Grammar 101: Dialogue and Quotation Marks

Basics


1. A block of one or more entire sentences of stand-alone dialogue is punctuated as normal and surrounded by quotation marks, e.g.:

• "Don't give me that, Emmy."
• "Should I mow the lawn today?"
• "Watch out! Watch out for that car!"

2. A block of one or more sentences of dialogue with dialogue tags after it - verbs like "said" or "shouted" - is punctuated in exactly the same way, except for sentences that end with a full stop/period that come right before the quotation marks, e.g.:

• "Shut up. Don't give me that, Emmy," he said.
• "Should I mow the lawn today?" she asked.
• "Watch out! Watch out for that car!" he shouted.

Do not capitalize the first letter of the dialogue tag. Syntactically, you're writing one sentence. It's an entire sentence with another entire sentence (or more) embedded in it. The capital letter at the beginning of the dialogue is enough. This is the same reason why you need to use a comma at the end of the embedded dialogue; you need to show the flow of the entire sentence, embedded dialogue included.

"But Apple," you say, a bewildered look on your pretty little faces, "question marks and exclamation points end sentences too! Why shouldn't we capitalize the first letter of the dialogue tag when using them, or use a comma instead?"

You're right; they do end sentences. But that's only their secondary function. Historically, their primary function was to indicate emotion. That's why you see sentences in the old Regency classics like this:

• And oh! how I longed to tell her the truth about Mr. Eddings.

The exclamation point is being used to indicate feeling, not to end the sentence; the capital letter and full stop indicate the beginning and the end of the sentence quite clearly.

This is a technique still used by literary writers today, although it's gone somewhat out of style (to the detriment of the language, I feel).


3. Sentence fragments around dialogue tags are split up with commas. If a comma belongs to a fragment, it goes inside the quotation marks. If not, it goes outside, e.g.:

• "What," he said, "are you doing here?"
• "No," she said, "that's not how you clean the lawnmower."

A comma belongs to a fragment if it's used to end it. So the comma at the end of "what", because it's used to indicate the end of the fragment, belongs inside the quote-marks. Likewise, the comma used to indicate the end of the tag "she said" is with the tag.


4. You can mix whole sentences with fragments in the same block of dialogue. In that case, punctuate using the rules above. The main thing you have to remember is that if dialogue makes sense to be in the same paragraph given the context, it belongs in the same paragraph. (There are other rules as well, but this is the most overarching.) E.g.:

• "Oh no!" he said. "I've made a horrible mistake."
• "Hello," she said. "My name is Ellie."

Advanced

1. Most people choose to start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes. For the most part, this makes sense. However, a more accurate rule might be, "Start a new paragraph when a new set of actions is happening in conversation." E.g. (-- indicates new paragraph):

• -- Jen stared at him. "You're a thief!" she cried. "Aren't you?"
  -- "Er, yes," he said. She crossed her arms, annoyed. "Well," he continued, "I'm not always a thief."

This is something you have to get a feel for, and is quite subjective. The above example could easily be presented in a number of different ways, each depending on the author's desire for a particular emphasis or timing.


2. Use "said", please, or at a stretch, cried (to indicate stress, fear, or volume, not tears - as in "to cry out"). This has been mentioned in almost every online writing tutorial everywhere, and it still stands. Verbs like "gasped" and "stammered" should not be used as dialogue tags. Powerful verbs need to pack their punches on their own.

Even quite successful authors do this; it drives me nuts. Trust me when I say that it's purple prose, almost without exception.

Listen, I know that people yell. Sometimes you have to tell your reader that they're yelling. So do this instead:

• She yelled at him. "Goddammit, Edgar," she said. "Why the hell did you sleep with her?"

We know she's yelling due to the verb in the descriptive sentence and the italics, but unlike poor Edgar, we're not confronted with it directly.


3. Quotation marks are used to show when single words are being discussed as words, rather than as the objects or concepts (ontological objects) they represent, e.g.:

• The words "dog" and "canine" can refer to the same animal, though their implications differ.

In this case, they don't need commas.


4. When embedding a sentence fragment of a quotation more deeply than just with dialogue tags, use punctuation if it applies to the fragment. Put such punctuation inside the quotation marks. Punctuation that belongs in the outer sentence stays there, outside the quotation marks. E.g.:

• When she told me to "shut my boy mouth", I was shocked.
• "You're crazy, Roger," was always her response, no matter what he said.

Notice that in the second example, the last comma is in place of a full stop/period, because the quotation is embedded.


5. "To quote" is a verb. "Quotation" is a noun. You should never see "a quote"* or make "a list of quotes"*. It's like saying, "I'm making a list of exaggerates!"


6. British people will often refer to quotation marks as "inverted commas".


Long, but not too complicated.