Dirty Little Guide to Dialog Grammar · 7:57am May 28th, 2020
If there’s one thing I learned while judging my contest, it’s that a lot of people struggle with dialog grammar. That’s understandable -- various school systems often teach the basics of grammar that you’ll use in essays and school reports, but they rarely spend much (if any) time on how to punctuate dialog, since that’s something mostly confined to fiction writing.
Dialog grammar can get a little complicated, but it’s not that complicated. The basics are easy to pick up, and even the tricky bits follow rules that are easy enough to learn.
Basic Level:
The most basic type of dialog would be a single sentence that’s 100% dialog and nothing else: ”This is easy.” Very simple. All you need to remember is to capitalize and punctuate it like a normal sentence, then put everything (including punctuation) inside quotation marks.
Things begin to get more complicated when you want to add a dialog tag -- also called an attribution -- to specify who said it. The important part to remember throughout all of these is that both the dialog and the dialog tag are one sentence. The sentence isn’t over until both the dialog and the dialog tag are over.
Let’s start with the most common: ”This is easy,” she said. The period at the end gets replaced with a comma and the first word of the dialog tag doesn’t get capitalized. But, of course, there are exceptions to this. If the first word of the dialog tag should be capitalized anyway, it stays capitalized: ”This is easy,” Twilight said. If the dialog ends with a bang or a question mark, it does not get turned into a comma: ”This is easy!” she said. and ”Is this easy?” she said. Also note that a bang or a question mark does not change whether the first word of your dialog tag gets capitalized.
Before we move on to the other ways to use dialog tags, a very important note: The verb in a dialog tag must describe how the character actually made the sounds of the dialog.”This is easy,” she said. -- good.”This is easy,” she yelled. -- good.”Fine,” she sighed. -- good.”This is easy,” she sighed. -- marginal. It’s difficult, though not necessarily impossible, to ‘sigh’ four syllables.”Using correct grammar in dialog is as easy as trigonometry,” she sighed. -- bad. There’s no way anybody could ‘sigh’ that sentence.”This is easy,” she shrugged. -- bad. Unless she’s shrugging in Morse Code, she’s not actually saying that by shrugging. You could correct this by separating the sentences: ”This is easy.” She shrugged. Now it’s two separate sentences. She says the dialog, and then she shrugs.”This is easy,” she put her teacup down on the table. -- bad. She didn’t say this by ‘putting’. Again, it should be separated into two different sentences.
Another way to do dialog tags is to put the dialog tag before the dialog. Like this: She said, “This is easy.” Again, remember that both the tag and the dialog are part of one sentence. But the dialog should start with a capital letter as if it’s the start of a new sentence. (I know it’s not super-consistent ... I didn’t make the rules, I just try to teach them.) The previous point about the verbs is also valid here. She shrugged, “This is easy.” is just as incorrect as the similar example above when it comes after the dialog. When used before the dialog it introduces, the dialog tag should always end in a comma.
In case it isn’t obvious, you shouldn’t use dialog tags both before and after: Twilight said, “This is easy,” she said. is obviously wrong, but as sentences get longer and more complicated, you might have to watch out for accidentally doing that.
You can also reverse the order of the dialog tag and still be grammatically correct. ”This is easy,” said Twilight. is a fairly common form that sounds more natural to some people (note that the first word of the dialog tag is not capitalized). Said Twilight, “This is easy.” -- this version is very uncommon and rarely seen outside certain kinds of poetry, but it’s still grammatically correct.
Now that you know the basics of how to write good dialog tags, it doesn’t mean you should go overboard with it. It’s often best to avoid using dialog tags whenever you can get away with it. If you can remove the dialog tag and readers will still know who said it, it’s usually best to remove the tag. There are many ways in which you can make it clear who’s saying what without dialog tags, but that’s a more stylistic concern than pure grammar, so it’s outside the scope of this guide.
Intermediate Level:
You can get by on only the basics, but there are still a few more things to learn that you’re likely to use quite often.
Adding a dialog tag in the middle of dialog can be a nice way to mix things up a little and keep the rhythms of your writing fresh, especially when there’s a lot of dialog going on. As always, the key is to remember that it’s all one sentence. You end the first half of the dialog with a comma, then introduce the next half with another comma: ”This dialog stuff,” she said, “is pretty easy.” Note that the continuing dialog after the tag is not capitalized. Also, you’ll want to insert your dialog tag during a natural pause in the dialog’s rhythm. The previous example is pretty terrible if you change it to: ”This,” she said, “dialog stuff is pretty easy.” A dialog tag is also more natural-sounding and more useful if it comes near the beginning of the dialog. If you put a dialog tag at or near the end of a very long sequence of dialog, it may sound strange. Worse, it will leave your reader unsure who’s speaking until the end, which can briefly confuse them.
It’s very important to note, though, that you only do this when one sentence of dialog continues across on both sides of the dialog tag. This only works because ”This dialog stuff is pretty easy.” is all one sentence. You can still put a dialog tag in between sentences, but then it’s done a little differently: ”This is easy,” she said. “Anyone can do it.” This is two sentences, one that’s dialog and a dialog tag, then that first sentence ends, then you have a new sentence that’s 100% dialog. Just combining two of the basic forms above. It’s not always 100% clear which type to use because sometimes it’s up to the author’s discretion whether the two sides are part of the same sentence or not ... but sometimes one or the other method is clearly wrong. Here are some examples:”I don’t see what’s so hard about this,” she said. “It’s pretty easy.” -- here, it’s clearly two separate sentences and punctuated accordingly.”I don’t see what’s so hard about this,” she said, “it’s pretty easy.” -- this one is wrong. You might be able to argue that it’s all one sentence ... but it’s pretty clearly supposed to be two sentences.”Get my coat for me,” she said. “Oh, and get my hat, too!” -- this case is ambiguous, and it can be correct to treat it as being two separate sentences.”Get my coat for me,” she said, “oh, and get my hat, too!” -- this is an alternate, equally correct, version of that ambiguous example, this time treating it all as one sentence. Both forms are okay.”Hey Rarity, could you please,” she said, “get my coat for me?” -- this is clearly one sentence and it’s punctuated correctly for that case.”Hey Rarity, could you please,” she said. “Get my coat for me?” -- this is incorrectly punctuated for one sentence.
Sometimes, you’ll want to end a bit of dialog partway through a sentence, and there are a couple ways to do that.”This is...” -- an ellipse (which always consists of three dots, never two or four) indicates that the speech trailed off gradually, fading away. It also means that there was more left unsaid. It shouldn’t be used at the end of a complete sentence if the character has already said everything they meant to say.”This is—” -- a dash indicates that the speech cut off abruptly, usually because the character was physically prevented from speaking or because they got interrupted. (Please note that it’s redundant to follow this with something like She was cut off. It’s already implied in the grammar. It’s best to follow this dialog-ending dash immediately with whatever action or interruption prevented her from speaking, as in ”This is—” She tripped and fell face-first on the floor.) Also note that you don’t need any punctuation after the dash. ”This is—.” is incorrect. However, even though it isn’t super grammatically correct, it’s often an acceptable practice to use a bang or a question mark after the dash if it’s necessary to get the tone of the dialog across: ”You’re an idiot if think that I shouldn’t—!” or ”Do you think this could—?” would be technically incorrect, but almost everyone will accept you doing that when it helps deliver the dialog’s tone better. Both em dashes: — and en dashes – are perfect for this, as long as you’re consistent. The double hyphen: -- is a substitute you can use in a pinch or if you’re lazy, and it will be acceptable most of the time, though it doesn’t look as professional or polished. A single hyphen - should not be used as a substitute for a dash. You should also be consistent about which kind of dashes you use. Using multiple different types in the same role can be considered a grammatical error, even if all of them would be okay when considered individually.
Also, you generally shouldn’t follow an ellipse or a dash with a dialog tag. If you want to anyway, an ellipse is more acceptable than a dash.”Is this...” she said. -- marginal. Kind of clunky, but you could probably get away with it.”Is this—” she said. -- bad. Pretty much no time when this would be acceptable.
It’s important that each paragraph only include dialog and actions from one character. Some writers have heard this rule and misinterpret it as saying that you always have to start a new paragraph when starting dialog -- this is wrong, and it will make your story have far too many paragraph breaks in it. The key is that each paragraph should focus on the thoughts, actions, and dialog of just one character. You then start a new paragraph whenever the story starts talking about the next character. It’s okay to start dialog in the middle or at the end of a long paragraph, as long as that whole paragraph is about what one character is doing. It’s even okay to have multiple different sentences of dialog all mixed in with thoughts and actions as long as all of them are from the same character. But as soon as a different character does or says something, you should probably be putting that in a new paragraph. One common pitfall of this would be to have a paragraph like: ”Character A’s dialog.” Character B’s actions and thoughts. “Character A’s dialog again.” An example like that should be broken up into three short paragraphs instead.
Advanced Level:
Tired yet? Well, take a break maybe, because now we’re moving on into the complicated fiddly bits that most people will rarely if ever use.
For dialog where one character continues speaking across multiple paragraphs, with no break between, you just omit the ending quotation mark of the previous paragraph, while keeping the starting quotation mark of the next paragraph. A regrettably lengthy example:
”I used to think dialog grammar was easy,” she said. “I used to think I could learn it all in one day. But the more I learn about the subject, the more I find out how much I didn’t already know and how much there still is to learn.
“But I kept going, and in the end, I found out there isn’t that much after all. It’s really just a series of simple rules, even if some of them don’t make sense or aren’t totally intuitive at first.”
This is really only likely to be used if you have some character giving a speech or a long monologue. Even in this example, it’s probably short enough that it would make more sense to combine it all into one paragraph. But if you have a character who’s just speaking on and on, you may need to use this technique.
Sometimes, you want to interrupt dialog with a quick action that isn’t a dialog tag. Usually, you’d want to just break the dialog up into two separate sentences and put a third separate sentence of action between them. But you don’t have to, not if it would really work better with the dialog being one sentence. There are two ways to do this:”This is–” she looked around the room “–easy.” -- in this example, she stops speaking for a moment to look around the room. Putting the dashes inside the quotes indicates a pause in the dialog.”This is”– she looked around the room –“easy.” -- in this example, she looks around the room while speaking. Putting the dashes outside the quotes indicates that she spoke and did the action at the same time.
In both cases, you don’t put spaces between the dashes and the dialog, but you do put spaces around the action. It’s all part of one sentence, so you don’t capitalize the action or the first word of the continuing dialog.
This should only be used for very short interjections of action into dialog -- the example above is already pretty much at the limit of how long you’d want to make one of these.
Sometimes you want to include a short snippet of dialog within a sentence in a way that fits into the sentence’s grammar. In this case, you dispense with almost all the punctuation and capitalization: With a curt “screw you” that could be heard across the entire lobby, she stomped out through the front door. If you want to add a bang or a question mark, you can: With a curt “screw you!” that could be heard across the entire lobby, she stomped out through the front door. The dialog included with this technique should be very short, usually just one or two words, maybe three. It should never be anywhere close to as long as the sentence that surrounds it.
When you have a character talking about what someone else said, you might need to use nested quotes: ”When I asked her, even Rainbow said, ‘This is easy.’ How hard can it be?” The quote inside of a quote like this uses all the same rules of dialog grammar, except that you’ll use single quotes on the inner quotation. (Or if you’re using single quotes on the outer one, you’d then use double quotes on the inner one. The point is that you’ll use the opposite.) If you have a triple-nested quote for some reason -- may the Invisible Pink Unicorn have mercy on your soul -- you’d alternate back to double quotes, going back and forth between single and double quotes for each deeper level of quotations. That’s something you’ll almost always want to avoid, though, because it can get very confusing for your readers.
Review:
Here are some of the most common errors I encountered. If you can avoid these, you’ll be doing better than a lot of writers here.
”This is easy”. -- putting the punctuation outside of the quotation marks is actually acceptable in British English for some incomprehensible reason (while my guide here is for American English). But if you’re going to do it this way, you need to do it consistently. A lot of the stories I read switched back and forth randomly.
”This is easy.” She said. -- you have to remember that the dialog tag and the dialog itself are all part of one sentence, so don’t go starting a new sentence. This example could be corrected as: ”This is easy,” she said.
Twilight said, “this is easy.” -- the dialog should start with a capital letter: Twilight said, “This is easy.”
”Everything they told me is true,” Twilight said, “This is easy.” -- If the next packet of dialog is a complete sentence on its own, it should not be connected to the previous dialog and dialog tag. This example could be corrected as: ”Everything they told me is true,” Twilight said. “This is easy.”
”Rainbow Dash,” Twilight asked, “Are you sure this is easy?” -- if the dialog that continues after the dialog tag is the same sentence, it should not be capitalized. Fixed: ”Rainbow Dash,” Twilight asked, “are you sure this is easy?”
”Is this easy,” Twilight asked. -- if the dialog is a question and ends with a dialog tag, the comma should be replaced with a question mark: ”Is this easy?” Twilight asked.
”Is this easy?,” Twilight asked. -- if you’re replacing the comma with something else, you should remove the comma. It’s wrong to have both. Better version: ”Is this easy?” Twilight asked. (You might notice in this example that it’s kind of hard to tell that the dialog and dialog tag are part of the same sentence. It could get even worse with things like ”This is easy!” Twilight yelled. Did Twilight yell, “This is easy!” or did she say, “This is easy!” and then yell? That’s just an ambiguity of the English language, so it’s best to avoid situations like that when you can.)
”Is this easy?” Twilight asked. “You bet it is,” Rainbow said. -- dialog from multiple characters should be split into separate paragraphs.
”Rainbow Dash, is this easy?” Rainbow nodded. “Okay, then,” Twilight said, “if you say so.” -- just like the previous example, this will be much less confusing if the actions and dialog from multiple characters are not mixed up in one paragraph.
”I am so tired of this boring grammar guide,” Rainbow walked out of the room. Unless rainbow somehow communicated the sounds of those words by walking, it’s not a proper dialog tag. There are two simple ways you could fix this:”I am so tired of this boring grammar guide,” Rainbow said, walking out of the room. -- adding a proper dialog tag verb.”I am so tired of this boring grammar guide.” Rainbow walked out of the room. -- making it two separate sentences.
Note that these two fixes mean different things. In the first, Rainbow says it as she walks out. In the second she says it, and then she walks out.
Okay, I’ll stop torturing you with grammar lessons now. Hopefully this guide might help you in your future writing.
If you have any questions about things that need to be clarified or about situations I didn’t cover, feel free to ask in the comments. I’ll edit this guide if it’s something I forgot to cover.
Also let me know if there’s anywhere else it might be good to share this ... because let me tell you -- there are a lot of people out there who need to read it!
Wow man, thanks a lot! I put a bookmark here because I think I have to use this quite often.
I already knew most of this from reading books and learning by example, but some of it is actually really helpful! Definitely bookmarked, and good to link others to if they need it :D
There's a classic Finnish example of putting the dialog tags in the wrong place: "Good," said the black-bearded man, "morning."
Ngl I just stopped reading when it became apparent you didn't know what you were talking about.
A horse porn fic writer just explained it better than schools
Well, this certainly came in handy, and great timing too. Good thing I hadn't submitted a story for a different contest yet, heh.
You said that "I didn’t make the rules, I just try to teach them." Does that mean you got those rules from somewhere? I'm not seeing any source in the post as far as I can tell.
This is the one thing that surprised me. Is something like:
not okay to write, as two characters are speaking in the same paragraph?
Lastly, on thing I was wondering about, do all these rules apply to thoughts as well when they are written as internal dialogue? Stuff like " 'Does he even know what he's talking about?' she wondered." over "She wondered if he even knew what he was talking about", to be clear. I also wanted to ask what you'd consider the best way to writing internal dialogue at all is, as I've seen people use both single quotation marks ('thought') and italics (thought), sometimes even within the same story.
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Are you talking about the guide? Cus Secret's guide is pretty spot on.
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If you have any corrections to make, I’d be glad to hear them.
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Heh, of course I got them from somewhere -- I didn’t invent all this! ^.^
But there’s no single source. Some of it is just from reading hundreds of books and learning by example. Other parts, I learned from having good editors correct me early on in my writing career. And some of it is from professors during my creative writing degree. Oh, and just plain google. This blog post is hardly the only guide to dialog grammar on the internet, and if you’re ever confused about something, it’s always easy to just ask google about it.
Yes, that one would definitely be wrong.
Sometimes you can cheat a little if you combine both into one sentence like this:
He wanted to press her on it when she replied, “Oh, nothing.” But then he decided against it.But that’s only for actions and thoughts. You should never have dialog from two different characters in the same paragraph.
(And it’s perfectly okay to have a lot of very short paragraphs when you have a back-and-forth conversation between two characters. That’s normal.)
Thoughts (aka ‘internal monologue’) are a whole different subject. But in brief, there are 3 ways to do it:
1: Italics. And italics can sometimes have grammar similar to dialog. For example, you could have This is easy, she thought. But there are some exceptions. You wouldn’t capitalize the beginning of the thought like you would for dialog: He thought, this is easy.
2: Quotation marks. If you’re putting thoughts inside quotation marks, then you’d treat it exactly the same as dialog. Using single quotes for thoughts and double quotes for actual out-loud speech is a common convention ... even though it’s not technically correct grammar to do so. But that’s one of the cases where I say it’s okay to override the rules of grammar. The whole point of grammar is to make your writing easier to understand, and if bending the rules a little bit makes things easier to understand, you should bend the rules. It’s better to be understandable and grammatically incorrect than to be confusing and grammatically perfect.
3: Normal text. You don’t have to make any grammatical distinction between thoughts and other text. As long as you pay attention to your verb tenses and POV, you can interject thoughts straight into the narration with no problem.
You should definitely be consistent with whichever one you choose. Sometimes you might be able to get away with using different types in the same story, but it would usually be a mark against you and be more confusing for readers, so just stick with one of them.
Of these three, #2 is the least commonly used. #1 is fairly common, especially among amateurs or for young adult fiction ... but #3 is really the gold standard, especially if you’re using 1st person POV or a very close 3rd person. Some examples of how you can use #3 and still make it clear that it’s the character’s thoughts:
This is easy, she thought.-- simple and to the point. (Though the ‘she thought’ tags can get annoying very fast, so try to only use one or two, usually near the beginning, and then just trust your reader to understand afterward.)She jumped down into the pit. I’m making a terrible mistake, aren’t I? Looking around for the tigers, she slowly crept forward.-- In this example, the thoughts are in first person, present tense, while the narration is in 3rd person past tense, which helps make it very clear which is thought and which is narration, without having to use any fancy formatting or tags.I jumped down into the pit. I’m making a terrible mistake, aren’t I? Looking around for the tigers, I slowly crept forward.-- this example is entirely in 1st person, but the switch to present tense still makes it pretty clear which parts are thoughts and which parts are narration.I jump down into the pit. I’m a fucking idiot like that. Where are the tigers? Where are those fucking tigers? I don’t see them anywhere, where are they?-- especially when you get into a voicey 1st person perspective, the line between thoughts and narration can blur. That’s perfectly okay, and it’s often a good thing, letting you get really close to a character and inside their head.I'm really confused on one thing, because other than that, this has actually helped me out better than school since this was my biggest struggle due to my disability. So thank you very much for this guide.
The thing I'm really confused about is why is dialogue misspelled?
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Did I have a typo somewhere?
Because both dialog and dialogue are acceptable spellings.
(Following the common trend of dispensing with unnecessary letters, ‘dialog’ is more popular in American English, while ‘Dialogue’ is more common in British English.)
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From what I looked up 'dialogue' was the use for American, British, and other languages. While 'dialog' itself is used in computational settings. So anything dealing with computer from what I read is where you use 'dialog' and all speaking terms is 'dialogue'.
Here is at least one source I looked at.
Edit: Because my teachers also taught me that it was always dialogue, especially in the textbooks.
This is weirdly timed. I just put out a blog post on something related to this.
If you are British, should you write in British English (assuming you plan on uploading it to the internet) or use American English as that is viewed (don't understand why tbh) as being more “universal”?
The ones I struggle with the most are armour/armor, colour/color, and mummy/mommy. I’m never sure which to use.
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First and foremost, be consistent.
After that, it’s up to you. American or British ... or even a hybrid of the two. There are a few things you might want to base that decision on:
Which one are you more comfortable with and less likely to make mistakes in?
Which one is going to be more comfortable and familiar to your audience? (Hint: American. There are some Brits on Fimfic, but nowhere near as many as Americans.)
Does it annoy you when Americans give unsolicited ‘corrections’ for your British English grammar?
Which one do you enjoy doing more?
When you’re publishing an actual book, you’d always use the grammar and spelling of where the book’s going to be sold. If the book is sold in both the US and UK, there would usually be different versions sold in each market. But when you’re publishing online and anyone can read it, you never know what language preferences your readers will have. And whichever choice you make, it will seem strange to some readers ... so just choose whichever suits your needs best.
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A lot of this stuff is arguments I’ve considered before, some of which are pro American, and some Pro British, hence why I’ve always struggled with this problem.
However,
that is something I hadn’t considered. Thanks for that. :D I think I’ll stick with British. It’s what my computer is set to so it’ll be easiest to keep consistent and what feels most natural for me. Thanks. :)
Also, this post needs to be sent to every English Lit teacher in the land. How come a random guy on the internet who writes horse porn can teach this stuff better than most actual schools? Most education systems seem to be screwed for this reason. Just sayin. Nice work.
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Most English teachers are focused on teaching you the grammar you’ll need for the kinds of reports and papers you’ll be writing in school. (And that’s a hard enough job as it is. As an English major in college, it irritated me to no end when I saw my fellow English majors making stupid, very basic grammar mistakes. People who are about to graduate and still don’t know the difference between ‘they’re’ and ‘there’, for example.)
But very few of their students will go on to write fiction, so it’s kind of understandable that they don’t do much to teach the grammar of dialog ... which is something you pretty much only use in fiction writing. (But all of their students will go on to write reports and essays later in school, so they work hard to try and get that kind of grammar into their students.)