How to Write Dialogue: Punctuation, Tags and Examples

These are the standard American conventions, and each example follows fiction editor Beth Hill's guide to punctuation in dialogue. One rule sits under all of them: only the spoken words go inside the quotation marks, and periods and commas always go inside the closing mark (GrammarBook, rule 4).

Use an em dash when a line is cut off, by another speaker or by something happening, and an ellipsis when the speaker trails off on their own. When an action breaks into the middle of a sentence, the dashes go outside the quotation marks, so only the spoken words sit inside them. The Chicago Manual of Style's blog walks through each case in Prose, Interrupted.

When one character speaks for more than a paragraph, leave the closing quotation mark off every paragraph but the last, and open each new paragraph with a quotation mark (GrammarBook, rule 9). Whenever the speaker changes, start a new paragraph, even if the reply is one word.

A dialogue tag is the short phrase that says who's speaking: Mara said, he asked. The usual advice is to use said almost every time. Elmore Leonard's rules for writers put it bluntly: “Never use a verb other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue,” and never add an adverb to it. The workshop glossary the Turkey City Lexicon calls said “one of the few invisible words in the English language.”

Not everyone goes that far. Writer's Digest's Moriah Richard points out that said on every single line gets repetitive and tells the reader nothing about the mood, and suggests mixing plain tags, action beats and lines with no tag at all. That mix is the practical answer: said or asked for most tags, a beat when a gesture adds something, and nothing when it's clear who is talking.

• Tag the first line or two of a new conversation, and any line where a third person joins in.
• Between two speakers, drop the tags once the back-and-forth is set, and add one back before the reader has to count lines to keep track.
• In a long line, put the tag at the first natural pause, usually the end of the first sentence, so the reader knows early who is talking.
• Use asked for questions if you like. Said works there too.

An action beat is a small action, gesture or thought set next to a line so the reader knows who said it. Audrey Wick's guide to beats for Writer's Digest describes them as a way to show movement and feeling between lines and to control the pace. A beat goes in the same paragraph as its speaker's line, and it takes a period, not a comma, because it's a sentence of its own.

• A beat can show a feeling the line hides: “I’m fine.” She folded the letter smaller, then smaller again.
• A beat can make a pause. One between two lines slows the exchange the way a silence would.
• A beat can keep the reader in the room. One detail of the place grounds the talk without a paragraph of description.

Real speech is full of greetings, repeats and ums. Dialogue on the page keeps the feel of real talk and cuts the rest. The strongest tool is subtext, because people rarely say exactly what they mean. In Ernest Hemingway's 1927 story “Hills Like White Elephants”, a couple waiting for a train argue about an operation the story never names, and the reader follows every line.

1. 1

   Give each speaker a want

   Before you write, know what each person wants from this conversation and what they won't say out loud. The tension lives in the gap between the two.

2. 2

   Come in late, leave early

   Start after the hellos and stop once the balance between them has shifted. If a line only moves people from the door to the table, cut it.

3. 3

   Let them dodge

   People answer a different question, change the subject or go quiet. Matthew FitzSimmons calls this not everyone having the same conversation and points to Hemingway as the model.

4. 4

   Give each person a voice

   Vary sentence length, vocabulary and grammar, so a clipped speaker and a rambling one can share a page with hardly a tag. Note how each person talks and what they never say in the voice section of a character sheet, or let the character generator draft that section, plus a line only they would say, for someone new.

5. 5

   Use names sparingly

   People rarely say each other's names, so a name in dialogue should do something: get attention, assert power or show recognition. FitzSimmons makes the same point.

6. 6

   Keep accents light

   Suggest an accent with word order and a few local words rather than phonetic spelling, which is slow to read and can come across as mocking.

7. 7

   Summarize what doesn't matter

   Not every exchange needs quotation marks. “They argued about the bill all the way home” covers talk the reader doesn't need line by line. If a conversation that does matter is summed up in one sentence, the show, don't tell option in the story rewriter turns it into a scene.

8. 8

   Read it aloud

   Your ear catches stiff lines, tongue-twisters and speeches nobody could say in one breath.

If a conversation in your draft still reads like the before versions, paste it into the dialogue generator. It keeps what happens and who says what, rewrites the flat lines so each voice is distinct, and notes how each character sounds so you can keep them consistent.

• Characters explaining what both already know. Let the facts slip out in an argument or a joke instead.
• Fancy tags such as retorted, inquired and growled. Use said, and let the words carry the feeling.
• Adverbs on tags. The Turkey City Lexicon calls this a Tom Swifty, after “‘We’d better hurry,’ Tom said swiftly.” Cut the adverb and sharpen the line.
• Tags that repeat the line, such as “Let’s get out of here,” he said, urging her to leave. Cut everything after said.
• Using smiled, laughed or shrugged as a tag. End the line with a period and make the action its own sentence.
• Two speakers in one paragraph. Give each new speaker a new paragraph, or readers will credit the line to the wrong person.
• A speech that runs half a page with no reply or movement. Break it with an interruption, a beat or a question.
• Every um, er and well written out. A few show hesitation, but a page of them is hard to read. An ellipsis or a dash does the job.
• Everyone sounding like the narrator. Read each character's lines on their own and see whether you can tell who's speaking.

Run this list on each scene with a conversation in it. For the sentence-level pass, the line editor tightens a page, keeps your dialogue layout and marks every cut. When you have the beats of a scene but not the words, the chapter writer drafts the whole scene, talk included, in your voice.