I Said What I Said: 5 Tips for Punctuating Book Dialogue

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.