rynne | dialogue formatting tutorial

Going home for Thanksgiving tomorrow, but wanted to post this before I left. Thanks to

tinitinytina for looking at it and making sure it makes sense and all.

Ah, the dreaded dialogue formatting—something that many people get right, but many more get wrong. Where do you use a comma and where a period? What should be capitalized and what shouldn’t? And why? Dialogue formatting isn’t easy to get right, and it’s easy to forget the rules, especially when published authors do it too. But, just as in the rest of the rules of grammar, dialogue formatting has its own reasons for what’s correct and what’s not, and hopefully once you know why commas go here and periods go there, and this is capitalized and that isn’t, you can get it correct when you write it. Note that all of my examples are off the top of my head.

Let’s start with something simple. Here is a piece of correctly formatted dialogue:

“Let’s go to Hogsmeade,” Harry said.

Look at the word “said”. That is what’s known as a dialogue tag; tags are verbs that connect the dialogue itself to the rest of the sentence. Other tags include “asked”, “exclaimed”, “replied”, and all those variations. Dialogue tags are ways of describing the dialogue, if it’s being said, or asked, or screamed, etc.

One of the most important things to know about tags is that on their own, or with only a subject or subject pronoun, they are fragments, which are incomplete thoughts. Every single dialogue tag is a transitive verb, which means that they require direct objects to be part of a complete sentence. A direct object, for those who don’t remember, is what the subject of the sentence does an action to. In the sentence “the boy caught the ball”, for example, “the ball” is the direct object because it is what the subject (the boy) is committing an action (catching) upon.

And the direct object of a dialogue tag is the dialogue itself. This means that the dialogue is part of the same sentence as the tag, and they therefore must be connected to each other. To continue using my example:

“Let’s go to Hogsmeade.” Harry said.

There is now a period after “Hogsmeade” in the dialogue, and because periods signal the completion of a sentence, what should be one sentence has become two: “Let’s go to Hogsmeade” and “Harry said” are separate. But remember, “said” is a transitive verb that requires a direct object! Because its direct object is now part of another sentence, it is now a fragment, and an incomplete thought. It is the job of a comma to connect parts of a sentence to each other, which is why the original formatting is correct.

Let’s extend the idea.

“Let’s go to Hogsmeade,” he said.

All I did was substitute a proper noun for a pronoun, which is not capitalized. That is because the dialogue and “he said” are still part of the same sentence, and you wouldn’t capitalize a pronoun in the middle of a regular sentence, would you? (Unless you’re speaking to or about a divine being, which Harry Potter certainly is not—you can write “‘Let’s go to Hogsmeade,’ He said” only if the person speaking it is God.)

It’s for the same reason that you wouldn’t write something like:

“Let’s go to Hogsmeade.” He said.

The “He said” is still a fragment! I don’t think I can emphasize that enough. Dialogue tags set apart from their dialogue with periods are fragments. The dialogue tag and the pronoun in front of it are still part of the sentence—treat them that way by using a comma and not capitalizing the pronoun.

Let’s switch it around a bit. You can capitalize the pronoun, but only if it’s at the beginning of the sentence, like this:

He said, “Let’s go to Hogsmeade.”

In this case, the pronoun is capitalized only because the beginning of a sentence is capitalized. Note that there is still a comma connecting the dialogue tag to the dialogue; the only difference is that the tag is now in front of the dialogue, and not after.

Maybe now you’re wondering why the beginning of the dialogue is capitalized in the above example—after all, it’s still inside the sentence, isn’t it, and aren’t you not supposed to capitalize random words inside a sentence? Dialogue gets away with it because it’s a sentence within a sentence—the dialogue is its own sentence, but it’s still part of the overall sentence that contains a dialogue tag. That’s also why dialogue can be said on its own, without a tag, but there can’t be a tag without its dialogue. It’s also why you can use question marks, exclamation points, dashes, and ellipses instead of a comma: question marks and exclamation points usually signal the end of a sentence themselves, but not always—you understand, don’t you?—but periods are more final.

Now moving on to continued dialogue.

“Let’s go,” he said, “to Hogsmeade.”

Continued dialogue, also known as interrupted dialogue, is one sentence of dialogue interrupted by a dialogue tag and continued after the tag. All the rules still apply. For instance, you wouldn’t write

“Let’s go,” he said, “To Hogsmeade.”

any more than you would write

“Let’s go To Hogsmeade,” he said.

It’s still the same dialogue sentence, it’s just that you’re putting the dialogue tag in the middle. If you capitalize the word after the dialogue tag inside the continued dialogue, then that’s just as if you were capitalizing that same word in a regular sentence.

That’s also why you wouldn’t do things like

“Let’s go,” he said. “To Hogsmeade.”

or

“Let’s go,” He said, “to Hogsmeade.”

It’s all still part of the same sentence, so only capitalize words that should be capitalized (meaning proper nouns and the beginning of the sentence) and don’t break the sentence apart to create fragments.

But this does not mean that every dialogue – dialogue tag – more dialogue structure is continued dialogue. For example:

“I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes,” Ron said. “My sugar quills are almost gone.”

“I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes” and “My sugar quills are almost gone” are both grammatically complete sentences. The second part is not a fragment if it is not connected to the first, and the dialogue tag is already attached to dialogue. “‘I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes,’ Ron said” is just as much a complete sentence as “My sugar quills are almost gone” is.

But it is a fairly common mistake to say things like:

“I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes,” Ron said, “My sugar quills are almost gone.”

The above sentence is an example of a comma splice, where a comma connects two (or more) complete sentences without the medium of a conjunction (and, then, etc), and which is a version of a run-on sentence. It would be like writing “I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes, My sugar quills are almost gone”, which is both improper capitalization and a comma splice. A way of telling the difference between continued dialogue and two separate dialogue sentences is to get rid of the dialogue tag and see if the sentence still makes sense and is grammatically correct.

You can only put two complete sentences of dialogue together in the same sentence if you connect them with either a dialogue tag and a conjunction, or another dialogue tag after the first, like:

“I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes,” Ron said, and added, “My sugar quills are almost gone!”

It would also be acceptable to leave off the second dialogue tag, though it’s best to leave it in to clarify. But you have to have some way of indicating that the two separate sentence of dialogue are just that—separate. Giving each sentence its own dialogue tag does that. You could also write it as:

“I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes,” Ron said, adding, “My sugar quills are almost gone!”

You just have to make it clear that they’re two separate sentences, which using one dialogue tag for both of them wouldn’t do.

What about dialogue – non-dialogue tag – dialogue?

“Let’s go,” Harry paused, “to Hogsmeade.”

You shouldn’t do that. Interrupted/continued dialogue should have a dialogue tag as the interrupter, so it would say:

“Let’s go,” Harry said, pausing, “to Hogsmeade.”

If you want to have an interrupter without the dialogue tag, then you must make it clear that the action is interrupting the dialogue by using dashes or ellipses, so that it would say something like:

“Let’s go—” Harry paused, “—to Hogsmeade.”

or

“Let’s go…” Harry paused, “…to Hogsmeade.”

Note that there must be a comma before the dialogue is resumed. This is to show that the interrupter is still part of the sentence, and not way out in left field with no punctuation to visibly connect it to the dialogue.

Acceptable style would also be:

“Let’s go”—Harry paused—“to Hogsmeade.”

But this can only be used for dashes, not ellipses. Ellipses are to show a slowing down or trailing off of thoughts while dashes lead directly from one thought to another, so ellipses wouldn’t make sense in this case, since you wouldn’t want to s l o w l y get to Harry’s pause and then back to the dialogue.

So, how about we move on to dialogue and sentences without dialogue tags?

“I just want to get a butterbeer.” Hermione smiled at her friends.

These are also two complete sentences, and there is no tag that needs its direct object dialogue to be complete. But say that instead you write something like:

“I just want to get a butterbeer,” Hermione smiled at her friends.

Comma splice! It’s two complete sentences being connected to each other through a comma when they don’t need that connection. It’s the same if you put the dialogue after the regular sentence, like:

Hermione smiled at her friends, “I just want to get a butterbeer.”

It’s just as much a comma splice as before; the only difference is the positioning of the sentences.

Also, for sentence fragments that aren’t dialogue tags and are connected to dialogue, like:

Smiling at her friends, “I just want to get a butterbeer.”

It’s just a fragment attached to dialogue and incorrect. You need to either add a dialogue tag, to read something like:

Smiling at her friends, she said, “I just want to get a butterbeer.”

or make the regular sentence complete, like:

She smiled at her friends. “I just want to get a butterbeer.”

Attaching a non-dialogue tag fragment to a piece of dialogue is not correct at all, because it makes the entire sentence a fragment.

What about things that could be either tags or regular verbs? Take, for instance:

“I’m hungry,” he sighed.

and

“I’m hungry.” He sighed.

Both are correct, depending on what you’re trying to say. If he sighed the phrase “I’m hungry”, then the first example is correct. But if he said the phrase “I’m hungry”, and then sighed, then the second example is the one you want. The dialogue tag is a way of describing the dialogue, so if you’re describing the dialogue as being sighed, then it’s a dialogue tag, and needs to be not capitalized.

Also, please do not forget the rule of new speaker, new paragraph. Every time a different person speaks, that person should get his or her own paragraph. Take the following two examples:

“Let’s go to Hogsmeade,” Harry said.

“I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes. My sugar quills are almost gone!”

“I just want to get a butterbeer.”

and

“Let’s go to Hogsmeade,” Harry said. “I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes. My sugar quills are almost gone!” “I just want to get a butterbeer.”

The second example is much more confusing than the first, because it’s much harder to tell who is saying what. The new speaker, new paragraph rule clarifies when there’s a new person speaking—otherwise, it would seem that Harry was the one saying, “I can’t wait to get to Honeydukes”, when I’ve given that example to Ron.

The only exception for this rule is if two people are saying something at the same time. In that case, you can say something like:

“Where to first?” Harry asked, just as Ron said, “Let’s go to Honeydukes!”

But each piece of dialogue has to be part of the same sentence, to show that they’re going on at the same time. And while this kind of thing is acceptable, it would probably be better if you split it into two paragraphs anyway, so it would say something like:

“Where to first?” Harry asked.

“Let’s go to Honeydukes!” Ron exclaimed at the same time.

But no matter what, you’ve got to make clear who is saying what.

What about when what one person is saying requires more than one paragraph, because that person switches topics in the middle of the dialogue?

“Flying’s not that hard,” Harry explained to the awe-struck first-years. “Or at least, it isn’t to me. The first time I got on a broom, I just knew by instinct how to go faster, and higher, and all of that.

“Anyway, I’ve got homework to do, so I’ll see you later.”

The first paragraph of dialogue does not have closing quotes, to show that the dialogue is not over and the dialogue right after it is still being spoken by the same person and not a new speaker. But the next paragraph does have beginning quotes, to show that it’s still dialogue and not a regular sentence. This pattern continues no matter how many paragraphs the character’s speech is.

Dialogue can also be embedded within a sentence.

Speeding through the sky on his broom, Harry shouted, “This is brilliant,” and did a loop.

The dialogue is fine in the middle of a sentence as long as it follows all the other rules—it has to be connected with commas. If you wanted Harry to be exclaiming that so there’s an exclamation point at the end of the dialogue (this also works for question marks), it can read like:

Speeding through the sky on his broom, Harry shouted, “This is brilliant!” and did a loop.

The exclamation point at the end of the dialogue takes the place of a comma, just as it would in a dialogue – dialogue tag structure.

If the dialogue tag comes before the dialogue, you can use a colon instead of a comma.

Harry said: “Let’s go to Hogsmeade.”

This is not commonly used anymore but is still correct; a colon is an indicator of a close, direct relationship between parts of a sentence and can be used after a dialogue tag to indicate the tag’s relationship to the dialogue. However, if the sentence is structured with the tag after the dialogue, like:

“Let’s go to Hogsmeade,” Harry said.

it can’t be used as

“Let’s go to Hogsmeade:” Harry said.

Colons are used to indicate further thought and can’t be used to signal the end of a thought, and so can’t be used to close dialogue.

Connections. That’s what grammar is—how sentences and parts of sentences are connected to each other, how they’re related to each other. And just like a family tree, those relationships can be pretty complicated and easy to confuse, but once you understand exactly how one part of a sentence relates to another, it’s much easier to remember. I hope that I helped with that understanding, though if you have further questions, don’t hesitate to ask, and I will explain to the best of my ability.