"For all forms, writing dialogue is almost like writing music. I pay close attention to rhythms and tones."
—Sefi Atta

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Formatting can be a real headache sometimes, especially when it comes to punctuation. And to make it more complicated, punctuation in Dialogue has some of its own rules.

 What is dialogue?

Dialogue is a verbal conversation between people, although, for our whimsical characters, it can also be mumbling to themselves.

✎ Quotation Marks

Quotation marks enclose Dialogue. There are different kinds you can use. The double, "like this.", or the single, 'like this', and in some countries or books, there is a double quotation mark that starts low and ends high; „like this".

Which one to use differs per country. The double quotation mark is often seen in US literature, whereas the single mark is used in British literature.

So, now we can identify our dialogues, we should look at how we format it in a story.

✎ Paragraphs

Paragraphing is something I see some Wattpad writers struggling with, but it's an important writing rule. I can't stress this enough; Every speaker gets their own paragraph.

Pick up a published book, and you will see that when two (or more) people hold a conversation, each person gets their own paragraph to speak in. The separate paragraphs are so the reader can easily identify who is speaking at the moment. It makes reading the story a lot easier to follow.

Wrong:

The man takes another breath of his cigarette, and Roselin can't help but comment on it. "Have you not heard? Smoking kills." The guy cocks an eyebrow, his dark brown eyes meeting hers. "It does? I thought those posters were just decorative." "I'm pretty sure we, the citizens of New Arcadia, would not lower ourselves to decadence," Roselin imitates the female's tranquil voice of the New City advertisements. The guy smirks, throwing his cigarette on the ground. Roselin gasps. "And now littering. I might as well call the cops," she says, not able to hide her own playful smile.

Right:

The man takes another breath of his cigarette, and Roselin can't help but comment on it. "Have you not heard? Smoking kills."

The guy cocks an eyebrow, his dark brown eyes meeting hers. "It does? I thought those posters were just decorative."

"I'm pretty sure we, the citizens of New Arcadia, would not lower ourselves to decadence," Roselin imitates the female's tranquil voice of the New City advertisements. The guy smirks, throwing his cigarette on the ground. Roselin gasps. "And now littering. I might as well call the cops," she says, not able to hide her own playful smile.
(Sin Eater, Talle Fey)

Separate paragraphs also ensure you don't have to keep saying, 'he said, she said'. When there are only two speakers, the reader knows that the second person must be speaking as the dialogue is in another paragraph.

Example

The man takes another breath of his cigarette, and Roselin can't help but comment on it. "Have you not heard? Smoking kills."

"It does? I thought those posters were just decorative."

(Sin Eater, Talle Fey)

But what if your character is holding a long monologue, and one paragraph seems a bit endless? You start the opening quotation mark on every paragraph the dialogue runs for, but use only one quotation mark in the final paragraph.

Example

"This is a really long dialogue that may take up multiple paragraphs because I don't stop speaking. There's just so much to tell. Maybe I will tell a story or a flashback. Only time will tell.

"It's just hard to read a long paragraph with only dialogue to a point where you almost forget that you were reading dialogue."

Okay, this isn't that long, but imagine a few extra sentences. As you can see, the first paragraph with dialogue doesn't have a double quotation at the end.

✎ Dialogue Tags and Actions

To indicate who is speaking, you can use a dialogue tag (said, asked, yelled, etc.) or an action (smiled, laughed, etc.).

Dialogue tags help the reader follow the conversation, but you'll need to use it balanced. As ProWritingAid said, "A dialogue tag is like a street sign. You don't need to see a street sign every few feet along the road. You only need street signs when you approach new roads different from the one you're on so you know where you're going".

This is also why separate paragraphs are important; you don't want the dialogue tags to jump off the page at your reader.

 In school, you've probably learned to use as many synonyms for said as possible. I hate to break it to you, but in fiction writing, your teacher was wrong. Dialogue tags can distract your reader from the story itself. Said and ask are a bit more invisible to the reader. Sure, if you overuse the tags, the reader notices it, but the synonym—yelled, whispered, breathed, repeated—stands out even more, so use them wisely if needed.

According to the statistics of ProWritingAid, the word "said" has been used 60% in dialogue tags, "asked" just under 10, and the nonstandard tags even less.

One way to replace the dialogue tag is to use an action to show who is speaking. Taking the example of Sin Eater again, "said" was only used one time (and one time "imitate").

The man takes another breath of his cigarette, and Roselin can't help but comment on it. "Have you not heard? Smoking kills."

The guy cocks an eyebrow, his dark brown eyes meeting hers. "It does? I thought those posters were just decorative."

We understand Roselin is speaking because she couldn't help but comment. We know the man is speaking because it was in a separate paragraph. The action shows it too; he was cocking his eyebrow, and meeting her eyes.

There is a difference in formatting actions, and dialogue tags, though, and it lies in the punctuation.

✎Dialogue Punctuation and Capital Letters

Punctuation marks for dialogue usually fall within the quotation marks. Take a look at the examples.

Example

1. "Quite an exit, darling," a man leaning against the wall says in a British accent.

2. "I can't believe someone in our beloved city would treat a keeper of our ethics with such ill manners." The corners of his lips twitch up.

(Sin Eater, Talle Fey)

In the examples, you see the comma and period within the quotation marks. In the first one, the sentence continues after the comma and quotation mark. For this reason, the next word — "a" — will be a lowercase letter. In the second example, the sentence ends with the period in the dialogue and therefore, the next word — "The" — is a capital letter. This sentence also uses an action instead of a dialogue tag.

For exclamation marks and question marks, the rules are a bit different.

Example

1. "Lurking?" He laughs.

2. "Being a hero isn't quite like you?" There is that damn smirk of his again.

3. "You sold it!" she said.
(Sin Eater, Talle Fey)

In example 1, "He laughs" is a new sentence because this is an action and not a dialogue tag. Therefore, "He" is with a capital letter after the question mark.

The same goes for example 2. The first sentence — the dialogue — ends with a question mark, and just as if it were a period, the next sentence starts with a capital letter. In example three, the dialogue is followed by the dialogue tag "she said". This part still belongs to the sentence "You sold it!", and therefore "she" is with a lowercase letter even though there is an exclamation mark at the end of the dialogue.

✎ Faltering Speech or Incomplete Thoughts

When your character's speech is faltering or fragmented, you use an ellipsis, which is three dots after each other → ...

Example

1. "But...but...I don't understand."

2. "Did we just...oh no."

As you can see, there is no space on either side of the ellipsis, and it's all one sentence (so you don't need to start with a capital letter unless it's a name, etc.).

✎ Interruptions or Abrupt Changes in Thoughts

Interruptions or abrupt changes in thoughts are indicated by em-dashes. An em-dash is three dashes after each other.

Normal dash → -

En-dash → –

Em-dash → —

Example

1. "I may have, allegedly, poured it over the bastard's—I mean, troubled young man's—white cashmere sweater. Honestly, it was an accident, and throwing me out was unnecessary."

2. "You're right. Things happened and—"someone died.

3. "I've been disappointed too many times, so I'm going to wait with the trust thing till I get some proof of—"

Ryu's lips snatch away her words.

(Sin Eater, Talle Fey)

As you can see, there is no space before and after the em-dash. If you decide you want some spacing, there should be one on either side.

In the first example, there is an abrupt change of thought as the character decides to word things differently. This also happens in the second example, but the thought continues outside of the dialogue.

In the third example, there is an interruption in speech. The sentence breaks off with an em-dash.

✎𓂃

I hope this bit of information helps you with writing the story.

- tallefey

𓍊𓋼 𓆏 𓋼𓍊

Were some of this new information to you, or did you already know the dialogue formatting?

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