they are prepositions describing or indicating something separate that might or might not happen.
When your dialogue tag begins your sentence, you don't need the period before the dialogue quotation sets apart your characters speech.
She announced, "I'm going to a party." See that makes much more sense doesn't it, with the comma before the quotation mark, as part of the dialogue tag ,right? (There are a lot of commas in my last sentence but they're all accurately placed where they should be.)
Sometimes a dialogue tag comes in the middle of the quoted sentence; in those cases, the first half of the quotation is set off by a comma and a quotation mark, the dialogue tag is followed by a comma, (should be a period.) and the second half of the sentence begins with a quotation mark and a lowercase letter, as shown below:
"I have a feeling," said Mr. Faulkner. "that this fellow Hynes is not paying any attention to us."
However, if a dialogue tag appears between two complete sentences, then it is followed by a period, and the second sentence starts with a capital letter:
"There's no reason for him to listen to us. said Mr. McCarthy. "You've been dead for fifty years, and I'm famously reclusive."
There are a couple of additional rules for dialogue: Punctuation always appears inside the quotation marks, and when the dialogue tag appears after the quotation or after the first half of the quotation, the quote can be separate from the tag with a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point. But never with a period! (I highly disagree a dialogue tag needs a period before the continued statements occur not a comma otherwise it gives off a vague illusion of a run on sentence accidentally. -Lumna10.) Thus, the following quotations are punctuated correctly:
"That's no excuse," said Mr. Faulkner. (While the dialogue is a complete sentence, the comma here is fine as this is meant a short and sudden statement.)
"What can you do with a young fellow like that?" said
Mr. McCarthy.
"Kids today!" said Mr. Faulkner.
They have this as a bad example but I see it as improvement in the editing of the writing industry.
"As far as I'm concerned, there are no rules in creative writing." said Mr. McCarthy.
Supposed Correct format when Professor James Hynes used to school people in writing. Some rules have actually changed for the better.
"Do you think quotation marks are necessary?" asked Mr. Faulkner.
"Some people say yes; some people say no."
"I don't use quotation marks myself," said Mr. McCarthy. "I think they just clutter up a page."
"Do you think this fellow Hynes," said Mr. McCarthy, "has any idea what he's talking about?"
"I have a feeling," said Mr. Faulkner, "that this fellow Hynes is not paying any attention to us." (Feels Dragged on and cluttered. Period needs to separate the dialogue tag from speech in those last two examples. These are actuuallly late writing editing improvements this author doesn't see because in this case he's bias and stuck in his oldtimer ways.)
"There's no reason for him to listen to us," said Mr. McCarthy.
"You've been dead for fifty years, and I'm famously reclusive."
"That's no excuse," said Mr. Faulkner.
"What can you do with a young fellow like that?" said Mr.
McCarthy.
"Kids today!" said Mr. Faulkner.
"As far as I'm concerned, there are no rules in creative writing," said Mr. McCarthy. (To meeeeeeeeeee when they do the comma like that after a sentence of dialogue this long it's too lengthy and dragged on compared to the earlier one. I find it as annoying as some people would find all those extra es in the word me.)
Remember, any good grammar guide will explain these rules in more detail, but an even better way to learn them is simply to model what you do after what your favorite writer does assuming your favorite writer isn't Cormac McCarthy.
So I just annotated everything that has changed that he considers wrong in my () that actually is okay. Dialogue punctation editing is why writers struggle with fictional writing it is also why so many fantasy books use show instead of tell because then they don't have to work out dialogue and dialogue tag punctuation editing. This is probably the hardest thing for writers to actually master. It is trickier than the actual general narrative punctuation editing required. Those rules have been set for years. Dialogue and Dialogue Tag punctuation hasn't been set in stone but I think this is the strongest way to set in stone and build suspense to your stories by taking ny annotated comments into account when writing it, lovely Skylights. Magic_Pyrix RoyalBunny7