Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

✧

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”

Mcyt as Writing Prompts pt. 11

250 notes View Post

tsippi

3 months ago

mother gothel is an amazing representation of how rich people want everything for themselves and never want to share, even though sharing means that others get the thing too and they still get just plenty from it.

why is mother gothel rich you ask?

Rapunzel's hair must have taken so much maintenance to not be a tangled mess

she has no actual job yet somehow manages to raise a more or less well rounded child (rapunzel can somehow read, paint, clean, knit, cook, do ballet, chess, pottery, and sew? even if rapunzel somehow managed to figure out all that on her own, she'd definitely have had to have gotten the materials for rapunzel, which is expensive) and live a decent lifestyle

Eats things like hazelnut soup. Hazelnuts are not cheap, and hazelnut soup seems like something only a rich person would do

41 notes View Post

tsippi

2 months ago

Aaaaaaaaa

Itchy veins.

36 notes View Post

tsippi

4 months ago

5K notes View Post

tsippi

2 months ago

ÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆ ÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆ ÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆ

I decided this screaming is gayer

Itchy veins.

36 notes View Post

tsippi

1 month ago

Reblog if you're not homophobic

Every url that reblog’s will be written in a book and shown to my homophobic dad.

1,773K notes View Post

tsippi

3 months ago

35K notes View Post

tsippi

4 months ago

i’m rewatching scott’s double life for the first time in two years. and his first episode is The aromantic experience. everyone around you is asking if you’ve found your soulmate and you point to your best friend and say “well yeah we’re soulmates now” and they say “HA! FAKE SOULMATES!!!” and then “well i just can’t WAIT until you find your REAL soulmate, i’m having SO MUCH FUN with mine!” it’s like when someone walks up to you and tells you that someday someone will change your mind. and you watch everyone around you get happy and comfortable and settle down with one other person in a tight-knit way that you don’t understand and they’re in shock and disbelief and they stare at you weird when you point to your best friend and tell people that you live together

389 notes View Post