Dialogues.

Before we being, test yourself and comment your answers, you don't have to be correct, it's okay to be wrong.

TEST YOURSELF
Are these sentences punctuated correctly?

1. Margaret read a magazine article titled "Living in the Country;" four days later she sold her house in the suburbs and moved to a farm.

2. The instructor read the class three poems by Robert Frost: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Design," and "Directive."

3. Sarina's father is the most eccentric man I know, but Sarina excuses his behavior as "artistic license".

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Dialogue abruptly cut off.
When dialogue is cut off—the character is being choked or something suddenly diverts his attention or another character interrupts him—use an em dash before the closing quotation mark. Dialogue can be interrupted mid-word or at the end of a word. Consider the sounds of words and syllables before deciding where to break the interrupted word: you wouldn't break the word there after the T (t—), because the first sound comes from the combined th (th—).

"He loved y—"

Dialogue abruptly cut off by another speaker.
When a second speaker interrupts the first, use the em dash where the first speaker's words are interrupted and again where they resume.

"He loved you—"

"As if I could believe that."

"—for such a long, long time."

Dialogue that trails off.
When dialogue trails off—the character has lost his train of thought or doesn't know what to say—use the ellipsis.

"He loved you . . ." A long, long time ago, she thought.

Names in dialogue.
Always use a comma before and/or after the name when addressing someone directly in dialogue (even if the name isn't a proper name).

"He loved you, Emma."

"Emma, he loved you."

"He loved you, honey."

"He loved you, Emma, more than he loved Sally."

Multiple lines of dialogue.
For a paragraph with several sentences of dialogue, put the dialogue tag, if you use one, at the end of the first sentence. The tags are for readers, to keep track of the speaker. A tag lost in the middle or hiding at the end of the paragraph doesn't help the reader at the top of the paragraph.

This is not an absolute rule, of course. Sometimes the feel or rhythm requires a different construction. But you can use this rule to keep your readers on track. If a group of guys is talking, the reader might guess who is speaking, but there's nothing wrong with helping out the reader.

"I wanted to know if James had planned to go to the game. He wasn't sure, said he had to ask his wife. Thank God I don't have to ask permission of a wife. None of that ball and chain stuff for me, no sir. I can go where I want, when I want. Yep, freedom," Maxwell said. "Nothing beats freedom."

"I wanted to know if James had planned to go to the game," Maxwell said. "He wasn't sure, said he had to ask his wife. Thank God I don't have to ask permission of a wife. None of that ball and chain stuff for me, no sir. I can go where I want, when I want. Yep, freedom. Nothing beats freedom."

Multiple paragraphs of dialogue.
Dialogue may stretch across paragraphs without pause. To punctuate, put a terminal punctuation—period, question mark, or exclamation point— at the end of the first paragraph. There is no closing quotation mark at the end of this paragraph.

Begin the next paragraph with an opening quotation mark.

Follow this pattern for as long as the dialogue and paragraphs continue. At the last paragraph, use a closing quotation mark at the end of the dialogue.

"He was my best friend. I told you that, didn't I? And then he stabbed me in the back. Stole my wife and my future. I hated him for that. Still do. Hate him bad.

"But he's been punished, yes he has. He went to jail for embezzling thousands. Not even millions. Just thousands. Serves him right, the petty crook. He's just a petty man."

Changing Speakers.
Begin a new paragraph each time the speaker changes.

She looked up at the man hovering over her. "I'd wanted to tell you for years. I just didn't know what to say."

"We've been married for thirty-four years, Alice. You couldn't find a way, in thirty-four years of living together and seeing each other sixteen hours a day, to tell me you were already married?"

"I'm sorry."

Exception. There are reasons having to do with style when you could limit a back-and-forth dialogue between characters to a single paragraph, but each speaker's sentences would need to be brief and you wouldn't want the paragraph to go on for too long. Keep in mind your readers' expectations—they expect to find only one character's words in a paragraph.

Mixing dialogue with narration in the same paragraph.
Dialogue and narration can be placed into the same paragraph. If the narration refers to a single character or is in the point of view of only one character, simply add the dialogue. Dialogue can go at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the paragraph and the narration.

If the narration refers to several characters or you can't tell which character is the focus of the paragraph, begin the dialogue with a new paragraph and a dialogue tag. That is, don't make the reader guess who is speaking.

If the paragraph opens with a wide view of a group of people but then the focus narrows to a single character, you could introduce that character's dialogue into the end of that same paragraph. Or, you could begin a new paragraph with the dialogue. The key is to keep the reader in the flow of the story. Confusion over dialogue will pull the reader out of the fictional world.

Rachael was a beautiful woman; she'd been told so since the day she turned sixteen. And at forty-two, she decided she was just entering her prime. She stared at herself in the mirror, patted her hair, and grinned at the man watching her reflection with her. "I still got it, don't I, baby?"

He reached for her bare shoulders. "And I love every inch of the it you've got."

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Rachael was a beautiful woman; she'd been told so since the day she turned sixteen. At forty-two, she was determined to see herself as the ingenue. Carl wanted to tell her she was now more femme fatale than ingenue. And that was all right by him.

"I still got it, don't I, baby?" she asked his reflection.

"More than ever, honey."

—

Rachael was a beautiful woman; she'd been told so since the day she turned sixteen. At forty-two, she was determined to see herself as the ingenue. "You're stunning, sweetheart," Carl said, pausing by the dressing table.  He wanted to tell her she was now more femme fatale than ingenue, that she turned him on more than she had as a younger version of herself. But Rachael was not only beautiful. She was touchy. And being reminded of her age wouldn't keep her happy.

Carl was all about keeping Rachael happy.

"Simply stunning," he said again

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Attributions can come before the dialogue, especially if you want the dialogue tag to be noticed. To hide them, put them at the middle or end of sentences. You will typically—but not always—want the dialogue and not the attribution to stand out.

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ANSWERS

1. "Living in the Country";
2. CORRECT
3. "artistic license."