Punctuating Dialogue
Remember: even though you use the quotation marks to distinguish between your narration and the person speaking, you still have to pay attention to the basic flow of the sentence you wrote and punctuate appropriately.
Why do people mess this up?
Probably panic. "Oh no!" they think. "This is dialogue, and dialogue is for professionals! I don't know how to do that." Sure you do. Just calm down for a second and pay attention to the rules.
Ways of indicating who spoke
1. Attribution First: Mom said, "Come down here for a minute, sweet heart." Even though the dialogue contains its own sentence, it's still part of the bigger sentence that you are writing, which includes Mom said. That's why you put the comma after said. The only weird part is the fact that you capitalize the first letter of the dialogue.
2. Attribution afterward: "Come down here for a minute, sweet heart," she said. The same basic rules apply as above, with one exception: only capitalize the first letter of your attribution if it is a proper noun, as in "...sweet heart," Alice said.
3. Attribution in the middle: "Alice," said Mom, "please come down here for a minute." In this case, the real sentence is Alice, please come down here for a minute. Because we smooshed the attribution in the middle of the sentence, we only use commas to separate. If we stuck a period in there somewhere—for instance after Mom, we'd break the sentence and end up with a fragment.
2. Attribution afterward: "Come down here for a minute, sweet heart," she said. The same basic rules apply as above, with one exception: only capitalize the first letter of your attribution if it is a proper noun, as in "...sweet heart," Alice said.
3. Attribution in the middle: "Alice," said Mom, "please come down here for a minute." In this case, the real sentence is Alice, please come down here for a minute. Because we smooshed the attribution in the middle of the sentence, we only use commas to separate. If we stuck a period in there somewhere—for instance after Mom, we'd break the sentence and end up with a fragment.
Paragraphs and Dialogue
Each time a different person speaks, start a new paragraph. This signals to the reader in a visual way that we are switching to a new person and makes it easier to follow. In fact, the paragraph system is so effective that once you initially establish the pattern and make it clear who's speaking at the beginning, you can leave off the attribution for a while:
"Can I go to the movies?" Bruce asked.
"Sure," said Dad.
"Thanks, want to come?"
"You know, your mother and I were thinking about going to the movies. That would be fun!"
"Awesome! See you tonight."
It was clear who was talking, right? That's because I set my rules at the beginning and then followed the basic paragraph pattern for dialogue.
"Can I go to the movies?" Bruce asked.
"Sure," said Dad.
"Thanks, want to come?"
"You know, your mother and I were thinking about going to the movies. That would be fun!"
"Awesome! See you tonight."
It was clear who was talking, right? That's because I set my rules at the beginning and then followed the basic paragraph pattern for dialogue.
Worden, you make no sense. Can someone else explain this to me?
Sure. Crack open any novel and take a look at how the pros capitalize and punctuate their dialogue. Copy them.
OR, check out this link.
OR, check out this link.