Alternate example: She wasn’t sure when later would come. Example: She wasn’t sure when “later” would come. Sometimes added emphasis is put on a word of narration and either italics or quotation marks are used for that. NOTE: Here is one exception that comes to mind when formatting dialogue. Actions and description coming from the narrator should never be placed within quotation marks. Remember, only put quotation marks around words spoken by characters. If using curly quotation marks, as is the US standard, then you can easily tell the opening from the closing mark, whether a single quotation mark or a double quotation mark. ![]() You’ll see here that we have added an opening quotation mark where the character starts speaking and then another when they stopped speaking (a closing quotation mark). “have you been here long” John questioned “hi” said John as he stretched out his hand Remember, characters and narrator are different people. I am going to sandwich each phrase spoken by the characters in between a pair of quotation marks. Let’s apply this to our particular example (we are going to use double quotation marks for our US authors here). There is an occasion where you’d mix single quotation marks and double quotation marks, but there’s no need to worry about that yet, and we’ll deal with this later. If you start with double quotation marks, then stick with double quotation marks. If you start with single quotation marks for dialogue, then use single quotation marks all throughout your book. However, you must pick one type of quotation mark and stick with it. Most American authors tend to use double quotation marks as their default for dialogue, while British authors tend to use single quotation marks. ĭespite what you may read elsewhere, there is no “correct” quotation mark to use both single quotation marks and double quotation marks are OK, depending on the usage. These are single quotation marks (‘) and double quotation marks (“). These are simple punctuation marks that are added at the start and end of words spoken by your characters.īefore we apply the rule to our specific example, it is worth taking a moment to discuss the two types of quotation marks you’ll see used. Now we need to add quotation marks in our example. If you are able to separate these in your mind, many of the advanced writing techniques (which are outside the scope of this article) are so much easier to grasp. In fact, when teaching writing, one of the first topics I address is to get authors to see their novels as made up of both characters AND a narrator. In its most simple form, this is done by using quotation marks to indicate that words are being spoken. When writing dialogue, it is essential that you see the words the characters speak (“Hi,” “Hello,” etc.) as separate from those of the narrator (said John as he stretched out his hand). I am sure you get this, but let me drill this point home. ![]() We do this through the use of quotation marks. It is important that the reader is able to distinguish the words of the narrator (sometimes called narrative summary) from the words of the characters (dialogue). Having started our formatting dialogue journey by separating the different speakers into new paragraphs, we now turn our attention to the spoken words and the use of quotation marks. This is still in a pretty raw state, but you can already see how it will help you to write dialogue. Hi said John as he stretched out his hand The “new speaker, new paragraph” rule tells us that, each time John or Bill speaks, their dialogue should be in a separate paragraph. This is not the most inspiring of exchanges, but it will help to demonstrate each rule as it is learned. Hi said John as he stretched out his hand hello joked Bill shaking John’s hand have you been here long John questioned no I’ve just arrived Bill said ok At this stage, don’t worry about anything other than the “new speaker, new paragraph” rule. We’ll be using this same example throughout the article, and you will see it evolve as each new rule is applied.Īs it stands, it is just a lump of unformatted text, all in one paragraph. ![]() Take a look at this example below, it will help when you come to write dialogue. ![]() This means that, if John and Bill are in a conversation, each time a speaker changes to another character, you make a new paragraph. The rule is that each new speaker should have their own paragraph. This is a simple rule to apply and one that should not be broken under any circumstance. When formatting dialogue, 'new speaker, new paragraph' is a great place to start.
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