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Punctuation in dialogue is one of the easiest things to get wrong in writing, and, frustratingly, it can be hard to find decent teaching resources. So if you’re struggling to tell whether to use a comma or a period, this guide is for you. 

1) Every time a new character speaks, the first line of their dialogue must be set apart by a paragraph break. 

Right: 

“I think Jeff Bezos might be a lizard,” said Bo. 

“Not this again,” I replied.

Wrong: 

“I think Jeff Bezos might be a lizard,” said Bo. “Not this again,” I replied. 

2) Only direct dialogue needs quotation marks. Direct dialogue is used when someone is speaking. Indirect dialogue is a summary of what was said.

Direct:

“Come on, Jeff, get ‘em!”

Indirect:

He told Jeff to go get ‘em.

3) Punctuation always goes inside quotation marks. 

Right:

“What would you prefer?”

“A goat cheese salad.”

Wrong:

“What would you prefer”?

“A goat cheese salad”.

4) If you follow or start a quote with a dialogue tag, you end the quote with a  comma. 

Right: 

“Welcome to the internet,” he said.

She asked, “Can I look around?”

Wrong:

“Welcome to the internet.” He said. 

She asked. “Can I look around?”

5) But, if you follow or start a quote with an action, you use a period. 

Right:

“Welcome to the internet.” He smiled. 

Her eyes flicked to the screen. “Can I look around?”

Wrong:

“Welcome to the internet,” he smiled. 

Her eyes flicked to the screen, “Can I look around?”

6) When breaking up dialogue with a tag, use two commas. Or, if the first piece of dialogue is a complete sentence, use a comma and then a period. 

“Yes,” he replied, “an avocado.” (split sentence)

“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” she said. “I loved that avocado.” (full sentence)

7) You may have noticed there are two different quotation marks ( ‘ and “). And when putting a quote inside a quote, you need to use the opposite style of quotation. 

Roger looked up. “And then he said, ‘I didn’t steal the avocado.’”

Or:

Roger looked up. ‘And then he said, “I didn’t steal the avocado.”’

(Using ‘ or “ often depends on personal choice. Although Brits like to use ‘ and Americans tend to use “ for their main dialogue)

“I am doing just fine without you.”

Should be the most painful thing you should ever have to hear. 

Witnessing that someone has moved on to the satisfactory sunsets, better people to gaze upon;

this should be the reason your heart breaks in the middle of a long night when you rest your eyes upon their vacant pillow,

it should be why you miss them at odd times of the day in the middle of a coffee shop,

it is why you can’t breathe when the familiar scent of them passes you by in a corner store and you can’t help but search for them until the skies grow distant.

And you wonder why they just couldn’t meet you halfway

“I have moved on.”

Should be something you feel oceans tumble over, not their lips

They are the words you hear before a chest is emptied of their anonymity. 

As you try to picture their body against another’s,

in a different bed with different sheets of a 

different lover.

You realize

This is something you, a month ago, never thought you would hear even in the light of day

It crossed your mind a few times at night as you lay awake peering through your curtains at the blurry street lights, as you wondered,

“Could I be free?” 

But the sun never rose on a different horizon

You were always in love, even if it were captivity for just a few hours of the night.

You never anticipated the walls crumbling.

You were only a mountain in their horizon. 

And you cannot reverse it. They are gone. 

They have moved onto stronger mountains, the powerful ones

Ones that can hurt them

Oh, and how you hope that they do

You hope that they grab them by the neck and strangle them against every earthly planet and every indestructible wind. 

By God, you pray they hear what broke your heart on that night months ago

You hope the sheets and the bedframe they rest in collapses into a void of burning, broken soullessness, black enough to crush their bones into dust and build them back together, but this time with the thoughts of you and not the faceless creature that pries their clothes off in the singing night. 

Thoughts just strong enough,

Hello again everyone! Since you all loved my brilliant advice from last time, I’ve decided to give you some more! And remember, you must follow these rules exactly - we don’t accept rule breakers here! After all, what would be the fun in variety?

1) Never use said

Said is waaaay too boring to use in an actual piece of writing. Instead, take it out and replace it with words like stammered, enunciated, ejected, inset, add, interpose, interrupt, utter, and announce. 

It’s not like you need to maintain a balance between said and overusing other words. No, your readers will love it if they have to read through pages and pages of grumbling and interposing! That won’t get annoying.

2) Don’t use purple

Why say purple when you can say mauve, periwinkle or amaranthine? All short words are bad and readers hate if you use them. No, fill your novel up with ornate, sumptuous prose that normal people can’t fathom. 

3) Avoid giving character descriptions

Spent ages crafting your character’s appearance? That doesn’t matter! Your reader won’t care anyway. Nope, don’t describe what they look like at all. After all, it’s not like knowing Harry Potter wore glasses or that Ron Weasley was ginger actually added anything to their characters.

4) Never rewrite

Think your story could do with a little more work? Well, make sure not to rewrite the entire thing. It’ll just water down your ideas and make you lose the core of your story! It’s not like rewriting could actually help you refine and come up with new ideas now you have everything plotted out...

5) You need to be amazing before calling yourself a writer

Write for hours everyday? Well, if you haven’t published anything, why call yourself a writer in the first place? Pah! If you don’t know the difference between a em dash and an en dash, then you can’t call yourself a writer. 

Being a writer is being part of a super exclusive club. It’s not like the word just means, you know, people who write. 

Every story is different, very different, but to write a good one, you might want to take a look at this list. Of course, there are always exceptions, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a tale that doesn’t have these characters.

Small disclaimer: They don’t have to be people. Your antagonist, for example, could easily be an idea, an organisation, or event (zombie apocalypse, climate change, Jeff Bezos’s bald head, etc.).

1) Protagonist

It comes as no surprise, of course, that your story needs a main character. They’re the person through which the reader sees the story, the one they relate to. Their choices, whether good or bad, should make sense. 

Depending on your story, you might have just one, or a whole bunch of main characters (Game of Thrones has as many as 52!).

2) Antagonist

Now, everyone’s favorite character - the antagonist. This is the person or thing that works against your protagonist’s goals. They don’t have to be evil (especially if your protagonist is more of an anti-hero), but should definitely throw some wrenches in the gears of your main guy’s plan.

3) Mentor

This is the person who helps guide your protagonist, for better or for worse. These are your Dumbledores, Yodas and Gandalfs. They’re (usually) pretty wise and help push the character along the right path. 

4) Sidekick

Where would your protagonist be without their trusty sidekick? While the mentor might show your protagonist which path to take, the sidekick accompanies them through their adventure. 

Normally, they have a couple of traits which contrast your protagonist’s and lets the reader see the story from a different perspective (e.g. John Watson, Donkey from Shrek, Chewbacca).

5) Sceptic 

This is a character that may be very close to your protagonist, but they don’t support the protagonist’s goals. They think your character either shouldn’t or can’t reach the end of their journey.

This type of character can be harder to spot - they may not be in every story - but they usually come in the form of worried partners, or parents, maybe even be a reluctant sidekick. They help keep your protagonist’s ego in check, and stop them from doing anything too reckless. 

I used to have a HUGE problem with passive voice in my writing. I hardly knew how to notice when I was using it, let alone cut it down. But it’s a big no-no for publishers, readers, and literary agents so it’s good to understand what it is, and how to use it.

In writing you can use either the passive or the active voice. 

The active voice is stronger and makes your writing more direct. The subject either completes the action of the verb, or is something.

Therefore, 7up is lemonade. (subject = 7up)

The dog spilled our lemonade. (subject = The dog)

The passive voice is where the subject is acted upon by another performer of the verb.

Our lemonade was spilled. (subject = lemonade)

Still confused? Me too. Let’s simplify things.

There’s a really easy way to quickly tell what is and isn’t passive voice. Just ask one question:

Did the zombies do it?

Essentially, if you can tack “by zombies” on the end of your sentence, it’s passive voice. 

Our lemonade was spilled by zombies.

Therefore, 7up is lemonade by zombies. (Sentence doesn’t make sense = active voice)

7up is a lie and was created by zombies. (Now it makes sense = passive voice)

So now you know how to identify when passive voice (or a zombie) is taking over your sentence, why should you avoid it?

It’s important to remember that passive voice isn’t a mistake, it’s a style. But it’s often disliked for a few reasons:

1) It makes thing way wordier than they need to be. 

I hate 7up.

7up is hated by me.

Which is shorter?

2) Similarly, because things are wordier, they become harder to read. Yes, a fifty-word-long sentence might make you look smart, but I don’t want to read ten of them.

3) It hides information. Passive voice is less concrete because it removes the subject.

7up was shown to be lemonade. (by who?)

Dr. Pepper showed that 7up is lemonade.

Of course, there’s no hard and fast rule for how you should use passive voice. But if you wanna spice up your writing, keep it to a minimum.   

Thanks for reading! And now, a message from our sponsors:

So in my current WIP, I’m writing from the POV of two different characters. I haven’t done it before, so it’s a bit of challenge! Anyway, here are some of the tips I’ve picked up along the way:

1) Make them unique

Try to give each character their own voice. After all, not everyone thinks in exactly the same way. I’m sure your inner monologue is a lot more coherent than mine.

Maybe one of your characters is a cup half-full kinda guy, while the other one is half-empty. Maybe they don’t see the cup at all. 

One could be really eloquent and use all sorts of fancy words, and the other might have never picked up a dictionary. Give them a phrase, something they’re obsessed with, maybe they mention their favorite band once in a while, or spend a lot of time talking about seagulls. Just develop them as much as you can, and (if you’re feeling really sneaky) maybe base them on someone you know IRL.

2) Use it to your advantage

Wanna give your readers more insight into why a character does what they do? Put emphasis on major events? Keep secrets? Tell your reader lots of important facts about birds?

You can use POV for all of these. Something that’s not important to one character could be life-changing for another. 

3) Keep them separate

In general, stick to one chapter per POV. This is probably the easiest way to avoid confusion and help keep a unique voice. 

Of course, some series do break this rule. It can be particularly useful in fight scenes and helps keep the action going. If you want a good example of this, just take a look at the I am Number Four series.

4) Don’t have toooo many perspectives

Yes, writing POVs is fun, but having a lot can get confusing (and very hard to write). Most books stick to two or three, and staying between two and five is probably safe. 

Then again, George R. R. Martin uses more POVs than you can count so this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Just be careful not to dilute the story. 

5) Play around a bit

Sometimes, for a little bit of fun, tell the story from a background character’s perspective. Just for a bit.

 Maybe the old woman on the bus watches as your protagonist runs across the traffic. Maybe the businessman late to his interview discovers his office block has been destroyed by your villain’s latest ray gun. Maybe the guy on the pier is so distracted by what your characters are doing, the seagulls steal his food. 

This is normally at the beginning of a book and can help world build, or add in some humour. It shows that the rest of the world is still rumbling on, even while your characters are running about like headless chickens.

And that’s about it! Just remember to have fun and don’t be afraid to make crazy characters! After all, everyone loves the Mad Hatter.