Formatting Dialogue

Quotation Marks

The general rule when considering dialogue formatting is that consistency and clarity are key. The dialogue in your text must be clear to your reader, and it must also be clear who said what.

Dialogue is marked by quotation (or speech) marks, and can be single (') or double (") marks. British English style uses single, whereas US English tends towards double. There is no right or wrong here, but you need to ensure that whichever you choose at the beginning of your writing remains constant throughout. 

Say you have opted for double quotation marks (") and the person speaking quotes a third party, you can use single quotation marks (') to mark this. 

Example :

"She said, 'Tabitha isn't going be at work tomorrow,' and I didn't think to ask why."

Dialogue Tags

Dialogue tags tell us who is speaking and are placed outside of quotation marks as they are not spoken by the character. They can also be used to indicate volume, emotion and tone. 

Remember that dialogue tags can get repetitive, so you must be careful not to fall into the trap of he said, she said, they said. There are many variations you can use to keep your dialogue tags fresh, and whilst you can also use adverbial dialogue tags to convey information about how your character is feeling, you should be careful not to rely on those too heavily, either. The emotions portrayed should be easy for your reader to deduce by context and use of language within the dialogue itself.  

Example :

Brian said aggressively.

Charlie began quickly.

Ellen replied quietly.

Paragraphs

There are a couple of rules to follow here :

• When a new character starts speaking, start a new paragraph.
• If the new speaker comes after a line break, you don't need to indent it. In all other cases, you should indent.

Example One :

[line break]"I don't need to understand. If you say that's how it happened, I believe you," Sally told him.

"Thank you Sally." John smiled at her from his seat at the bar.

Example Two :

John walked in to the bar after work, as he had done after every shift for the past two weeks.

"What'll you have?" Sally called to him, her voice raised over those of the patrons already seated at the bar.

"Whisky, no ice." He took the only empty seat left at the bar.

"You got it."

• If the speaker continues after the dialogue tag, do not start a new paragraph. When you begin a new paragraph during a section of dialogue, it signals to the reader that a new speaker is talking.

Example :

"I'll see what I can do, but I won't promise anything." She smiled at him. "Besides, you're much better at this than I am. I'm sure you can figure this out yourself."

Punctuating Dialogue

Commas are used with dialogue tags. When the tag comes before the quotation marks, the comma is placed directly after the dialogue tag. When the tag comes after the quotation marks, the comma is placed before the closing quotation mark.

Example : 

Johan said, "I don't know what you mean."

"I don't know what you mean," Johan said.

Ellipses is used when a speaker trails off while they are speaking. Ellipses forms the closing punctuation in this case.

Example :

"I thought you knew. I didn't think ..." Simon's voice trailed off.

When a quotation ends in an exclamation mark or question mark, and is followed by a dialogue tag, that dialogue tag begins in lowercase. 

Example : 

"What happened to you?" he shouted down to her.

"I fell!" she called back up to him.

For more free tips to help you elevate your manuscripts, you can find our downloadable resources here.