Rules for Formatting Dialogue: How to Punctuate and Capitalize Your Characters’ Speech

You’re in the middle of writing a scene and your characters are talking to each other. It’s really a classic he said, she said–situation. And things are actually getting pretty heated—but wait! Let’s politely interrupt that conversation to learn how you should correctly format and punctuate that tense dialogue.

This post will take you through all the rules of formatting dialogue, complete with several examples to show you what it looks like when done correctly.

Before we begin, you should know that there is more than one style for formatting dialogue, and which one you decide to use is up to you. However, most US publishing companies follow The Chicago Manual of Style, and so most books printed in English do as well. That is the style we will be following in this post.

General Rules for Formatting Dialogue

Below are some general rules for formatting and punctuating dialogue.

Double vs. Single Quotation Marks

When a character is speaking, enclose their speech in double quotation marks. If a character quotes someone else in their speech, use single quotation marks for that quote within their double quotation marks.

Example: “Can you believe John yelled at me?” Ted asked. “He said to ‘never look at her again!’ as if it’s so easy. We’re in the same class!”

Punctuation Inside Quotation Marks

Whether the dialogue ends in a period, comma, question mark, exclamation mark, or ellipsis, it should be inside the quotation marks.

Example:

“Have you tried this before?” he asked.

“No,” she answered.

“You haven’t…” he trailed off in disbelief.

Capitalized Dialogue

In dialogue, the beginning of a sentence should always be capitalized, regardless of the punctuation before it.

Example: He turned his canvas around, asking, “What do you think?”

New Character, New Paragraph

If more than one character is speaking, each character’s speech should start a new line. This also includes actions. If Character 1 says something, Character 2 shouldn’t perform an action in the same paragraph.

Example:

“This is how it’s done,” he said, pushing the notebook to her side of the table.

She leaned forward to take a look. “Oh! I see now!”

Multiple Paragraph Dialogue

If a character is talking for a long time, you may want to split what would have been one long paragraph into several shorter ones.

You can do this with a new dialogue tag for each paragraph, or with bits of action to keep the reader anchored in the scene. But sometimes you may want to leave it uninterrupted.

Do this by placing an opening quotation mark at the start of the dialogue and each paragraph of the character’s speech that follows. Only place the closing quotation mark at the end of the last paragraph when the character is done talking.

Example:

Wanda shuffled her papers and began. “This type of dialogue formatting isn’t used often since a reader can get bored facing paragraphs and paragraphs of a single person talking. Think of being in a seminar where the professor drones on and on and you zone out and stop paying attention.

“Breaking it up into multiple paragraphs helps combat a tiring wall of text, but if you can write it another way, try that first. Maybe add some actions—what the characters are doing in this scene—or the thoughts of your protagonist about what’s being said.

“Another thing to be wary of, and something a lot of new writers fall into, is using dialogue for long info dumps. Writers sometimes slip an info dump into dialogue, thinking it’s no longer obvious if someone is explaining the info. It still is, so think of some other way to convey that information.”

Numbers in Dialogue

When writing numbers in dialogue, you can either write them in word form (like “four”) or numeral form (like “4”).

Some numbers should be written with numerals, including years, phone numbers, and trade names that have numerals in them. Really big numbers are often written as numerals as well, since spelling them out would take a lot of space.

But generally, if you can spell out the number instead, do that.

Example 1: “Do you need to go to 7-Eleven tonight?”
Example 2: “I was born in 1994.”
Example 3: “Do you want the ten-piece chicken nugget meal?”
Example 4: “I saw two puppies the other day!”

Speech Without Quotation Marks

Sometimes a character will report another character saying a single word (for example, “yes” in “She said yes“) but you don’t need to put that single word in quotation marks.

Example 1: He could never say no to her.
Example 2: She’d told him yes even though she’d have much preferred to tell him no and have it done with.
Example 3: He wished she’d stop asking why all the time.

Similarly, if a character’s speech is told through narration, there is no need for quotation marks. Keep in mind that you can rewrite situations like these with quotation marks if you prefer.

Example 1: He’d told her to never come back again.
Example 2: The priests were always right, as Jess had told him many years ago, they’d never lead him astray.

Dialogue Tags

Dialogue tags are the indicators that tell readers which character is speaking.

Things like:

He said,
She asked,
Harrold whispered,
Sarah screamed, her voice cracking

Depending on where you place a dialogue tag, the punctuation of your dialogue will change.

No Tag

When dialogue stands on its own without a dialogue tag, treat it as a regular sentence, just inside quotation marks.

Example: “I told you I didn’t want to go, but you didn’t listen.”

If you’re going to have a section of dialogue without a tag, you need to make who is speaking perfectly clear to the reader in some other way. Dialogue without tags usually follow dialogue with tags during a back and forth, since too many tags make the writing clunky.

Example:

“It’s not my fault,” Leo said.

Jean rolled her eyes. “Of course it is! If you were going to act that way, you shouldn’t have come.”

“I told you I didn’t want to go, but you didn’t listen.”

As you can see here, even without a tag, we know it’s Leo speaking.

Dialogue without tags can also be used intentionally when the character hears the dialogue before knowing who the speaker is.

Dialogue Tag After Speech

If you place the dialogue tag after the character’s speech, put a comma inside the quotation marks and make the following word lowercase (unless it’s a character’s name or title, of course, which are always capitalized).

Example 1: “Like I’d ever do that,” he said.
Example 2: “Like I’d ever do that,” John said.

If the dialogue ends in an exclamation or question, the tag that follows is still lowercase.

Example 1: “Like I’d ever do that, it’s disgusting!” he yelled.
Example 2: “Why would I ever do something like that?” he asked.

Dialogue Tag Before Speech

If you place the dialogue tag before the character’s speech, put a comma before the opening quotation mark.

Example 1: He said, “I can’t deal with this right now.”
Example 2: He pushed her hand away, saying, “I can’t deal with this right now.”

Split Dialogue

If you place the dialogue tag in the middle of a character’s speech, end the preceding dialogue with a comma, end the dialogue tag with a comma, and start the continuing dialogue with a lowercase letter.

Example: “If you ever take something of mine again,” Sam growled, “you won’t live long enough to sell it.”

If you place the dialogue tag in between two sentences from the same character, end the preceding dialogue with a comma, end the dialogue tag with a period, and start the next dialogue sentence with a capital letter.

Example: “I’ll never forgive you,” Olivia whispered. “You’re dead to me now.”

Interrupted vs. Trailing Off

If your character’s speech is abruptly cut off or interrupted, end the dialogue with an em dash (—) inside the quotation marks.

Example:

Miranda gave Sarah a conspiratorial wink. “You won’t believe what I heard about—”

“Enough!” Sarah interrupted. “Must you always gossip?”

If your character trails off in the middle of speaking, end the dialogue with an ellipsis inside the quotation marks.

Example: “No, I’m not falling asleep,” Jessica lied, eyelids drooping even as she spoke. “You were… saying…”

Action Instead of a Tag

Sometimes you won’t use a dialogue tag, but instead an action that character is preforming.

When dialogue is preceded or followed by an action with no dialogue tag, treat them as two separate sentences.

Example 1: She gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
Example 2: “That’s ridiculous.” He rolled his eyes and walked in ahead of her.

If the action is in the middle of a sentence, use em dashes outside the quotation marks.

Example: You’ll see him if you look”—she pointed across the street—“just over there.”

Stutters, Stammers, and Pauses

Sometimes, a character might stutter or stammer over certain words. There are specific rules for punctuating that, too:

Stutter

Stuttering is when a character gets stuck on a consonant in a word. This is indicated with a hyphen. Most often it’s at the beginning of a word, but it can be in the middle as well.

Example 1: “I d-didn’t know,” John stuttered.
Example 2: Janet gulped. “Where are we g-going?”
Example 3: “I’ve lost my mon-n-ey.”

If your character stutters, remember that they get stuck on the sound, not the letter. So if the sound is two letters, hyphenate accordingly.

Example 1: “You’re dr-driving?”
Example 2: “Th-that was weird.”

Stammer

Stammering is when a character gets stuck on a full word and repeats it. Punctuate this with a comma between each repeated word.

Example 1: “I, I, I, didn’t know,” John stammered.
Example 2: Janet gulped. “Where are, are we going?”

Pause

If a character fully pauses before they repeat the word and finish the sentence, punctuate this with an ellipsis.

Example: How… how did you do that?”

If your characters are going to stutter, stammer, or pause in their speech, use it sparingly so the reader won’t tire of it (unless it’s one of the character’s quirks).

Thoughts

Thoughts can be written in several ways, and it’s ultimately up to you as the author which you prefer. However, your editor or publisher might have their own preference and ask you to change it.

Thoughts outside of narration are often italicized, but this is also up to you.

In Quotation Marks

If you use quotation marks, then punctuate the thought in the same way you would dialogue. And while you can use either double or single quotation marks, using single quotation marks will distinguish it from regular dialogue.

Example 1: Joann thought, ‘What a beautiful view.‘
Example 2: ‘He’ll never amount to much,’ Vivian thought. ‘What with no job, no passion, and living in his parents’ basement.’
Example 3: ‘Why,’ she wondered, ‘would someone ever choose to work a job like that?’

In Narration

Rewriting your character’s thoughts into the narration is the least jarring way to show them to the reader in a close POV writing style.

Example 1: Joann had never seen a more beautiful view.
Example 2: He’d never amount to much; no job, no passion, and living in his parents’ basement.
Example 3: She didn’t understand why someone would ever choose to work a job like that.

Narration in close POV is naturally biased towards the character’s opinions and thoughts already, so writing thoughts this way flows smoothly.

Straight in the Text

The last option is to forego both narration and quotation marks and just write it straight in the text. If you choose this, just remember it’s still punctuated like dialogue, just without the quotation marks.

Example 1: Joann thought, What a beautiful view.
Example 2: He’ll never amount to much, Vivian thought. What with no job, no passion, and living in his parents’ basement.
Example 3: Why, she wondered, would someone ever choose to work a job like that?

Practice Makes Perfect

If you didn’t know about some of these rules before today, don’t worry: you’re definitely not alone. Formatting dialogue incorrectly is a very common mistake, but as long as you learn how to do it properly and catch your mistakes while editing, it’s not a big deal.

And while these rules may seem like a lot to remember right now, the more you practice, the easier it’ll come until you don’t even have to think about it at all.

So now you can jump back into your dialogue scenes and get writing (or editing, as the case may be) with confidence! You’ve got this!

Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!

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