---Say

What?---
How to write dialogue in fictional narratives

What is dialogue?
Dialogue is conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or movie.

What is a dialogue tag?
Sometimes called attribution, dialogue tags identify the person who is speaking.
Examples:
He said They replied She asked The boy yelled Cried the child

What are the rules for writing dialogue?

Rule 1: When a new speaker speaks, start a new paragraph.
Example:
“What if the pumpkin is glowing because it is enchanted?” asked Maria.
“Ah, excellent thinking!” responded Mrs. Bestor.

Rule 2: When dialogue ends with a question mark or exclamation mark, put the punctuation inside
the quotation marks. (See above as an example.)

Rule 3: When punctuating dialogue with commas and a dialogue tag before the dialogue, the comma
goes after the dialogue tag, and the appropriate punctuation mark goes inside the quotation mark at
the end of the dialogue.
Example:
Mohammed said, “I think there is a rat zombie under the rug.”

When adding a dialogue tag after the dialogue the comma goes inside the quotation
marks, and a period goes at the end of the entire sentence.
Example:
“Harris Burdick’s story is mysterious,” said the student.

Final set of rules:
To show an interruption or add narration within dialogue, follow these rules.

! With dialogue that trails away, as though the speaker has gotten distracted, use an ellipsis (…)
inside the quotation mark.
“I can’t really think…” she said.

! When dialogue is abruptly interrupted or cut off, use a dash inside the quotation mark.
“Well, I don’t think—”

! For non-dialogue inserted to break up the dialogue, use commas like this to separate the
narration (dialogue break) from the dialogue:
“And then I realized,” he said with relief, “that I do have a story premise.”

! When the speaker has started to say one thing, and changed his or her mind to say something
else, use the dash like this:
“I think I have a good story—I mean, I’m not trying to show off.”