She sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, the theme song from The Wizard of Oz.“Let’s go to the park today,” she said, “since the weather is so beautiful.”īritish English puts the periods and commas inside the quotation marks if they’re actually part of the quoted words or sentence. “Let’s go to the park today since the weather is so beautiful,” she said. Nancy said, “Let’s go to the park today since the weather is so beautiful.” Periods and Commasįor American English, periods and commas always go inside your quotation marks, and commas are used to separate your dialogue tag from the actual dialogue when it comes at the beginning of a sentence or in the middle. So we’ll start with the hardest punctuation marks to understand. We’re going to try to make this as easy as possible.
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That said, dialogue is hard to punctuate, especially since there are different rules for different punctuation marks-because nothing in English grammar is ever easy, right? They can picture the main character talking to someone in their mind’s eye, and it gives them a glimpse into how your character interacts with others.
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If you want your dialogue to be part of the scene described in preceding sentences, you can include it.īut if you want your dialogue to stand out from the action, start it in the next paragraph.ĭialogue is a fantastic way to bring your readers into the midst of the action. It’s often a stylistic choice whether to include your dialogue as part of the paragraph. We have a great article on how to punctuate your dialogue here: Where Does Punctuation Go in Dialogue? Punctuation for dialogue stays consistent whether it’s included in your paragraph or set apart as a separate paragraph. One man was grabbing bar stools and throwing them at others, and another one who you could tell worked out regularly grabbed men by their shirt collars and tossed them out of the way. The fight at the pub was getting out of control. On the other hand, if the dialogue you’re writing departs from the sentences that come before it, you should start a new paragraph and indent the dialogue. The major caveat is if someone new speaks after that, you start a new paragraph and indent it. As in the above example, if the dialogue is a natural continuation of the sentences that come before, it can be included in your paragraph.
Grammar how to introduce a quote from a character manual#
It all depends on what style manual your publisher or editorial staff follow.įor example, in the Chicago Manual of Style, putting dialogue in the middle of paragraphs depends on the context. In my research, I couldn’t find any hard and fast rules that govern how to use dialogue in the middle of a narrative paragraph. Almost hit by one flying person, she turned to John and said, “Let’s get the heck out of here right now.” One man was grabbing bar stools and throwing them at others, and while she watched, another one who you could tell worked out regularly grabbed men by their shirt collars and tossed them out of the way.
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Sometimes, though, in the middle of a narrative paragraph, your main character needs to speak. “Maybe you’re right,” he said and followed her towards the door.
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“Let’s get the heck out of here right now,” Mary said, turning away from the mayhem. How to Write DialogueĬonventional English grammar rules tell us that you should always start a new paragraph when someone speaks in your writing. Dialogue is the written conversational exchange between two or more characters.