Proper Dialogue Punctuation Master List
Because I'm apparently illiterate when I write, here's the list I made to keep track of proper punctuation with dialogue — Enjoy!
Use double quotation marks to enclose spoken words.
"I can't believe it's already Friday," Sarah exclaimed.
Place commas, periods, question marks, and exclamation points inside the closing quotation marks when they are part of the dialogue.
"Have you seen my keys?" John asked. "I've looked everywhere!"
Use a comma to separate the dialogue tag from the spoken words:
Before the dialogue:
Mary whispered, "Be quiet, they might hear us."
After the dialogue:
"I think we're lost," Tom admitted, looking around nervously.
Start a new paragraph for each new speaker.
> "Did you finish your homework?" Mom asked.
> "Almost," replied Jimmy. "I just have math left."
> "Well, hurry up. Dinner's almost ready," Mom said.
Use an em dash (—) to indicate interrupted speech.
For abrupt interruptions:
"I was about to tell you that—"
"Stop!" Jake shouted, cutting her off mid-sentence.
For self-interruption with action:
"How on earth"—he shook his fists—"do I punctuate this?"
For interruption by another speaker:
"How should we edit—"
"Not we, Bob," Whitney said. "Fixing this punctuation is all on you."
For trailing-off speech, use ellipsis (...) inside the quotation marks.
"I thought I saw something in the woods..." Jeremy whispered, looking around.
When dialogue is split by a tag, use a comma after the tag and lowercase the first word of the continued dialogue.
"If we don't leave now," Dad warned, "we'll miss our flight."
For questions within dialogue, place the question mark inside the quotation marks.
"Where did you put my glasses?" Grandpa inquired.
When the entire sentence containing dialogue is a question, place the question mark outside the quotation marks.
Did she really say, "I don't care about the consequences"?
Capitalize the first word of dialogue, even when it follows a dialogue tag.
The teacher announced, "Everyone, please take out your textbooks."
For dialogue interrupted by an action, use commas to set off the action.
"Okay, here's the plan. I think we should go here, and," he rifled through the papers and maps, "if we don't find what we're looking for, we can move on."
When using exclamation points or question marks in dialogue, the first word of the following dialogue tag should be lowercase. "Watch out for that car!" he yelled.
"How did you know?" she asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
When a character is quoting someone else in dialogue, you should use nested quotation marks.
"I couldn't believe it when Sarah said, 'I'm moving to Paris next month.' It came as a complete surprise," John explained.
When a character is summarizing someone else's words in dialogue, you don't need to use quotation marks for the summarized speech.
"I talked to Fred earlier," Mary said. "He told me he's been feeling overwhelmed lately and isn't sure how to handle his workload."
"According to Sarah, the meeting went well, and everyone agreed on the new project timeline."
When punctuating thoughts, capitalize and punctuate thoughts as you would spoken dialogue. Use thought tags ("he thought," "she wondered") to orient the reader, similar to dialogue tags.
She thought, When this week finally ends, my troubles will be over.
Where did I put my keys? he wondered, searching his apartment.
I wonder what he's thinking, Sarah mused as she watched John across the room.
If it's spoken (dialogue tags only, "he said," "she whispered") with no action, use a comma.
If it's an action while speaking, use a comma.
If it's an action completed before speaking, use a period.
If it's an exclamation mark/question mark before the dialogue tag, lowercase the pronouns following but capitalize all proper nouns (names) always.
If it's an exclamation mark/question mark after the dialogue tag, use a comma.
If it's the start of a standalone sentence, capitalize pronouns and proper nouns.
If you're confused about which to use (a comma and lowercase pronoun or period and capitalized pronoun), think "Are they doing this while speaking or after/before speaking?"
If your character is thinking, treat it like they're speaking.
If you're struggling to be consistent when writing, remember: it really doesn't matter. Perfection is an illusion, just write and use tools that make you happy. If you make a mistake, English is so complicated that most of the time, no one will notice. Now go write some great dialogue!
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