Hi everyone, I’ve found myself with an hour free this morning so I thought I’d post a follow up to my previous post ‘5 Tips to Improve Dialogue‘.

1  New Speakers
You should always begin a new paragraph for each new speaker. If the character is doing something while they’re speaking, then keep the actions within that same paragraph.

2  Action and Dialogue
If you have action happening within your dialogue, then make sure that when the dialogue picks up again, the first word of the sentence begins with a lowercase letter. For example, ‘Run!’ he yelled to his friend, his feet pounding on the pavement, ‘just keep running!’

3  Paragraphs and Dialogue
If your character needs to speak for long enough, then you may need to begin a new paragraph within their dialogue. If you do, then place quotation marks at the beginning of every new paragraph, only closing the dialogue with quotation marks at the end of the final paragraph.

4  More Action and Dialogue
If you have action occurring before or after your character speaks, then the action needs to go in a separate sentence. For example, Bill slammed his fist against the palm of his hand. ‘Damn it!’

5  Punctuation
Remember, punctuation marks always go inside the quotation marks along with the dialogue, not on the outside.

So, there are another 5 Tips to help you with your dialogue quibbles, I hope you’ve found them helpful and as always, thank you for reading!

Until next time,

George

© 2018 GLT

Categories: Writing Tips

Tags: action, character, Characters, dialogue, paragraphs, punctuation, speaking, speech, tips, Writer, writing