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Rules For Using Dialogue in Narratives

The document outlines 8 rules for using dialogue in narratives, including using quotation marks for spoken words, ensuring dialogue tags are outside quotation marks, using new paragraphs to show new speakers, and punctuation changes when characters are quoting others or are interrupted.

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Chamika T
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28 views

Rules For Using Dialogue in Narratives

The document outlines 8 rules for using dialogue in narratives, including using quotation marks for spoken words, ensuring dialogue tags are outside quotation marks, using new paragraphs to show new speakers, and punctuation changes when characters are quoting others or are interrupted.

Uploaded by

Chamika T
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Rules for using dialogue in narratives

1. Quotation marks or inverted commas are used to indicate spoken words. These
should be double when indicating direct speech. For example:

“I’m starting to learn how to write dialogue” she said.

2. A dialogue tag is the part of the sentence that indicates how and who says something
within the story. In the above example, 'she said' is the dialogue tag. The dialogue tag
always stays outside the quotation marks.

If there were a question mark or exclamation point after the dialogue, the dialogue tag
would still be in lower case. You treat it just as you would a comma. It would look like
this:

“I’m starting to learn how to write dialogue!” she said.

However, when the dialogue tag is before the speech, a comma appears before the first
quotation marks. For example:

She said, “I’m starting to learn how to write dialogue!”

3. Separate sentences are used for actions that are before or after the dialogue. It’s
important to ensure that what is happening in the narrative is clearly discernible from the
speech. The punctuation helps to show this:

Isla entered the room. “Who goes there?” she said.

4. When characters are quoting somebody else in their dialogue, the punctuation
changes. This is to ensure that the reader recognises it is not the character's own
words. For this, you would use single quotation marks. Have a look at this example:

Luke started to weep. “When you said, ‘This was the worst thing I’ve tasted!’ it hurt my
feelings,” he said.

5. New paragraphs are used to show when someone new is speaking. These are also
always indented to clearly mark the change in speech.

“Finn, please can you hand me that toy?” Penny said.

“Here, I was finished playing anyway,” Finn replied.

6. When a paragraph is needed because the speech is so long, there are different
punctuation rules. Not to worry, the only difference is that closing quotation marks are
not used at the end of every paragraph. They are only used at the end of the final
spoken sentence. It may look something like this:

Bernard looked at his exercise book and muttered. “This is going to be the best use of
my time. I am going to learn all about writing dialogue. When writing a story, dialogues
rules are the most important aspects to follow.

“Learning this will help me write my novel and become a best-selling author. I plan to
create a story all about swimming across the ocean. My character will talk to all the
sailors and mermaids along the way. It will be a wonderful tale.”

7. When your character is interrupted use an em dash. An em dash (—) is used to show
when there is an abrupt end to the dialogue. These are not to be confused
with hyphens, hyphens are shorter and are used for something else. This is good to
know from a grammar point of view, however for teaching ease, you may want to keep
them the same whilst kids learning. These dashes should be placed within the quotation
marks. How to use an em dash:

Isla called out, “Who goes there? What do you—”

“It’s me!” said Luke.

8. Finally, don't use punctuation in addition to an ellipsis. If you want the dialogue to trail
off as if the character is purposefully not finishing her sentence, just use the ellipsis. You
don’t need to add a comma or any other punctuation. For example:

“When writing a story, dialogue rules should be in lists of 8. I guess this is the end of the
line…” the teacher said, his voice trailing off.

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