Content

• To step
• Part 1 of 2: Getting the punctuation right
• Part 2 of 2: Letting the dialogue flow naturally
• Tips

Whether you're writing fiction or non-fiction, satire or drama, writing dialogues can be challenging. The parts of a story in which characters speak are different from the other elements of a story because they start with quotation marks, which are used almost everywhere in the world. Here are some of the most used and established steps to make sure your story looks good when you need to figure out how to shape dialogue.

To step

Part 1 of 2: Getting the punctuation right

1. Split paragraphs and indent for different speakers. Since dialogue involves two or more speakers, readers need something that indicates where one's speech ends and the other's begins. Indenting the paragraph each time a new character begins to speak also provides a visual cue that helps readers follow the dialogue.
   • Even if a speaker only finishes half a syllable before they are interrupted by someone else, that still gets its own indented paragraph.
   • In Dutch, dialogue is read from the left side of the page to the right, so the first thing readers notice when looking at a block of text is the white space in the left margin.
2. Use quotation marks correctly. Writers use double ("") or single ("") quotes around all words spoken by a character, as in this example: Beth was walking down the street when she saw her friend Shao. "Hi!" she said with a wave.
   • A single set of quotation marks can span multiple sentences, as long as they are spoken in the same piece of dialogue. For example: Evgeny protested, “But Laura didn't have to eat her food! You always favor her! "
   • If a character is quoting someone else, use a different type of quotation mark around what your character says than around the dialogue they are quoting. For example: Evgeny protested, "But you never shout" Empty your plate "to Laura!" Or: Evgeny protested, "But you never shout 'Finish your plate' to Laura!" Both are allowed, but be consistent.
   • In other countries, one of them prefers direct speech. However, many European and Asian countries use chevrons () to indicate dialogue.
3. Give your dialogue tags correct punctuation. The dialogue tag is the part of the narration that makes it clear which character is speaking. For example in the next sentence is Evgeny protested the dialogue tag: Evgeny protested, "But Laura didn't have to eat her food!"
   • Use a comma to separate the dialog tag from the dialog.
   • If the dialogue tag precedes the dialogue, the comma represents opening quotes: Evgeny protested, "But Laura didn't have to eat her food!"
   • When the dialogue tag comes after the dialogue, the comma is inside the closing quotation mark: “But Laura didn't have to eat her food,” Evgeny protested.
   • If the dialogue tag interrupts a dialogue sentence, use commas that follow the previous two lines: "But Laura," protested Evgeny, "never have to eat her food!"
4. Use correct punctuation for questions and exclamations. Put question marks and exclamation marks inside the quotation marks, like this: "What happens?" Tareva asked. "I'm so confused now!"
   • When the question or exclamation ends the dialog, do not use commas to separate the dialog from the dialog tags. For example, "Why did you order a" mac and cheese pizza "for dinner?" Fatima asked incredulously.
5. Use dashes and ellipses correctly. Thought dashes (-) are used to indicate abrupt endings and interruptions in dialogue. They are not the same as hyphens, which are usually only used to link words. Ellipses (...) are used when dialog fades but is not interrupted abruptly.
   • For example, use a dash when speech ends abruptly: "What are you doing--" Joe began.
   • You can also use dashes to indicate when one person's dialogue is interrupted by another's: "I just wanted to tell you--"
     "Don't say it!
     "-that I prefer Rocky Road Ice."
   • Use ellipses when a character is momentarily lost or not sure what to say: "Yeah, well, I think I mean ..."
6. Capitalize the quoted speech. If the dialogue starts grammatically at the sentence of the character (as opposed to beginning in the middle of the sentence), capitalize the first word as if it were the first word of the sentence, even if you have a narration before it.
   • For example: Evgeny protested, "But Laura didn't have to eat her food!" The "m" of "But" is not technically the beginning of the sentence, but it begins a sentence in the world of dialogue, so it is capitalized.
   • If the first word quoted isn't the first word of a sentence, don't capitalize it: Evgeny protested that Laura "never has to eat her food!"
7. Break a long dialogue into several paragraphs. If one of your characters is giving a very long speech, then you should split that speech into several paragraphs, just like in an essay or the parts of your story that are not dialogue.
   • Open the quotes where you normally would, but then don't put any at the end of the first paragraph of the character dialog. The speech is not ready yet, so you are not using punctuation to indicate that it is!
   • However, do open the next paragraph in speech with a quotation mark. This indicates that it is a continuation of the dialogue from the previous paragraph.
   • Close your quote mark where the character's speech ends, as you normally would.
8. Avoid using quotes in indirect speech. "Direct speech" is someone who actually talks and quotes are used to indicate that. "Indirect speech" is a non-literal representation of what someone is saying, not someone who is speaking directly, and quotation marks are not used. For example: Beth saw her friend Shao on the street and stopped to say goodbye.

Part 2 of 2: Letting the dialogue flow naturally

1. Make sure the reader knows who is speaking. There are a few ways to do that, but the most obvious one is to use dialog tags correctly. The reader cannot be confused if your sentence clearly states that Evgeny is speaking and not Laura.
   • If you have a long dialogue that clearly only takes place between two people, you can choose to omit the dialogue tags entirely. In this case, you rely on your paragraph breaks and indentation to let the reader know which character is speaking.
   • You should only omit the dialogue tags when two or more characters are speaking if you intend to confuse the reader as to who is speaking. For example, if your characters are arguing, you may have the goal of making the reader feel that they are hearing just bits of the argument without knowing who is speaking. The confusion of the lack of dialogue tags can help with this.
2. Avoid using overly fanciful dialogue tags. Instinctively you may want to spice up your story with as many variations of "she said" and "he said" as possible, but tags like "she scolded" and "he admonished" can even detract from what your characters say. "She said" and "he said" are so common that they actually become invisible to the readers.
3. Vary where you put your dialogue tags. Instead of starting each dialogue sentence with “Evgeny said,” “Laura said,” or “Sujata said,” you can put some dialogue tags at the end of the sentence.
   • Put dialogue tags in the middle of a sentence, interrupting the sentence, to change the speed of your sentence. Since you must use two commas to distinguish the dialogue (see Step 3 in the previous section), your sentence will have two pauses in the middle of the spoken sentence: “And how exactly,” murmured Laura, “do you intend that before? to get each other? ”
4. Replace proper names with pronouns. Where proper nouns designate specific places, things and people and are always capitalized, pronouns are words without a capital letter that take the place of nouns and proper names. To avoid repetition of the names of your characters, you can occasionally replace them with the appropriate pronouns.
   • Some examples of pronouns are me, me, he, she, herself, you, it, that, each, a few, many, who, whose, someone, everyone, and so on.
   • Pronouns must always match in person and number with the nouns they refer to.
   • The only suitable pronouns that can replace, for example, "Laura" are singular and feminine: she, her, herself.
   • The only suitable pronouns that can replace "Laura and Evgeny" are plural and genderless (because plural is genderless): they, their, themselves, them.
5. Use twists of dialogue to make your design a bit more mixed. Dialogue twists and turns are short action moments that interrupt a dialogue sequence. They can be a great way to show what a character "does" along with what he "says" and give a nice boost to a scene. For example, "Give me that screwdriver," grinned Sujata, wiping her greasy hands on her jeans, "I bet I can fix that thing."
6. Use credible language. The biggest problem with dialogue is often that it doesn't sound credible. You talk in a completely normal way every day of your life, so be confident in your own voice! Imagine how your character feels and what he wants to say. Say it out loud in your own words. That is your starting point. Don't try to use difficult words that no one uses in real conversation; use a voice you would hear in everyday life. Read the dialogue back to yourself and see if it feels normal.
7. Avoid info dumping in dialogue. Using dialogue to provide information not only produces boring dialogue, but often also a dialogue that is so long that the reader loses his attention. If you want to communicate details about the plot or backstory, try to do so in the narration and not in dialogue form.

Tips

• Remember that less is often more. A common mistake of writers when writing dialogue is writing things down in longer sentences than people actually use. People use contractions and often omit unimportant words in everyday language.
• Be very careful when trying to use an accent in your dialogue. You often need extra punctuation to show accented sounds (“snap” instead of “snap”, for example) and that can look far too confusing to your reader.