Writing Dialogue

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Writing Dialogue

• Mr. Henaults ELA

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Rule 1

• All words spoken by a character must be
  surrounded by quotation marks
• A direct quotation can come at the beginning or
  end of a sentence.
• Hello, Jim said.
• Jim said, Hello.

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Rule 2

• A direct quotation begins with a capital letter.
• I looked at Joe when he asked, What smells?
• If a quotation is interrupted, the second part
  beings with a lower-case letter.
• Jim, she asked with a grin, are you going to
  lose this match too?

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Rule 3

• A direct quotation is set off from the rest of
  the sentence by commas.
• If a direct quotation is interrupted, commas are
  placed before and after the interruption.
• The comma before a direct quotation falls outside
  the quotation marks. The comma, or any
  punctuation, after a direct quotation falls
  inside the quotation marks.
• Make sure, she said sternly, you take the
  trash out before you go to school.

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Rule 4

• Dialogue is less formal than other kinds of
  writing. Your goal should be to make your
  characters sound natural. This sometimes calls
  for shorter sentences, contractions, and slang.
• Instead of What are you doing?
• Whats up? or What up?

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Rule 5

• In a conversation between characters, start a new
  paragraph each time the speaker changes!!
• Where are you going? Mom asked.
• I answered quickly, Im going to Jims to
  study.
• On a Friday night?
• I meant Joes. We are going to watch the
  game
• Youre not goin anywhere!
• I was caught in a lie, and silently walked to
  my room thinking, Ive got to get better at
  that!

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Rule 6

• Be careful not to use the word said too often.
  Use other livelier verbs, such as whispered,
  yelled, mumbled, or cried
• Go to my website and download a list of Dialogue
  Tags.

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