Dialogue Punctuation Cheat Sheet
Jun. 4th, 2012 01:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goseawardQuick terminology: a dialogue tag is the phrase that tells you who's speaking, e.g.: said Sherlock.
1. Ordinary sentence plus dialogue tag.
"Hello, my name is John," said John. Dialogue ends with comma inside the quotation marks; dialogue tag does NOT have an extra capital letter.
Said John, "Hello, my name is John." Dialogue tag ends with comma; sentence of dialogue DOES have an extra capital letter for the first word; period is inside the quotation marks.
2. Question plus dialogue tag. Also exclamation plus dialogue tag, replacing the question mark with an exclamation point.
"What did you say?" said Sherlock. Dialogue ends with question mark inside the quotation marks; dialogue tag does NOT have an extra capital letter.
Sherlock said, "What did you say?" Dialogue tag ends with comma; sentence of dialogue DOES have an extra capital letter for the first word; question mark is inside the quotation marks.
3. Dialogue tag in the middle of a sentence.
"Hello," said John, "my name is John." Comma after the first bit of dialogue AND after the dialogue tag. No extra capital letter for EITHER the dialogue tag or the second bit of the sentence. If you want to do it this way, you should break the dialogue where there would be a comma naturally. For other kinds (using ellipses or dashes), see this guide by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gabe_speaks.
Note: you CANNOT join two sentences with a dialogue tag. This ONLY WORKS if it is in the middle of a single sentence.
4. Dialogue tag in the middle of a sentence with a semicolon, broken at the point where the semicolon occurs.
"Whatever you want to do," said John; "it's your choice." Comma after the first part of the sentence, inside the quotation marks; no extra capital letter for EITHER the dialogue tag or the second part of the sentence; semicolon goes AFTER the dialogue tag.
More detailed explanations in this thing I wrote...oh Lord, eight years ago? (I'm much less strict about adverbs now, and not as sure about the interrupting-with-action stuff in the last paragraph either. Also, some Brits use double quotes and not single quotes, so. But the rest of it's still good! :D)
1. Ordinary sentence plus dialogue tag.
"Hello, my name is John," said John. Dialogue ends with comma inside the quotation marks; dialogue tag does NOT have an extra capital letter.
Said John, "Hello, my name is John." Dialogue tag ends with comma; sentence of dialogue DOES have an extra capital letter for the first word; period is inside the quotation marks.
2. Question plus dialogue tag. Also exclamation plus dialogue tag, replacing the question mark with an exclamation point.
"What did you say?" said Sherlock. Dialogue ends with question mark inside the quotation marks; dialogue tag does NOT have an extra capital letter.
Sherlock said, "What did you say?" Dialogue tag ends with comma; sentence of dialogue DOES have an extra capital letter for the first word; question mark is inside the quotation marks.
3. Dialogue tag in the middle of a sentence.
"Hello," said John, "my name is John." Comma after the first bit of dialogue AND after the dialogue tag. No extra capital letter for EITHER the dialogue tag or the second bit of the sentence. If you want to do it this way, you should break the dialogue where there would be a comma naturally. For other kinds (using ellipses or dashes), see this guide by
gabe_speaks.Note: you CANNOT join two sentences with a dialogue tag. This ONLY WORKS if it is in the middle of a single sentence.
4. Dialogue tag in the middle of a sentence with a semicolon, broken at the point where the semicolon occurs.
"Whatever you want to do," said John; "it's your choice." Comma after the first part of the sentence, inside the quotation marks; no extra capital letter for EITHER the dialogue tag or the second part of the sentence; semicolon goes AFTER the dialogue tag.
More detailed explanations in this thing I wrote...oh Lord, eight years ago? (I'm much less strict about adverbs now, and not as sure about the interrupting-with-action stuff in the last paragraph either. Also, some Brits use double quotes and not single quotes, so. But the rest of it's still good! :D)