Dialogue Instructions

Why do writers add dialogue to their essays?

• Makes situations more realistic

• Makes characters come to life

• Can help reader understand situation

• Helps reader "picture" the character

• Brings reader into the story more

NOT a good idea to use dialogue to advance the plot of the narrative or story.

Here is how to punctuate a sentence that starts with the dialogue tag:

 Mary said, “Call me tomorrow.”

Notes:  

• Comma before the opening quotation mark.

• Capital letter to indicate the beginning of a sentence inside the opening quotation mark.

• A period to end the quoted sentence.

• Closing quotation mark.

What happens when the dialogue tag is placed at the end of the sentence?

 “Call me tomorrow,” Mary said.

Notes:  

• Capital letter to indicate the beginning of a sentence inside the opening quotation mark.

• A comma to end the quoted sentence before the closing quotation mark that precedes the dialogue tag.

• Dialogue tag at the end with a period to end the sentence.

Now see what happens when the dialogue tag is placed in the middle:  

“Call me,” Mary said, “tomorrow.”

Notes:  

• Capital letter to indicate the beginning of a sentence inside the opening quotation mark.

• A comma to end the quoted sentence before the closing quotation mark that precedes the dialogue tag.

• Comma before the second opening quotation mark.

• Lower case letter to indicate the second piece of the quotation is still a part of the sentence that began in the first piece of the quotation.

• A period to end the quoted sentence.

• Closing quotation mark.

Now see what happens when the dialogue tag separates two sentences of quoted speech:

    “Call me tomorrow,” Mary said. “Have a nice evening.”

Notes:  

• Capital letter to indicate the beginning of a sentence inside the first opening quotation mark.

• A comma to end the quoted sentence before the closing quotation mark that precedes the dialogue tag.

• A period at the end of the sentence (and after the dialogue tag) to indicate that the sentence with the first piece of quoted material has ended.

• Capital letter to indicate the beginning of a sentence inside the second opening quotation mark.

• The second piece of quoted material appearing on the same line as the first to indicate that the same person/speaker said both pieces of quoted material, even though the second piece of quoted material does not have a dialogue tag.

• A period to end the quoted sentence.

• Closing quotation mark.

 Also, new lines of dialogue are indented like any new paragraph. Let’s see how that looks by peppering in some longer lines of prose so that you can see the effect:

  Mary was on her way to the grocery store when she saw Frank out in the front yard mowing his overgrown grass. He waved for her to come over because they needed to talk about the upcoming block party, but she didn't have time just now.

“Call me tomorrow,” said Mary as she got into her car.     

“Okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” 

Notes:  

All rules are followed as noted above,

And each piece of quoted material starts as a new paragraph, indented and on a new line.