What Even is DIALOGUE?
What is dialogue in a novel? It’s how you represent the way your characters are speaking.
In books, it tends to be encased within either ‘single quotes’ (common in the UK), or “double quotes” (common in the US).
There are many rules relating to dialogue and how it should be formatted – and this is just an introduction. Incorrectly punctuated dialogue is extremely easy for an editor to mend, but it can be time-consuming – and therefore costly. If a manuscript has the dialogue correctly formatted, an editor will need to spend less time on it, and therefore will need to charge less!
Curly (smart) Quotes or Straight Quotes?
It’s conventional in fiction publishing to use curly (smart) quotes rather than straight ones. To make sure you are using curly quotes, go into your MS Word document and change the settings:
- go to FILE, MORE and select OPTIONS
- within options, select PROOFING
- within proofing, select AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS
- within autocorrect options select AUTOFORMAT AS YOU TYPE
- ensure “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes” is selected.
This means that as you type, MS Word will automatically use curly quotes (double, single and apostrophes).
What Is Dialogue For?
- it tells us WHAT the characters are saying.
- it tells us WHO is speaking.
- it can also tell us HOW the character is feeling, or what is motivating them.
Punctuating Speech Tags
Speech is used to tell us what the characters in our books are saying. It is important that the reader always knows which character is speaking.
To do this, we can use speech tags. In the following example, the speech tags are underlined.
‘Hello,’ said David.
or
David said, ‘Hello.’
Speech tags can go in one of three places:
1. After the speech: ‘Hello,’ said David.
2. Before the speech: David said, ‘Hello.’
3. In the middle of speech: ‘Hello,’ said David. ‘Who are you?’
Where you choose to place the speech tag is largely a matter of personal choice. It’s more conventional for the speech tag to follow the dialogue, or to interrupt the dialogue. And it may be that you want to mix it up a little, to vary the sentence structure and pace.
This guide will talk you through the first two options – speech tags that come before and after speech. Speech tags that come in the middle of speech (along with interruptions) will be discussed in a separate article.
When to Use Speech Tags?
Speech tags should be used as little as possible. The content of the dialogue, and the order in which it is written, should make it clear who is speaking. This is relatively easy when there are only two characters speaking (as each character takes a new line), but sometimes where there are multiple characters, or it’s not clear exactly who is speaking from just the dialogue alone, it’s necessary to help the reader out with speech tags. There are other ways of indicating who is speaking – using action beats, for example. And these will be discussed in a future article.
1. Speech Tag Comes AFTER Speech
Where the speech tag (said David) comes after the speech, the speech generally ends with a comma, question mark or exclamation mark:
| ‘Hello,’ said David. | ✔ |
| ‘Hello.’ said David. | ❌ |
| ‘Hello!’ said David. | ✔ |
| ‘Hello?’ said David. | ✔ |
| ‘Hello’ said David. | ❌ |
Regardless of the punctuation within the quote marks, the speech tag is written in lower case (even if the dialogue ends with an exclamation mark or question mark). The only time that dialogue ends with a full stop ( . ) is when there is NO FOLLOWING SPEECH TAG:
| ‘Hello.’ Said David. | ❌ |
| ‘Hello.’ said David. | ❌ |
| ‘Hello,’ said David. | ✔ |
| ‘Hello.’ | ✔ |
| ‘Hello!’ Said David. | ❌ |
| ‘Hello!’ said David. | ✔ |
| ‘Hello?’ Said David. | ❌ |
| ‘Hello?’ said David. | ✔ |
There is no punctuation between the quote marks and the speech tag:
| ‘Hello,’, said David. | ❌ |
| ‘Hello’, said David. | ❌ |
| ‘Hello,’ said David. | ✔ |
The speech tag is not capitalised if it follows the dialogue:
| ‘Hello,’ Said David. | ❌ |
| ‘Hello,’ said David. | ✔ |
2. Speech Tag Comes BEFORE Speech
Where the speech tag comes before the dialogue, it is standard to have a comma between the speech tag and the speech.
| David said, ‘Hello.’ | ✔ |
Where the speech tag comes before the dialogue, the speech is punctuated as if it were a normal sentence. So it would end with a full stop, exclamation mark or question mark. There is no punctuation outside the final quote marks.
| David said, ‘Hello.’. | ❌ |
| David said, ‘Hello?’. | ❌ |
| David said, ‘Hello.’ | ✔ |
Where the speech tag comes before the dialogue, the speech is capitalised in accordance with the normal rules as if the speech were the start of a new sentence:
| David said, ‘hello.’ | ❌ |
| David said, ‘Hello.’ | ✔ |
| David Said, ‘Hello.’ | ❌ |
Which Speech Tags?
The most common speech tag is ‘said’. This is used so frequently that it is almost invisible. The reader sees it, takes in its meaning, but doesn’t get tripped up on the word. The following speech tags are similar – they are almost as invisible as said (but not quite):
Asked (‘What’s your name?’ David asked.)
Replied (‘Frank,’ Frank replied.)
There are many many other speech tags that can be used, and the world is divided as to whether it’s a good idea to use them:
Exclaimed (‘You did what?’ she exclaimed.)
Mumbled (‘I just wanted to,’ he mumbled.)
Uttered (David uttered, ‘No!’)
Said is by far and away the safest speech tag to use – particularly for beginners. There are also speech tags that aren’t even types of speech:
1. ‘You did what?’ she laughed.
2. ‘Wow that’s amazing,’ she gasped.
These are non-standard speech tags, and a better option would be to show your reader that the character is laughing or gasping, rather than telling them:
1. Rebecca found this statement incredibly funny and grinned widely. ‘You did what?’ she asked.
2. This statement took Rebecca’s breath away. ‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ she said.
Superfluous Speech Tags
It’s not always necessary to repeat the name of the character who is speaking. Imagine you have two characters interacting, one called (yep, you guess it) David, and one called Mark. It would NOT be necessary to write their dialogue as follows:
‘Hello, David,’ said Mark.
‘Hello, Mark,’ said David.
The above dialogue would work well as:
‘Hello, David,’ said Mark.
‘Hello, Mark.’
Or, if there is a bit of text before the dialogue, it could work as follows:
Mark bumped into David in the pub. ‘Hello, David,’ he said.
‘Hello, Mark.’
New Character, New Line
It’s not necessary to repeat the character’s name every time they say something, so long as you start a new character on a new line.
A Couple of Asides…
Whether you choose single or double quotes, they need to be kept consistent throughout the book. Where quotes are being used for distancing purposes (for example, the representation of ‘air quotes’), these should also match the style of quotation marks that you are using for dialogue. Finally, see my separate article regarding punctuating dialogue within dialogue.
This has been a very general introduction to understanding the basics of punctuating dialogue. For more FREE AUTHOR RESOURCES, please visit my quick tips page.
