Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because theyâre used to writing essays rather than prose. I donât wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesnât offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (âdialogue tagâ just refers to phrases like âhe said,â âshe whispered,â âthey askedâ):
âFor most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and donât capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,â she said.
âBut what if youâre using a question mark rather than a period?â they asked.
âWhen using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless itâs a proper noun!â she snapped.
âWhen breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,â she said, âuse commas.â
âThis is a single sentence,â she said. âNow, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so thereâs no comma after âshe said.ââ
âThereâs no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.â She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.
And!
âIf youâre breaking dialogue up with an action tagââshe waves her hands back and forthââthe dashes go outside the quotation marks.â
Reblog to save a writerâs life.
Thank you
Oh my god thank you. No wonder grammarly keeps complaining about my punctuation when I boot my writing up into word counter
