verazelinski:

neverfearsmithiswriting:

veronicaroyce:

Quick Guide to Punctuating Dialogue

“This is a line of dialogue,” she said.

“This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a speech tag.”

“This is a full sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence.”

“This is a sentence followed by an action.” He smiled. “They’re separate sentences, because I didn’t speak by smiling.”

We need an extended post covering ALL sentences.

*cracks knuckles*

(anyone, feel free to correct me if I’ve made any errors, and add your own!)

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      “This is a phrase”—she was glaring at the computer—”she wrote while glaring at the computer.”

      “This phrase—” she paused, pointing at the computer “—she broke up with an action.”

      She began, “I can’t believe that you would—”
      “—finish other people’s sentences?” he finished.

      “It is generally not possible to walk a sentence,” she said, walking, “so you can’t write a sentence that goes, ‘Blah blah blah, he walked.’ You need to start it as a different sentence or phrase, as with the final OP example or, in fact, this one.
      “Also, at least in American punctuation practices, single quotes are used when quoting something in dialogue. In British punctuation, it’s the other way around. (At least that I’m aware of).
      “Also, also, notice that in multi-paragraph quotes, you don’t put an end-quote at the end of a paragraph unless it’s the final one. It is understood that each paragraph is still the same speaker.”

      “Just because you end a quote in an exclamation point or question mark doesn’t mean you capitalize the dialogue tag after the fact!?” he blurted.

      “Not all dialogue needs dialogue tags so long as you know who is speaking!”
      “Can you sometimes know who is speaking just by turn-of-phrase, subject matter, and names used?”
      “Yes, other person in the scene. You can.”

      It is highly dependent on publisher and personal preference, he thought, but various types of internal monologues and memories, etc, may be italicized.
     But they don’t have to be italicized, she mused.
     And to that, she said to herself, ‘Sometimes thoughts or memories or telepathic speech are even written with single or double quotes, but must be differentiated between actual dialogue somehow, such as italic text.’

     And guess what? he said. Some books don’t even use quotation marks
when people say things. It’s rare, but when done well, is an effective
style of story-telling.
     Really?
     Really.