Want to link a fic in a comment? Use link bot! It's stickied at the top of the sub to provide more exposure for all fics.ĪO3, FFN and Wattpad are the top 3 sites. Punctuating Dialogue Writing-World.Please visit our latest Daily Discussion Thread for r/FanFiction’s current events!Ī supportive community for writers, readers, and reccers to talk about and share FanFiction.ĭo not post your fics on the main page of the subreddit.Never separate the dialogue from the dialogue tag with a period.Never capitalize the first word of the dialogue tag unless it begins the sentence or is a proper noun. In the end, there are a couple of things to remember here. Henry replied, "And you're a pretty neat mom." When the dialogue tag comes before the speech, a comma always separates them.Įmma smiled at Henry and said, "You know, you're a pretty neat kid." One thing we want to remember is that the dialogue is a sentence in itself, so it will always begin with a capital letter, even when your dialogue tag comes first. Dialogue tag at the beginning of the speech.Regina said, "Thank you, Miss Swa n," combing her sodden hair out of her eyes.Įmma said, "You know, you're a pretty neat ki d," and smiled at Henry. This third option is a special case because it combines traits of both the starting and ending dialogue tags. "When we found the jewelry box ," the sheriff said, "we had it dusted for prints." "Thank you, Miss Swan ," Regina said, combing her sodden hair out of her eyes, "for saving my life again." "What difference does it make ," Emma asked, "if I accept your invitation now or later?" In this variation, the first word of the second half of the dialogue will not be capitalized since it's the continuation of the sentence. This tag is bracketed by commas on either side. Dialogue tag in the middle of the speech."Do not touch my apple tree !" Regina yelled. "Didn't anyone ever teach you how to share ?" she asked, plucking an apple from the basket. "Did you know that Honeycrisp apples are the hardiest of all the apple varieties, Miss Swan ?" the mayor asked. "Honeycrisp apples are the hardiest of all apples ," Regina said. Never use a period to separate the end of a piece of dialogue and the beginning of a tag. There are three main forms of punctuation that end the dialogue before this tag: comma, question mark, and exclamation mark. Said is a transitive verb and needs an object the object is the words that are spoken, so if the dialogue tag is 'he said', they should never be separated from that by a full stop. What is said is a sentence in its own right, it is also part of the sentence that includes the dialogue tag. There is one thing to remember with the dialogue tag coming in the middle or end of the speech. While we're working with punctuation and capitalization at the beginning of the sentence, let's also look at the proper way to use the speech tags in the middle and end of the sentence. For the purposes of this article, I'm going to work with these four options in reverse order. In all four variations, the first word of the actual dialogue is always capitalized. And let's not get into the whole debate of whether that's a good thing or not, since that's a topic for another time.ĭialogue tags, or speech tags, can come in four different places: before the speech, surrounding the speech, in the middle of the speech, and at the end of the speech. There are variations, of course, for those of us who like to spice it up a little. So what is a dialogue tag anyway? In the simplest terms, this is the whole "he said/she said" bit of your dialogue. Starry_diadem asked, "How do you punctuate and capitalize when the dialogue tag comes before the speech?"
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