How to Punctuate Dialogue in Fiction
Structure and punctuate the dialogue in your novel or story to make readers believe they are listening to a real conversation and watching your characters interact with one another. You want to make it clear who is saying what, but achieve this as unobtrusively as possible.
Quotation marks
Enclose direct speech (also called quoted speech, in which you repeat a character’s exact words) in quotation marks.
- “The cake tastes like bread,” Maya said.
- Lulu said, “The water tastes like paper.”
- “And the apples smell like tangerines,” said Farley.
- “Run!” she shouted.
- He asked, “Why?”
In American and Canadian writing, double quotation marks enclose quoted speech. Single quotes are generally used instead as speech marks in British, Australian, and other writing.
Commas
Use a comma to separate quoted speech from the speaker.
- “This vacation is boring,” said Lulu.
- “I knew that,” Maya said.
- She yelled, “Dragon!”
- Farley said, “I can’t find my shoes.”
Such clauses (“Maya said,” “she yelled”) identify the speaker and are called speech tags. Use commas both before and after a speech tag if it interrupts a speaker’s sentence.
- “The cake,” she said, “tastes like bread.”
- “Why,” she wondered, “do we need money?”
But use a period after a speech tag if a new sentence of quoted speech begins after it.
- “The cake tastes like bread,” said Maya. “The tea smells of coffee.”
- “I don’t know,” she said. “You can ask him yourself.”
- “We sell all kinds of packages,” Poco said. “Let me show you our catalog.”
Capitalization
Capitalize the first word of a sentence of direct or quoted speech.
- Maya said, “The hens are loose again.”
- Lulu asked, “Do you know where they are?”
- Farley cried, “Not again!”
- “We haven’t booked our tickets yet,” said Maya.
Capitalize the first word after a speech tag if it starts a new sentence.
- “We’ll call him again tonight,” Maya said. “Maybe this time he’ll answer.”
A new sentence begins after the speech tag.
- “Is he here?” she asked. “We need to speak with him.”
If a sentence of quoted speech that began before a speech tag continues after it (i.e., the speech tag appears mid-sentence), don’t capitalize the word that follows.
- “I think,” Maya said, “we should call him again tonight.”
The same sentence continues after the speech tag.
- “Do you know,” she asked, “if he is here yet?”
Question marks and exclamation points
If a line of quoted speech ends in a question mark or an exclamation point, omit the comma that generally appears before the speech tag.
- Incorrect: “Who are you?,” she asked.
Correct: “Who are you?” she asked. - Incorrect: “It’s here!,” she cried.
Correct: “It’s here!” she cried.
However, if the question or exclamation follows the speech tag, use a comma as usual.
- She asked, “Who are you?”
- She cried, “It’s here!”
Dashes and ellipses
Mark interrupted speech using an em dash.
- “You really should—”
“Don’t you tell me what to do, Farley Dash!”
An ellipsis (three consecutive periods) can also mark an interruption. More often, it signifies indecision, an incomplete thought, or a pause. In dialogue, an ellipsis can show faltering speech or a thought trailing off.
- Maya asked, “Would you like another slice of chocolate cake?”
“Oh, I really shouldn’t, but . . .” - “I heard . . . what was that? Did you hear that?” “The book . . . well, I’m afraid we can’t publish it.”
Speech tags: Who said what
Use a speech tag (also called a dialogue tag) to identify the character who is speaking. Here is a dialogue from The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett.
- The tree, in a voice like a very old door swinging open, said, “Serves you right.”
There was a long silence.
Then Rincewind said, “Did you say that?”
“Yes.”
“And that too?”
“Yes.”
See how the conversation continues without a speech tag attached to every line of dialogue? Once the two speakers have been identified, the reader understands that they take turns speaking. Another speech tag is needed only when a new speaker is introduced or clarification is needed, as in the following conversation from Little Women.
-
“Jo does use such slang words!” observed Amy, with a reproving look at the long figure stretched on the rug.
Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle.
“Don’t, Jo. It’s so boyish!”
“That’s why I do it.”
“I detest rude, unladylike girls!”
“I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!”
“Birds in their little nests agree,” sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the “pecking” ended for that time.
“Really, girls, you are both to be blamed,” said Meg, beginning to lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion.
Omitting unnecessary speech tags helps the reader follow along with minimal disruption. You can also omit speech tags the first time a person speaks if it is clear who is speaking, as in the following excerpt from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, where both boys have already been introduced to us.
-
Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved—but only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all the time. Finally Tom said:
“I can lick you!”
“I’d like to see you try it.”
“Well, I can do it.”
“No you can’t, either.”
“Yes I can.”
“No you can’t.”
“I can.”
“You can’t.”
“Can!”
“Can’t!”
Of course in a conversation with more than two characters involved, you may have to use speech tags more often, as in the following extract from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
- We stared at him until he spoke:
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” said Jem pleasantly.
“I’m Charles Baker Harris,” he said. “I can read.”
“So what?” I said.
“I just thought you’d like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin’ I can do it. . .”
“How old are you,” asked Jem, “four-and-a-half?”
“Goin’ on seven.”
Use clear and simple speech tags. Don’t try to mix things up by unnecessarily finding synonyms for the verb say. Use alternatives to the word said (such as observed, whispered, cried, shouted, yelled, noted, remarked) only if necessary to convey meaning to the reader.
Action tags
Action tags describe an action different from speaking and merit a sentence of their own. They are therefore separated from speech using a period, unlike speech tags, which take commas.
-
“Farley says he ate a whole bar of chocolate this morning,” said Poco, looking up from his phone.
Rita leaned forward. “Did he say chocolate?”
“Hmm? Yes. Why?”
“Farley hates chocolate. It’s code.” She got up and peered out the window. “Someone’s watching us.”
“Nobody’s watching us, Rita.” Poco scratched irritably at his chin. “You and Farley are always worrying about nothing.”
“Oh yeah?” Rita pointed to the building opposite. “Then who is that?”
Here is an extract from The House of Mirth in which Edith Wharton effectively uses action tags to make us feel we are in the room, watching what’s going on. Note how she uses commas with speech tags but periods with action tags.
-
“How delicious to have a place like this all to one’s self! What a miserable thing it is to be a woman.” She leaned back in a luxury of discontent.
Selden was rummaging in a cupboard for the cake.
“Even women,” he said, “have been known to enjoy the privileges of a flat.”
“Oh, governesses—or widows. But not girls—not poor, miserable, marriageable girls!”
“I even know a girl who lives in a flat.”
She sat up in surprise. “You do?”
“I do,” he assured her, emerging from the cupboard with the sought-for cake.
If the action is described in an adverbial phrase appended to a speech tag, use commas as usual, as in the final line of the example above. But don’t use verbs that don’t describe speech as speech tags. Smiling, yawning, winking, and laughing, for example, are acts different from speaking.
- Incorrect: I don’t know what you mean,” she yawned.
Correct: “I don’t know what you mean,” she said with a yawn. - Incorrect: “Here it is,” he smiled.
Correct: “Here it is,” he said, smiling.
Of course you can use such verbs in action tags, but use a period then rather than a comma to separate the tag from the speech.
- Incorrect: She yawned, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Correct: She yawned. “I don’t know what you mean.” - Incorrect: He smiled, “Here it is.”
Correct: He smiled. “Here it is.”
New line for each speaker
To make it easy for the reader to follow a conversation, use a new line (paragraph change) each time the speaker changes. End each line of dialogue with a period. The paragraph change indicates to the reader a change in speaker, as in the following extract from The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler.
- “Sarah, it’s bad for you to talk like that.”
“Oh? How am I supposed to talk?”
“I mean if you let yourself get angry you’ll be . . . consumed. You’ll burn up. It’s not productive.”
“Oh, productive! Well, goodness, no, let’s not waste time on anything unproductive.”
Multiple paragraphs, single speaker
In the rare case that speech by a single speaker runs into multiple paragraphs (a running quotation), place an opening quotation mark at the start of each paragraph but a closing quotation mark only at the end of the final paragraph. All previous paragraphs remain unclosed. This tells the reader that the speaker has not changed at paragraph change.
- As Dash writes: “Paragraph 1.
“Paragraph 2.
“Paragraph 3.”
You will probably need to do this only when quoting a long speech, essay, or monologue. In normal dialogue, characters don’t speak entire paragraphs’ worth of words in one go.
Thoughts and internal dialogue
A character’s thoughts are often enclosed in quotation marks.
- “Why not?” he thought. “I can always change my mind later.”
- “She seems kind,” mused Maya. “I’m glad he met her.” She imagined telling him exactly what she thought. “You, sir, are a pompous twit. And I’m going to knock that hat right off your head!”
Quotation marks may be omitted with interior monologue. This can make it seem as though you are in a person’s head, listening in on their thoughts.
- It is, thought Peter Walsh, beginning to keep step with them, a very fine training.
(Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf)
- Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She thought in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all people adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well, the world was certainly turning upside down!
(Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery)
When quotation marks are omitted and a thought appears mid-sentence, the first word is often capitalized to set off the thought from the rest of the sentence.
- Then suddenly I thought: Why, what would life be without my puppy!
(A Dog’s Tale by Mark Twain)
- So I thought, Why waste five hours trying to versify the incident?
(Something Else Again by Franklin P. Adams)
But it is not essential to capitalize the first word of a thought if it is clearly being directly quoted, as in the following sentence from Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea.
- I suddenly thought, if he is no longer in the army, why does he have to come and see me at a holiday weekend when the roads are full of traffic?
A writer may also use formatting options, such as italics, as Terry Pratchett does in Going Postal, where the main character, Moist (yes, that’s his name), is in conversation with another character. Moist’s spoken words are enclosed in quotes and his thoughts shown in italics.
- Hold on a minute, Moist thought, this is only one city. It’s got gates. It’s completely surrounded by different directions to run. Does it matter what I sign?
Indirect or reported speech
Don’t use quotation marks if you are reporting a conversation or dialogue instead of quoting the speaker’s exact words.
- Direct (quoted) speech
Poco started washing the apples. “Why didn’t you call me last night?”
“I had a migraine,” Lulu said.butIndirect (reported) speech
As he started washing the apples, Poco asked Lulu why she hadn’t called him the night before. She said it was because she’d had a migraine.
Dashes instead of quotes to mark dialogue
Dashes may be used instead of quotation marks to punctuate dialogue, as in this excerpt from A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle.
- — Will we go for a stroll, so? he said.
— Yes, she said.
— Right.
He wiped the blade of the shovel on his sleeve.
— Let’s get this gleaming for the lady.
He let the spade hop gently on the path. Melody heard music.
— Now we’re right, said Henry Smart.
He held out his arm, offered it to Melody.
— Hang on, said Melody.
Dashes can make dialogue seem more immediate, as though you’re watching two people talking. However, dashes are less common than quotation marks, which are more popular as speech marks for a reason: they indicate clearly where quoted speech begins and ends.
Omitting speech marks from dialogue
Some writers prefer to omit punctuation altogether, using neither quotation marks nor dashes. Cynan Jones’s The Dig omits speech marks to create an effect that is more immediate, more direct, more urgent.
- We’ve had a report of fly-tipping. He waited. I just wanted to ask whether you would know anything about that.
What did they tip? asked the man. The policeman didn’t respond. He was looking at the junk and the big man saw and said, Does it look like I throw things away? Just wondered if you could help, sir, said the policeman.
Before opting for this minimalist style, ask yourself if your short story or novel requires it. Speech marks clearly outline quoted speech in a passage. By omitting them, you are making the reader pay extra attention to understand which words are quoted speech and which are narration. If you do use this method, review your writing carefully to make sure you don’t confuse (and irritate or tire out) the reader.