Dialogue can make or break a story. Dialogue can infuse excitement and intrigue into your novel or it can fall dull and lifeless onto the page. It's so crucial to storytelling and characterization and world-building and it's such a tricky balance to have it achieve all three at once. 

But the mechanics -- the punctuation, spelling, and grammar ​of dialogue -- is just as important as getting the voice and characterization right. If the reader is spending time stumbling over the nitty gritty details of the dialogue, they're going to miss all the work that went into crafting the exchanges. 

Dialogue just might be one of the trickiest elements to punctuate properly in a book, so here are five easy tips to remember when you're writing, revising, or editing those ultra important dialogue scenes. This helpful list was compiled in conjunction with my good friend, and former Copy Chief of Ooligan Press, Olivia Rollins who is an amazing copyeditor and proofreader now accepting clients.

Five Quick Tips For Punctuating Book Dialogue

1. Quotation Marks. This is the primary form of dialogue punctuation and they appear at the beginning and end of the speech. Punctuation in dialogue generally goes inside the quotation marks, and dialogue tags (like "she asked" or "he said") that break up a speech are typically followed by a period and a capital letter. However, if a dialogue tag shows up in the middle of a sentence, it is followed by a comma and a lowercase letter.
   Some examples below:
   • “I’m heading to the library,” she said. “Do you want me to pick up your holds?”
   • “Oh,” he said, “you seem bummed out after losing the game.”
   • “Why?” she asked. “Don't you really want to know what happened?”
   • He looked up at me and said, “If it's not too much trouble, I could really use a hand."
     
     
2. Sometimes colons are used for emphasis. This isn't a common trick of the trade, but can be deployed on special occasion for an added boost. My editing preference is to dispense with colons and semi-colons as much as possible in exchange for the beloved "em dash" because it's cleaner and less distracting in appearance, especially in dialogue. That really depends on the editor, of course. At any rate, we'll take about em dashes a little later.
   An example of a colon in dialogue would look like:
   1. He replied: “Go ahead, I dare you.”
      
      
3. Be wary of dialogue-tag imposters, otherwise known as non-speaking actions that immediately precede or follow dialogue. These need to be preceded/followed by a period, not a comma like you would normally use for a dialogue tag. 
   Here are some examples:
   1. ​“You could have called if you were really concerned.” Her shoulders shagged.
   2. "I'm just really tired. Let's go home." He reached into his pocket for the car keys.
      
      
4. Em dashes can be used to represent sudden interruptions in dialogue. They go inside the quotation marks when the interruption occurs within the action of the story (e.g., when one character interrupts another), and they go outside the quotation marks when the dialogue is interrupted only by the writer’s commentary/description.
   Some examples below:
   1. ​"I wouldn't have purchased all those peacocks today if—"
      "Say what now?" she asked.
   2. ​“You only care about one thing”—a frown tugged at the corner of her lips—“those damned peacocks.”
      
      
5. Watch out for faux dialogue/quotations. These are quotations that form an essential part of the surrounding sentence (e.g., those that constitute the direct object of a verb). These instances are punctuated differently.
   Examples below:
   1. ​She told me “climate change is a myth” so many times I almost lost it.
   2. He pointed to the sign that read “No peacocks allowed beyond this point.”
   3. I can’t believe he called you “the best animal wrangler in the West”!

NOT A TIP BUT:
​You can/should always consult your Chicago Manual of Style if you're really feeling stumped about making a dialogue punctuation decision. Most of the major guidelines around dialogue covered in this list are available in the CMOS via these sections: 6.114 and 13.39–13.45.

For more tips on editing dialogue, read this previous blog post. 

Dialogue can make or break a story. Dialogue can infuse excitement and intrigue into your novel or it can fall dull and lifeless onto the page. It's so crucial to storytelling and characterization and world-building and it's such a tricky balance to have it achieve all three at once. 

Ten Quick Tips for Editing and Improving Dialogue

1. Reduce character salutations and farewells.  The pleasant but mundane daily exchanges of real-life dialogue are to be enjoyed by real-life humans, but should be avoided in writing, especially if it happens in every scene. EXAMPLE: "Hey, how are you doing today?" "Oh, I'm doing well. How about you?"
   
   
2. Address characters who sound too alike (i.e., if any of the dialogue could be said by any of the characters). Giving your individual characters certain turns of phrase, vocal tics (not too annoying) or ways of speaking are going to help the reader quickly distinguish who is who AND improve characterization.
   
   
3. Avoid too much exposition in dialogue. Exposition is a necessary evil, but should applied sparingly and avoided in dialogue as much as possible. It will be awkward for everyone involved, even your character. EXAMPLE: “Well, Dad, as you well know, when the wildfires started a week ago we were forced to evacuate our home, leaving our beloved pets Ren and Stimpy behind. . .
   
   
4. Edit dialogue tags that overuse adjectives and adverbs. Most of the time, a simple "said" or "asked" will work just fine. Honestly, a few colorful descriptors here or there aren't going to make or break your book, but they should be used wisely and sparingly.
   
   
5. Approach dialects or accents in dialogue with caution—this can be OK if done well and discretely, but generally it should be subtle and not offensive to the groups being represented. EXAMPLE: "Well lawdy me, I just think that stinks to high heaven, shugah." If you need to include reference to an accent, you can simply state the character has a ________ accent. 
   
   
6. Dramatically reduce all instances of stutter words and filler words. EXAMPLE: "Well, um, uh, yeah, er- I was gonna get to that."
   
   
7. Names names names. In real life, most people don't often address people by their first name unless they're trying to get their attention or are meeting them for the first time. Avoid having characters use each other’s names excessively—even infrequent use can be awkward.
   
   
8. Stage direction: Exit stage left. Dialogue tags rife with too much “stage direction” become cumbersome for the reader to slog through, and it also depends heavily on what actions the characters are taking, especially if they’re repetitive (e.g., everybody is wringing their hands, nodding, shaking their head, running their hands through their hair, etc.)
   ​
9. Two is plenty, three's a crowd. If only two characters are talking, not every line of dialogue needs to be tagged, especially if it’s already obvious who the speaker is. 
   
   
10. Three's a crowd, four is just confusing. The more characters that are speaking in a scene, the more you WILL need to include dialogue tags, especially if the language doesn't vary much between the speakers (i.e., they all sound similar). 

Of course there are many more that just ten things to talk about, but this will be hopefully be a helpful springboard to managing those mistakes that nearly every writer runs into when it comes to capturing authentic, but compelling dialogue for our readers.

There's always the debate of how much dialogue is TOO MUCH dialogue, and I would say that really depends on two things: the writer and the reader. Some writers are always going to include more dialogue because that's their writing style. They like to have their characters interact often on the page. Some readers are more engaged by dialogue than by descriptive prose. I have a sibling whose eyes glaze over when they encounter too much landscape description, so they'll skim sections until they hit a patch of dialogue and pick up from there. 

The onus is on the writer to determine where their strength lies, and just how much dialogue is too much. 

I'm a victim of over-dialoguing (I LOVE TO HAVE MY CHARACTERS TALK TO ONE ANOTHER) and so my editing and revision process for my own writing is usually to go through and cull out huge chunks of dialogue. I weed through the thorns to find the beautiful sparkling roses within, and cobble together the best dialogue for the most engaging and natural sounding interactions. 

My relationship with dialogue has really changed over the years I've spent writing and revising. I originally was opting for more "natural" sounding dialogue which included pauses and filler words and stammering, but it's just quite cumbersome to read, to speak aloud, and just doesn't work as well on the page as it does on the screen. So I've revised my attitude towards dialogue (but not the frequency of use) and I find it much more exciting for me to write and for others to read.

Stay tuned for the next blog post on the exciting perils of dialogue punctuation! ;)