How to Punctuate Dialogue

Incorrectly punctuated dialogue is one of the most frequent mistakes I see in manuscripts from writers who are just starting out. Luckily, you can master this skill with practice and patience. In this crash course, I’ll cover the difference between dialogue tags and action beats, where to shove your commas, what types of verbs to use, and the various kinds of punctuation that might appear in dialogue. I’m using the guidelines from "The Chicago Manual of Style," which is the preferred style guide for fiction publishing in the United States.

Background Music by Vindsvept:
+ “A Place to Call Home”
+ “Chasing Shadows”
+ “Light the Bonfire”
+ “Illuminate”
+ “Alone”
+ “The Journey Home”
+ “The Forgotten Forest”
+ “Leaving the Dream”
+ “Keeper of the Forest”
+ “Voyage to Nowhere”

SOURCES

Introduction (0:00)
Commas with Dialogue Tags (1:24)
Action Beats (7:11)
Acceptable Dialogue Tags (13:00)
Direct Address/Vocatives (18:49)
Contractions (21:30)
Em Dashes, En Dashes, and Hyphens (22:34)
Ellipses (24:21)
Colons and Semicolons (25:31)
Quotes within Quotes (27:35)
Monologues (28:18)
Dialogue without Quotation Marks (29:29)
Practice Test (30:39)

[QuotidianWriter]

See the video description for the link to my free downloadable "cheat sheet" on how to punctuate dialogue. :)

[thatsagoodquestion]

This video is really helpful. I'm French and I am writing a novel in English, and honestly, I didn't really understand commas in dialogue and just tried to copy from other novels that I read, but now I understand everything! Thanks from France!

[perymachado]

I don't have mamy memories of learning this in school (I know I did, but it's not super clear in my mind), but I do remember devouring Tom Clancy novels and analysing each sentence to see how it should be done. In Brazilian literature, we use Em dashes to indicate the start of a line of dialogue, though when an action beat proceeds it, we don't. And when a line of dialogue ends in an action beat, and then there is more dialogue, that second line of dialogue is not proceeded by a dash or anything else. So frustrating and confusing at times. "Whatever you do, " she said in a voice filled with hope, "keep writing." The best line ever spoken.

[zizzix]

You had fun with this one didn't you?

This was super helpful. Even though I know most of this I find myself constantly second guessing myself. So thank you!

[cheyennesantos-lg]

Thank you Diane Callahan. This video is long and absorbing. Many tutorials are either complicated or display cheesy visual and verbal antics. Your visuals are significant and well done. Screenwriting is my study and Novel Writing is my Kryptonite. But now after watching this tutorial I actually began a Novel. 💔

[matthewkjames]

Thank you! I used to mess up the dialogue tag and do a period and quotation mark at the end and capitalize words like she said he said. It wasn't until I looked through my favorite books Wings - Bill Brittian, The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien and the Trumpet of the Swan - Edward Franscino, that I realized I was doing it wrong. And the saddest part is all the online "professional" editor companies I had wasted money on never once brought this to my attention and even made dialogue corrections and the manner which I was doing it, too.

[_fitz]

I always get lost when stylizing/formatting my dialogue, and I've noticed a lot of repetitive structuring while revising. It's probably one of my biggest mental obstacles when writing. It's so easy to overthink and get wrong. Despite quite a lot of searching, I've never found guidance as detailed and as clearly presented. This has answered a lot of my questions and is a valuable lesson that will certainly help me with my craft. Another terrific video! Thank you!

[gurjindersingh]

Watching your videos makes me miss my English teachers. I like how they would tell us stories from our literature textbook and explain the meaning of words and phrases we wouldn't understand at the time. If anybody makes a VR game set in an english classroom, send me a copy. I would love to relive those childhood memories.

[DaveRoberts]

This video is really well done. "While I appreciate unconventional punctuation from an artistic point of view, I can't say that I actually like it. Call me a traditionalist, " I said.

[artmanoo]

“This is a great video, ” he said, right before adding it to his Favorites.

[joshadams]

“Commas are little demon turds…”
Brilliant.

[redmecka]

This video maybe 30 minutes long, but it took me a full day to properly digest and breakdown everything that was shown and told. This video was really helpful. Just as every other video you do.

[paperboy]

Oh, this is going to be so helpful! My writing tends to have a lot of dialogue so keeping up with all the rules takes some time. This gives a really good list of things I need to check without memorizing!

[abraxasnl]

As someone who just started writing his first fiction story, and with the hope this is one of those hobby-projects I will actually complete, I just wanted to come down into the comment section and say "thank you." Your videos have taught me a lot, and I feel much more confident now that this is something I can do. I'm well aware my first work will not be great. But at least it won't be as bad as it otherwise would have been. And I'll have learned a lot. So, thank you. Whatever you do, keep making these videos.

[danagreen]

… outstanding, from a 70-yr-old guy trying to learn short story writing … thanks from the coast of maine …

[luukbenschop]

When I saw this video, I thought that I knew almost everything fairly well--I was pretty good at punctuation tests at school--but it turns out that I have been doing the interruption of dialogue with action beats (em-dashes; 10:03) wrong for years. I didn't expect to learn something on my day off, but that turned out wrong. Thanks, Diane! The quality of both the video and the script is as high-level as always. Take care!

[highsun]

Omg I was binging your content (again) because I watched all of your videos and now you dropped a new video and I feel so lucky :)

[noot]

This is a video I've wanted for the past 3 years. Dialogue is so damn hard for me to nail down. Thank you

[renjuncita]

this is the best video to understand english grammar as someone that's not a native english speaker

[cerealspiller]

All of your videos are like cheat codes for writing. Each one I've watched so far as helped me as a writer. Thank you so very much.