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Writing Questions Answered

Guide: Dialogue Tags & Dialogue Punctuation
Anonymous asked:Please help me. Im so confused about dialogues. Sometimes, theres a comma after it
and a she said., then it continues into another dialogue. Can you tell when its necessary to put commas
and periods after dialogues? If you are able, can you also tell me about various dialogues in a paragraph?
Dialogue Tags
Things like she said or I replied are called dialogue tags. They tell us who is speaking and sometimes tell us
how they say it and any related action. For example:
"I love it!" Cheryl said. (who)
"I love it!" Cheryl screamed. (who + how)
"I love it!" Cheryl screamed as she held the dress up to her body. (who + how + action)
Dialogue tags are helpful when many characters are involved in the same conversation, but every dialogue
doesnt need to be tagged, and when just two characters are speaking, you generally only need tags to
establish who is speaking:
"I love it!" Cheryl screamed as she held the dress up to her body. Where did you get it? [no tag necessary]
"Youll never believe this, but I got it at a yard sale," I replied.
"No way! Tell me its not from that ratty old house up on 7th. I saw her putting out some tables this morning."
[no tag necessary]
I cant help but laugh, imagining the old lady in the ratty house owning a dress like this. No, no, no. It came
from that remodeled craftsman over on Pine. You know, the green and white one? [no tag necessary]

Now, in a longer conversation, you might want to include a few refresher tags just to remind the reader whos
who, but generally youll want to avoid using them more than necessary.
In the example above, I used the tag Cheryl screamed to indicate that Cheryl is Speaker A, and I used the tag
I replied to indicate that I am speaker B. Notice that after Cheryl held the dress up to her body, I didnt tag
Where did you get it? because it wasnt necessary. We already know that Cheryl is the speaker of that
particular sentence. I didnt use a tag after the sentence beginning with No way! because since it is in
response to what I said as Character B, we know the speaker is Character A, and we know that Character A in
this conversation is Cheryl. Likewise, I dont tag the sentence beginning No, no, no, for the same reason. Its
in response to Character A, so we know its Character B, who is me. However, I did use a little non-tag trick to
remind the reader that I was the one speaking. Because I prefaced the sentence by saying that I laughed at
what she said, its clear that the dialogue that comes next is mine.

Dialogue Punctuation
Dialogue punctuation is tricky but youll get the hang of it. Here are some rules to keep in mind:
A stand-alone sentence of dialogue should end in a period, question mark, exclamation point, em dash,
or a terminal ellipses.
"I bought it at the house on 7th."
"I bought it at the house on 7th?"
"I bought it at the house on 7th!"
"I bought it at the house on 7th"
"I bought it at the house on 7th"
A sentence of dialogue that would normally end with a period should end with a comma when a
dialogue tag is attached.

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"I bought it at the house on 7th."
"I bought it at the house on 7th," I said.
A sentence of dialogue ending in a period should still end in a period if there is no dialogue tag but is
followed by another sentence.
"I bought it at the house on 7th."

Followwritingquestionsanswered

"I bought it at the house on 7th." Cheryl admired her reflection in the mirror and I knew she loved it. "It
looks pretty on you."
A sentence of dialogue that would normally end with an exclamation point or a question mark should
still end with those whether there is a dialogue tag or not.
"I love it!" Cheryl screamed.
"You do?" I replied.
"I really do!"
"Im so glad!" We were both excited that wed finally found her the perfect dress to wear on her date.

I hope that covers your questions! :)

329 notes

17 Apr 2014

21 : 07

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