May Grainger Books

Full disclosure: I’m a nitpicker.

Or, in a more flattering light, you could say I’ve got an eye for detail. This was only encouraged during my college days (farewell oh my college days of five weeks ago) as a writing center tutor, and also being in a major that highly emphasized technical writing. I mean, look at this rubric!

But that’s beside the point. My point is: I care about grammar. BUT good grammar does not equal a good story, and vice versa. For example, Earnest Hemingway’s editors often complained about how much work his bad spelling created for them – and he wasn’t the only one.

With all this in mind, I can’t say for sure how much decent spelling/grammar matters when it comes to writing a book. But I can say that good grammar certainly wouldn’t hurt – particularly when it’s time to query agents. So today, I’m going to talk about something that can puzzle even the most seasoned writer: punctuation in dialogue tags.

[Special note: I’ll be referring to specifically the American method of punctuating quotes – there are some slight variations on quoting standards based on country.]

1. What is a dialogue tag? What is a dialogue beat?

A dialogue tag is basically “he said/she said,” and then substitute the word “said” for any number of synonyms. You also have dialogue beats – that’s when a character does an action in the middle of speaking. Here are some examples.

Dialogue tags:

“You shouldn’t do that,” he warned.

“What’s up?” she asked, smiling at me.

“When someone asks you a question,” Bob said, taking a deep breath to control his anger, “you answer it!”

Dialogue beats:

“You shouldn’t do that.” He stepped in front of the queen, sword raised.

“What’s up?” A glint of humor danced in her eyes.

“When someone asks you a question—” Bob took a deep breath to control his anger. “—you answer it!”

2. Punctuation for dialogue tags

Commas – that is the primary form of punctuation you would use to separate dialogue from dialogue tags. Why? Because, for some reason, we consider the dialogue tag to essentially be part of the same sentence. For the same reason, you wouldn’t capitalize the first word of the dialogue tag unless it is ordinarily capitalized in the middle of a sentence.

This rule holds no matter what the punctuation of the dialogue itself. It doesn’t matter if it’s a question (?) or an exclamation (!), you are still using lowercase letters after it.

Some common mistakes I see are:

• Using a period (full stop) instead of a comma before a dialogue statement.
  • “You shouldn’t do that.” He warned.
    • Should be: “You shouldn’t do that,” he warned.
• Using a capital letter after the dialogue.
  • “You shouldn’t do that,” He warned.
• Using a capital letter after a question or exclamation.
  • “What’s up?” She asked.
    • Should be: “What’s up?” she asked.
  • “Stop!” He yelled.
    • Should be: “Stop!” he yelled.

3. Punctuation for dialogue beats

While dialogue tags are considered part of the same sentence as the dialogue itself, dialogue beats are separate sentences altogether. If the action is on the same line as the dialogue, then it is implied that the person doing the action is also the person speaking. Because they are separate sentences, you end the dialogue with a period/full stop if it is a statement (or a question mark/exclamation mark as needed) and begin the dialogue beat with a capital letter.

Some common mistakes I see are:

• Using a comma instead of a period/full stop to separate the dialogue and the action.
  • “You shouldn’t do that,” he stepped in front of the queen, sword raised.
    • Should be: “You shouldn’t do that.” He stepped in front of the queen, sword raised.
• The speaker and the person doing the action are not the same.
  • Royce looked at Hadrian. “What are you looking at me for?”
    • Without any dialogue tags (“Hadrian said” etc.), it sounds like Royce is the one talking. These need to be separate paragraphs.

4. Dialogue tags/beats that occur in the middle of dialogue

Sometimes you might want to have the dialogue tag or beat in the middle of the character speaking. Assuming that you have a valid reason for doing so (and you better have a valid reason, because it is really easy to mess up), how would you go about writing it?  

Below are my preferred formatting methods.

Dialogue tag:

“When someone asks you a question,” Bob said, taking a deep breath to control his anger, “you answer it!”

Notice that I use commas to separate both ends of the dialogue tag, and continue the dialogue with a lowercase letter.

Dialogue beat:

“When someone asks you a question—” Bob took a deep breath to control his anger. “—you answer it!”

Because the dialogue beat is its own separate sentence, I prefer to write it as such—beginning with a capital letter and ending with a period (full stop). However, the dialogue isn’t yet finished so this:

“When someone asks you a question.” Bob took a deep breath to control his anger. “—you answer it!”

…looks plain weird. That’s why I use the dashes to communicate both the end of the sentence being cut off, and the beginning of the next piece of dialogue connecting to the sentence before the dialogue beat. However, I’ve met some writers who disagree on how to best punctuate these types of sentences, so I’d say your best bet is to pay attention to the books you read and imitate them.

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So that’s the basics of how you punctuate dialogue tags. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or tricky examples you’d like me to take a look at!