This Needed To Be Said - Blog Posts

A good thing to remember when writing: the first letter of the first word of a sentence is always capitalized.  Always.  Secondly, “said” is almost never capitalized.  This:

“Hey.” Said the guy.

should nEVER EVER HAPPEN.  “Said” pretty much never ever starts a sentence and certainly never with quotes or dialogue.

USING SAID: “Hey,” said the guy.

Any time you would put a period at the end of the quote, but it is followed by a dialogue tag, replace the period with a comma.

If the quote ends with a question mark or exclamation mark, the capitalization remains the same: “Hey!” said the guy.

ONLY, ONLY EVER, USE A PERIOD IF THE DIALOGUE TAG (THAT’S WHAT SAID AND ALL THOSE OTHER WORDS ARE) COMES BEFORE THE QUOTE: The guy said, “Hey.”

THIS HAS BEEN A PSA