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Punctuation in direct speech

We use inverted commas (also called quotation marks, quotes or speech marks) to indicate direct speech. Double quotes (") are preferred in American English, while single quotes (') are more common in British English:

" I'm coming home late tonight, " she said. (American English) ' I'm coming home late tonight, ' she said. (British English)

If we quote within direct speech, we use the other style for the embedded quotation:

"She said, ' I'm coming home late tonight ', " recalled Jim. (American English) 'She said, " I'm coming home late tonight ", ' recalled Jim. (British English)

As can be seen in the examples above, a comma ( , ) is used at the end of the quotation, before the closing speech mark.

A comma is also used before the quotation if we start the sentence with the reporting clause. In this case the terminal full stop (.) comes before the closing speech mark:

She added , "Don't expect me before 11 . "

If the quotation is a question or exclamation, the terminal marks ( ? and ! ) also come before the closing speech marks:

"Hurry up ! " he shouted. She asked, "Am I late ? "

The quotation normally begins with a capital letter, except if it is interrupted by a reporting clause, in which case the first letter of the continuation is not capitalised:

" I 'm coming home late tonight," she said and added, " d on't expect me before 11."

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How to structure and punctuate direct speech in fiction

Part of English Punctuation

Who said what?

Match the famous lines from these books with the character it belongs to:

• “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”
• “Titchy little snapperwhippers like you should not be higgling around with an old sage and onions who is hundreds of years more than you.”
• “My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!”

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• Smaug – The Hobbit

Introduction

In fiction writing, it is really important for readers to understand which character is saying what. In order to make this clear, writers use direct speech:

Direct speech is any word spoken by a character. It can be used to help develop the characters and plot

Direct speech should sit inside speech marks

Direct speech must be carefully structured and punctuated to clearly separate it from the rest of the text

Video about how to structure and punctuate direct speech

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Learn how to correctly structure and punctuate direct speech when writing fiction

Speech marks

Punctuation is used in direct speech to separate spoken words, or dialogue, from the rest of a story. The words spoken by a character sit inside speech marks:

“Did you hear that noise?” whispered Sam.

Speech marks are sometimes known as inverted commas or quotation marks.

Some writers use double speech marks and some use single speech marks. You can use either type as long as you are consistent - it’s important not to swap between the two.

Remember to open - and close - the speech marks at the start - and end - of the direct speech:

“I think there is something moving in the bushes,” George said.

Write out these sentences with the speech marks in the correct place

• I can’t wait for my birthday party! exclaimed Matthew.
• What time does the film start? asked Amelia.
• To get to the art gallery, you need to take the next left and then turn right, the tour guide explained.
• “ I can’t wait for my birthday party! ” exclaimed Matthew.
• “ What time does the film start? ” asked Amelia.
• “ To get to the art gallery, you need to take the next left and then turn right, ” the tour guide explained.

New speaker, new line

Direct speech is carefully structured to help the reader follow the conversation. Every time there is a new speaker in the conversation, a new line is used.

Each new section of dialogue is like beginning a new paragraph, so in a printed novel you will see that each new line is also indented - this is when a line starts further in from the margin. Each new line of direct speech should also start with a capital letter:

“I think there is something moving in the bushes,” George said, looking carefully in the direction from which the sound came.

“I can’t see anything,” said Molly.

“Perhaps we should turn our torches on,” whispered George.

“Okay, but let’s be really quiet.”

A reporting clause after the direct speech tells the reader who is speaking. The last line above misses the reporting clause because the reader can see that the character Molly is replying to George. Once a conversation gets started, it’s fine to drop the reporting clauses.

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6 Unbreakable Dialogue Punctuation Rules All Writers Must Know

Dialogue punctuation is a critical part of written speech that allows readers to understand when characters start and stop speaking. By following the proper punctuation rules — for example, that punctuation marks almost always fall within the quotation marks — a writer can ensure that their characters’ voices flow off the page with minimal distraction.

This post’ll show you how to format your dialogue to publishing standards.

6 essential dialogue punctuation rules:

1. Always put commas and periods inside the quote

2. use double quote marks for dialogue (if you’re in america), 3. start a new paragraph every time the speaker changes , 4. use dashes and ellipses to cut sentences off, 5. deploy single quote marks used for quotes within dialogue, 6. don’t use end quotes between paragraphs of speech .

The misplacement of periods and commas is the most common mistake writers make when punctuating dialogue. But it’s pretty simple, once you get the hang of it. You should always have the period inside the quote when completing a spoken sentence.

Example: “It’s time to pay the piper.”

As you’ll know, the most common way to indicate speech is to write dialogue in quotation marks and attribute it to a speaker with dialogue tags, such as he said , she said, or Margaret replied, or chirped Hiroko . This is what we call “attribution” when you're punctuating dialogue.

Insert a comma inside the quotation marks when the speaker is attributed after the dialogue.

Example: “Come closer so I can see you,” said the old man.

If the speaker is attributed before the dialogue, there is a comma outside the quotation marks.

Example: Aleela whimpered, “I don’t want to. I’m scared.”

If the utterance (to use a fancy linguistics term for dialogue 🤓) ends in a question mark or exclamation point, they would also be placed inside the quotation marks.

Exception: When it’s not direct dialogue. 

You might see editors occasionally place a period outside the quotation marks. In those cases, the period is not used for spoken dialogue but for quoting sentence fragments, or perhaps when styling the title of a short story.

Mark’s favorite short story was “The Gift of the Magi”. 

My father forced us to go camping, insisting that it would “build character”.

Now that we’ve covered the #1 rule of dialogue punctuation, let’s dig into some of the more nuanced points.

In American English, direct speech is normally represented with double quotation marks. 

Example : “Hey, Billy! I’m driving to the drug store for a soda and Charleston Chew. Wanna come?” said Chad

In British and Commonwealth English, single quotation marks are the standard.

Example: ‘I say, old bean,’ the wicketkeeper said, ‘Thomas really hit us for six. Let’s pull up stumps and retire to the pavilion for tea.’

This is one of the most fundamental rules of organizing dialogue. To make it easier for readers to follow what’s happening, start a new paragraph every time the speaker changes, even if you use dialogue tags.

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked the policeman. “Oh, nothing, officer. Just looking for my hat,” I replied.

The new paragraph doesn’t always have to start with direct quotes. Whenever the focus moves from one speaker to the other, that’s when you start a new paragraph. Here’s an alternative to the example above:

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked the policeman. I scrambled for an answer. “Oh, nothing, officer. Just looking for my hat.”

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So far, all of the examples we’ve shown you are of characters speaking in full, complete sentences. But as we all know, people don’t always get to the end of their thoughts before their either trail off or are interrupted by others. Here’s how you can show that on the page.

Em-dashes to interrupt

When a speaking character is cut off, either by another person or a sudden event, use an em-dash inside the quotation marks. These are the longest dashes and can be typed by hitting alt-shift-dash on your keyboard (or option-shift-dash for Mac users).

“Captain, we only have twenty seconds before—”     A deafening explosion ripped through the ship’s hull. It was already too late. 

“Ali, please tell me what’s going—”     “There’s no use talking!” he barked.

You can also overlap dialogue to show one character speaking over another.

Mathieu put his feet up as the lecturer continued. "Current estimates indicate that a human mission will land on Mars within the next decade—"      "Fat chance."      "—with colonization efforts following soon thereafter."

Sometime people won’t finish their sentences, and it’s not because they’ve been interrupted. If this is the case, you’ll want to… 

Trail off with ellipses 

You can indicate the speaker trailing off with ellipses (. . .) inside the quotation marks.

Velasquez patted each of her pockets. “I swear I had my keys . . .”

Ellipses can also suggest a small pause between two people speaking.

Dawei was in shock. “I can’t believe it . . .” “Yeah, me neither,” Lan Lan whispered.

💡Pro tip: The Chicago Manual of Style requires a space between each period of the ellipses. Most word processors will automatically detect the dot-dot-dot and re-style them for you — but if you want to be exact, manually enter the spaces in between the three periods.

In the course of natural speech, people will often directly quote what other people have said. If this is the case, use single quotation marks within the doubles and follow the usual rules of punctuating dialogue.

“What did Randy say to you?” Beattie asked. “He told me, ‘I got a surprise for you,’ and then he life. Strange, huh?”

But what if a character is quoting another person, who is also quoting another person? In complex cases like this (which thankfully aren’t that common), you will alternate double quotation marks with single quotes.

“I asked Gennadi if he thinks I’m getting the promotion and he said, ‘The boss pulled me aside and asked, “Is Sergei going planning to stay on next year?”’”

The punctuation at the end is a double quote mark, followed by a single quote mark, followed by another double quote. It closes off: 

• What the boss said, 
• What Gennadi said, and 
• What Sergei, the speaker, said.

Quoting quotes within quotes can get messy, so consider focusing on indirect speech. Simply relate the gist of what someone said:

“I pressed Gennadi on my promotion. He said the boss pulled him aside and asked him if I was leaving next year.”

In all the examples above, each character has said fewer than 10 or 20 words at a time. But if a character speaks more than a few sentences at a time, to deliver a speech for example, you can split their speech into multiple paragraphs. To do this:

• Start each subsequent paragraph with an opening quotation mark; and
• ONLY use a closing quotation mark on the final paragraph.

"Would you like to hear my plan?" the professor said, lighting his oak pipe with a match. "The first stage involves undermining the dean's credibility: a small student protesst here, a little harassment rumor there. It all starts to add up. "Stage two involves the board of trustees, with whom I've been ingratiating myself for the past two semesters."

Notice how the first paragraph doesn't end with an end quote? This indicates that the same person is speaking in the next paragraph. You can always break up any extended speech with action beats to avoid pages and pages of uninterrupted monologue.

Want to see a great example of action beats breaking up a monologue? Check out this example from Sherlock Holmes.

Hopefully, these guidelines have clarified a few things about punctuating dialogue. In the next parts of this guide, you’ll see these rules in action as we dive into dialogue tags and look at some more dialogue examples here .

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English lessons and resources

Direct speech writing rules in English

7th January 2019 by Andrew 14 Comments

In the above picture, Mark is talking to Jane. The words inside the blue box are the exact words that he speaks.

Here is how we express this:

This is direct speech. Direct speech is when we report the exact words that somebody says.

In this English lesson, you will learn:

• The rules for writing direct speech.
• The correct punctuation.
• Vocabulary to report direct speech.

Reporting clause before the direct speech

The reporting clause of direct speech is the short clause that indicates who is talking. It is the clause that is outside of the inverted commas. It is therefore not the words being spoken.

We can write the reporting clause either before or after the direct speech. If the reporting clause is before the direct speech, we write it as follows:

Grammar rules – If the reporting clause is before the direct speech:

We write a comma (,) before the direct speech. We write the exact words inside the inverted commas. The first letter is a capital letter. We write a full stop (.) before the closing inverted commas.

Reporting clause before a question or exclamation

If the reporting clause is before a question or exclamation:

We write a comma (,) before the direct speech. We write the exact words inside the inverted commas. The first letter is a capital letter. We write a question mark (?) before the closing inverted commas. or We write an exclamation mark (!) before the closing inverted commas.

Reporting clause after the direct speech

If the reporting clause is after the direct speech:

We write the exact words inside the inverted commas. The first letter is a capital letter. We write a comma (,) before the closing inverted commas. We write a full stop (.) at the end of the reporting clause.

Reporting clause after a question or exclamation

If the reporting clause is after a question or exclamation:

We write the exact words inside the inverted commas. The first letter is a capital letter. We write a question mark (?) before the closing inverted commas. or We write an exclamation mark (!) before the closing inverted commas. We write a full stop (.) at the end of the reporting clause.

Advanced rules for direct speech

Sometimes we break up the direct speech into 2 parts:

The second part of the direct speech starts with a small letter if it is the same sentence as the first part of the direct speech.

The second part of the direct speech starts with a capital letter if it is a new sentence.

Vocabulary of direct speech

We have several names for the above punctuation marks:

Inverted commas Speech marks Quotation marks Quotes

Other reporting verbs

Here are some other useful reporting verbs:

reply (replied) ask (asked) shout (shouted) agree (agreed) comment (commented) admit (admitted)

They are often used for writing direct speech in books, newspapers and reports. It is more common to use them in reporting clauses after the direct speech.

“I really don’t like her dress,” she commented . “I don’t love you anymore,” he admitted .

Other English lessons

Private online English lessons How to pass the IELTS with a band 8 Adverbs of frequency Indefinite article “a” and “an” The prepositions FOR and SINCE All of our lessons

Direct speech video lesson

Reader Interactions

Matěj Formánek says

3rd November 2019 at 5:54 pm

How about this sentence: I know the satnav is wrong!” exclaimed Zena. – Why the subject and predicate are swapped? It’s sentence from textbook so I’m confused.

17th June 2020 at 4:07 pm

Can we write multiple sentences in direct speech that comes before reporting clause? In case if this is allowed, what punctuation mark should be used after the last sentence?

Example: “I entered the class room. As I did not find anybody there, I left the class room and went to buy a coffee.” explained the student to the teacher for his delay to come to the class.

Should the punctuation mark after the word coffee be comma instead of full stop?

Joaquim Barretto says

14th September 2020 at 1:25 pm

No full stop, but comma after the word coffee.

19th January 2021 at 2:34 pm

HI IM DAISY

courtney says

27th January 2021 at 12:07 pm

Clare Hatcher says

12th March 2021 at 9:55 am

Hello I like the layout of this – very clear. Just wondering if it is correct to use a comma in between two separate sentences in direct speech. I think that now in published material you find this instead. ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘Let’s stay at home.’ Would appreciate your thoughts Thanks

27th March 2021 at 8:54 am

If I wrote something with a comma at the end to continue speech like this:

“Hello,” he waved to the new student, “what’s you’re name?”

Do I have to use a capital letter even if I’m continuing with a comma or is it lowercase?

Sylvia Edouard says

30th September 2023 at 9:17 am

Yes, you need to use a capital letter as speech from someone has to start with a capital letter. Always.

15th April 2022 at 12:12 pm

which of the following is correct?

1. Should the status go missing when the metadata states, “Sign & return document?”

2. Should the status go missing when the metadata states, “Sign & return document,”? (comma inside)

3. Should the status go missing when the metadata states, “Sign & return document.”? (full stop inside)

Jan Švanda says

7th September 2023 at 1:31 pm

I presume the quotation is there to specify the exact phrase (for the metadata entry). I also encounter this from time to time, when writing technical documentation. I believe in that case you should write the phrase as it is, proper grammar be damned; beautifully looking documentation is useless if it leads to incorrect results.

In this case, I don’t even think this is “direct speech”, the metadata entry isn’t walking around and saying things, the quotation mark is there to indicate precise phrase – similar to marking strings in programming languages. Because of this, I don’t think direct speech rules apply, or at least, they should take back seat. If the expected status includes full stop at the end, the sentence would be:

4. Should the status go missing when the metadata states “Sign & return document.”? (no comma before, since it is not a direct speech; full stop inside, as it is part of the quoted status)

From grammatical perspective the end looks a bit ugly, but again, if this should be technical documentation, that is less important than precision.

A person says

15th August 2022 at 7:16 pm

One extra thing: YOU MUST NOT USE THE WORD SAID IN A REPORTING CLAUSE. EVER. IT’S UNIMAGINATIVE.

no joke, it’s actually discouraged and even close to banned at my school

7th September 2023 at 1:49 pm

This is stupid. You shouldn’t use it in _every_ sentence, there should be variety, but outright banning it doesn’t make sense.

Case in point:

Book: ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Phrase to search: ‘,” said’ (comma, followed by quotation mark, followed by space, followed by word ‘said’). Number of occurrences: 211. Total number of ‘,”‘ (comma, followed by quotation mark) strings is 436, so “said” is used in almost 50% cases of direct speech of this type.

I don’t think it would be right for your school to ban Jane Austin, do you?

blaire says

30th March 2024 at 5:36 pm

How do you use names in direct speech?

Is it: “I really don’t like her dress,” Ashley said. or “I really don’t like her dress,” said Ashley.

I’ve seen both and I’m so confused which one is correct, please help me.

Andrew says

3rd April 2024 at 11:31 am

Hello and thanks for your comment and question.

After the direct speech, both are correct.

Before the direct speech, only the first one is correct:

Ashley said, “I really don’t like her dress.” (correct) Said Ashley, “I really don’t like her dress.” (wrong)

I hope that helps you. Andrew https://www.youtube.com/@CrownAcademyEnglish/

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• Punctuation |

Quotation marks

How to punctuate dialogue in fiction.

Structure and punctuate the dialogue in your novel or story to make readers believe they are listening to a real conversation and watching your characters interact with one another. You want to make it clear who is saying what, but achieve this as unobtrusively as possible.

Enclose direct speech (also called quoted speech, in which you repeat a character’s exact words) in quotation marks.

• “The cake tastes like bread,” Maya said.
• Lulu said, “The water tastes like paper.”
• “And the apples smell like tangerines,” said Farley.
• “Run!” she shouted.
• He asked, “Why?”

In American and Canadian writing, double quotation marks enclose quoted speech. Single quotes are generally used instead as speech marks in British, Australian, and other writing.

Use a comma to separate quoted speech from the speaker.

• “This vacation is boring , ” said Lulu.
• “I knew that , ” Maya said.
• She yelled , “Dragon!”
• Farley said , “I can’t find my shoes.”

Such clauses (“Maya said,” “she yelled”) identify the speaker and are called speech tags. Use commas both before and after a speech tag if it interrupts a speaker’s sentence.

• “The cake , ” she said , “tastes like bread.”
• “Why , ” she wondered , “do we need money?”

But use a period after a speech tag if a new sentence of quoted speech begins after it.

• “The cake tastes like bread,” said Maya . “ T he tea smells of coffee.”
• “I don’t know,” she said . “ Y ou can ask him yourself.”
• “We sell all kinds of packages,” Poco said . “ L et me show you our catalog.”

Capitalization

Capitalize the first word of a sentence of direct or quoted speech.

• Maya said, “ T he hens are loose again.”
• Lulu asked, “ D o you know where they are?”
• Farley cried, “ N ot again!”
• “ W e haven’t booked our tickets yet,” said Maya.

Capitalize the first word after a speech tag if it starts a new sentence.

• “We’ll call him again tonight,” Maya said. “ M aybe this time he’ll answer.” A new sentence begins after the speech tag.
• “Is he here?” she asked. “ W e need to speak with him.”

If a sentence of quoted speech that began before a speech tag continues after it (i.e., the speech tag appears mid-sentence), don’t capitalize the word that follows.

• “I think,” Maya said, “ w e should call him again tonight.” The same sentence continues after the speech tag.
• “Do you know,” she asked, “ i f he is here yet?”

Question marks and exclamation points

If a line of quoted speech ends in a question mark or an exclamation point, omit the comma that generally appears before the speech tag.

• Incorrect: “Who are you? , ” she asked. Correct: “Who are you?” she asked.
• Incorrect: “It’s here! , ” she cried. Correct: “It’s here!” she cried.

However, if the question or exclamation follows the speech tag, use a comma as usual.

• She asked , “Who are you?”
• She cried , “It’s here!”

Dashes and ellipses

Mark interrupted speech using an em dash .

• “You really should—” “Don’t you tell me what to do, Farley Dash!”

An ellipsis (three consecutive periods) can also mark an interruption. More often, it signifies indecision, an incomplete thought, or a pause. In dialogue, an ellipsis can show faltering speech or a thought trailing off.

• Maya asked, “Would you like another slice of chocolate cake?” “Oh, I really shouldn’t, but . . .”
• “I heard . . . what was that? Did you hear that?”

Speech tags: Who said what

Use a speech tag (also called a dialogue tag) to identify the character who is speaking. Here is a dialogue from The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett.

• The tree , in a voice like a very old door swinging open, said , “Serves you right.” There was a long silence. Then Rincewind said , “Did you say that?” “Yes.” “And that too?” “Yes.”

See how the conversation continues without a speech tag attached to every line of dialogue? Once the two speakers have been identified, the reader understands that they take turns speaking. Another speech tag is needed only when a new speaker is introduced or clarification is needed, as in the following conversation from Little Women .

• “Jo does use such slang words!” observed Amy , with a reproving look at the long figure stretched on the rug. Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle. “Don’t, Jo. It’s so boyish!” “That’s why I do it.” “I detest rude, unladylike girls!” “I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!” “Birds in their little nests agree,” sang Beth , the peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the “pecking” ended for that time. “Really, girls, you are both to be blamed,” said Meg , beginning to lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion.

Omitting unnecessary speech tags helps the reader follow along with minimal disruption. You can also omit speech tags the first time a person speaks if it is clear who is speaking, as in the following excerpt from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , where both boys have already been introduced to us.

• Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved—but only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all the time. Finally Tom said : “I can lick you!” “I’d like to see you try it.” “Well, I can do it.” “No you can’t, either.” “Yes I can.” “No you can’t.” “I can.” “You can’t.” “Can!” “Can’t!”

Of course in a conversation with more than two characters involved, you may have to use speech tags more often, as in the following extract from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

• We stared at him until he spoke: “Hey.” “Hey yourself,” said Jem pleasantly. “I’m Charles Baker Harris,” he said . “I can read.” “So what?” I said . “I just thought you’d like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin’ I can do it. . .” “How old are you,” asked Jem , “four-and-a-half?” “Goin’ on seven.”

Use clear and simple speech tags. Don’t try to mix things up by unnecessarily finding synonyms for the verb say . Use alternatives to the word said (such as observed , whispered , cried , shouted , yelled , noted , remarked ) only if necessary to convey meaning to the reader.

Action tags

Action tags describe an action different from speaking and merit a sentence of their own. They are therefore separated from speech using a period, unlike speech tags, which take commas.

• “Farley says he ate a whole bar of chocolate this morning,” said Poco, looking up from his phone. Rita leaned forward . “Did he say chocolate ?” “Hmm? Yes. Why?” “Farley hates chocolate. It’s code . ” She got up and peered out the window . “Someone’s watching us.” “Nobody’s watching us, Rita . ” Poco scratched irritably at his chin . “You and Farley are always worrying about nothing.” “Oh yeah?” Rita pointed to the building opposite . “Then who is that?”

Here is an extract from The House of Mirth in which Edith Wharton effectively uses action tags to make us feel we are in the room, watching what’s going on. Note how she uses commas with speech tags but periods with action tags.

• “How delicious to have a place like this all to one’s self! What a miserable thing it is to be a woman . ” She leaned back in a luxury of discontent . Selden was rummaging in a cupboard for the cake. “Even women , ” he said , “have been known to enjoy the privileges of a flat.” “Oh, governesses—or widows. But not girls—not poor, miserable, marriageable girls!” “I even know a girl who lives in a flat.” She sat up in surprise . “You do?” “I do , ” he assured her, emerging from the cupboard with the sought-for cake.

If the action is described in an adverbial phrase appended to a speech tag, use commas as usual, as in the final line of the example above. But don’t use verbs that don’t describe speech as speech tags. Smiling , yawning , winking , and laughing , for example, are acts different from speaking.

• Incorrect: I don’t know what you mean,” she yawned . Correct: “I don’t know what you mean,” she said with a yawn.
• Incorrect: “Here it is,” he smiled . Correct: “Here it is,” he said , smiling.

Of course you can use such verbs in action tags, but use a period then rather than a comma to separate the tag from the speech.

• Incorrect: She yawned , “I don’t know what you mean.” Correct: She yawned . “I don’t know what you mean.”
• Incorrect: He smiled , “Here it is.” Correct: He smiled . “Here it is.”

New line for each speaker

To make it easy for the reader to follow a conversation, use a new line (paragraph change) each time the speaker changes. End each line of dialogue with a period. The paragraph change indicates to the reader a change in speaker, as in the following extract from The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler.

• “Sarah, it’s bad for you to talk like that.” “Oh? How am I supposed to talk?” “I mean if you let yourself get angry you’ll be . . . consumed. You’ll burn up. It’s not productive.” “Oh, productive! Well, goodness, no, let’s not waste time on anything unproductive.”

Multiple paragraphs, single speaker

In the rare case that speech by a single speaker runs into multiple paragraphs (a running quotation), place an opening quotation mark at the start of each paragraph but a closing quotation mark only at the end of the final paragraph. All previous paragraphs remain unclosed. This tells the reader that the speaker has not changed at paragraph change.

• As Dash writes: “ Paragraph 1. “ Paragraph 2. “ Paragraph 3. ”

You will probably need to do this only when quoting a long speech, essay, or monologue. In normal dialogue, characters don’t speak entire paragraphs’ worth of words in one go.

Thoughts and internal dialogue

A character’s thoughts are often enclosed in quotation marks.

• “Why not?” he thought. “I can always change my mind later.”
• “She seems kind,” mused Maya. “I’m glad he met her.”

Quotation marks may be omitted with interior monologue. This can make it seem as though you are in a person’s head, listening in on their thoughts.

• It is, thought Peter Walsh, beginning to keep step with them, a very fine training. ( Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf)
• Mrs. Rachel felt that she had received a severe mental jolt. She thought in exclamation points. A boy! Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of all people adopting a boy! From an orphan asylum! Well, the world was certainly turning upside down! ( Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery)

When quotation marks are omitted and a thought appears mid-sentence, the first word is often capitalized to set off the thought from the rest of the sentence.

• Then suddenly I thought: Why, what would life be without my puppy! ( A Dog’s Tale by Mark Twain)
• So I thought, Why waste five hours trying to versify the incident? ( Something Else Again by Franklin P. Adams)

But it is not essential to capitalize the first word of a thought if it is clearly being directly quoted, as in the following sentence from Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea .

• I suddenly thought, if he is no longer in the army, why does he have to come and see me at a holiday weekend when the roads are full of traffic?

A writer may also use formatting options, such as italics, as Terry Pratchett does in Going Postal , where the main character, Moist (yes, that’s his name), is in conversation with another character. Moist’s spoken words are enclosed in quotes and his thoughts shown in italics.

• Hold on a minute , Moist thought, this is only one city. It’s got gates. It’s completely surrounded by different directions to run. Does it matter what I sign?

Indirect or reported speech

Don’t use quotation marks if you are reporting a conversation or dialogue instead of quoting the speaker’s exact words.

• Direct (quoted) speech Poco started washing the apples. “Why didn’t you call me last night?” “I had a migraine,” Lulu said. but Indirect (reported) speech As he started washing the apples, Poco asked Lulu why she hadn’t called him the night before. She said it was because she’d had a migraine.

Dashes instead of quotes to mark dialogue

Dashes may be used instead of quotation marks to punctuate dialogue, as in this excerpt from A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle.

• — Will we go for a stroll, so? he said. — Yes, she said. — Right. He wiped the blade of the shovel on his sleeve. — Let’s get this gleaming for the lady. He let the spade hop gently on the path. Melody heard music. — Now we’re right, said Henry Smart. He held out his arm, offered it to Melody. — Hang on, said Melody.

Dashes can make dialogue seem more immediate, as though you’re watching two people talking. However, dashes are less common than quotation marks, which are more popular as speech marks for a reason: they indicate clearly where quoted speech begins and ends.

Omitting speech marks from dialogue

Some writers prefer to omit punctuation altogether, using neither quotation marks nor dashes. Cynan Jones’s The Dig omits speech marks to create an effect that is more immediate, more direct, more urgent.

• We’ve had a report of fly-tipping. He waited. I just wanted to ask whether you would know anything about that. What did they tip? asked the man. The policeman didn’t respond. He was looking at the junk and the big man saw and said, Does it look like I throw things away? Just wondered if you could help, sir, said the policeman.

Before opting for this minimalist style, ask yourself if your short story or novel requires it. Speech marks clearly outline quoted speech in a passage. By omitting them, you are making the reader pay extra attention to understand which words are quoted speech and which are narration. If you do use this method, review your writing carefully to make sure you don’t confuse (and irritate or tire out) the reader.

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Use a comma instead of a period at the end of a quote to separate it from the speaker.

Don’t use a comma after an exclamation point, even at the end of quoted text.

Don’t use a comma after a question mark.

Use a comma after a speech tag before the start of quoted speech.

Internal discourse can be punctuated with or without speech marks. A thought can begin either with a capital or a lowercase letter.

Both quotation marks and dashes can mark dialogue in fiction. Quotation marks are more common.

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When speaking, we can pause or change the tone of our voices to indicate emphasis. When writing, we use punctuation to indicate these places of emphases. This handout should help to clarify when and how to use various marks of punctuation.

Use a comma to join two independent clauses and a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, for, nor, so).

Use a comma after an introductory phrase, prepositional phrase, or dependent clause.

Use a comma to separate elements in a series. Although there is no set rule that requires a comma before the last item in a series, it seems to be a general academic convention to include it. The examples below demonstrate this trend.

Use a comma to separate nonessential elements from a sentence. More specifically, when a sentence includes information that is not crucial to the message or intent of the sentence, enclose it in or separate it by commas.

Use a comma between coordinate adjectives (adjectives that are equal and reversible).

Use a comma after a transitional element (however, therefore, nonetheless, also, otherwise, finally, instead, thus, of course, above all, for example, in other words, as a result, on the other hand, in conclusion, in addition)

Use a comma with quoted words.

Use a comma in a date.

Use a comma in a number.

Use a comma in a personal title.

Use a comma to separate a city name from the state.

Avoid comma splices (two independent clauses joined only by a comma). Instead, separate the clauses with a period, with a comma followed by a coordinating conjunction, or with a semicolon.

Use a semicolon to join two independent clauses when the second clause restates the first or when the two clauses are of equal emphasis.

Use a semicolon to join two independent clauses when the second clause begins with a conjunctive adverb (however, therefore, moreover, furthermore, thus, meanwhile, nonetheless, otherwise) or a transition (in fact, for example, that is, for instance, in addition, in other words, on the other hand, even so).

Use a semicolon to join elements of a series when individual items of the series already include commas.

For more information on semicolons, please see the "90-Second Semicolon" vidcast series on the Purdue OWL YouTube Channel .

Use a colon to join two independent clauses when you wish to emphasize the second clause.

Use a colon after an independent clause when it is followed by a list, a quotation, an appositive, or other ideas directly related to the independent clause.

Use a colon at the end of a business letter greeting.

Use a colon to separate the hour and minute(s) in a time notation.

Use a colon to separate the chapter and verse in a Biblical reference.

Parenthesis

Parentheses are used to emphasize content. They place more emphasis on the enclosed content than commas. Use parentheses to set off nonessential material, such as dates, clarifying information, or sources, from a sentence.

Dashes are used to set off or emphasize the content enclosed within dashes or the content that follows a dash. Dashes place more emphasis on this content than parentheses.

Use a dash to set off an appositive phrase that already includes commas. An appositive is a word that adds explanatory or clarifying information to the noun that precedes it.

Quotation Marks

Use quotation marks to enclose direct quotations. Note that commas and periods are placed inside the closing quotation mark, and colons and semicolons are placed outside. The placement of question and exclamation marks depends on the situation.

Use quotation marks to indicate the novel, ironic, or reserved use of a word.

Use quotation marks around the titles of short poems, song titles, short stories, magazine or newspaper articles, essays, speeches, chapter titles, short films, and episodes of television or radio shows.

Do not use quotation marks in indirect or block quotations.

Underlining and italics are often used interchangeably. Before word-processing programs were widely available, writers would underline certain words to indicate to publishers to italicize whatever was underlined. Although the general trend has been moving toward italicizing instead of underlining, you should remain consistent with your choice throughout your paper. To be safe, you could check with your teacher to find out which he/she prefers. Italicize the titles of magazines, books, newspapers, academic journals, films, television shows, long poems, plays of three or more acts, operas, musical albums, works of art, websites, and individual trains, planes, or ships.

Italicize foreign words.

Italicize a word or phrase to add emphasis.

Italicize a word when referring to that word.

What are speech marks? Examples and how to use them

In this guide, learn what speech marks are and take a look at some examples!

Author Eliana Sk

Published April 14, 2022

Author Jane Doe

Learn what speech marks are and take a look at some examples!

Author Eliana Doe

• Key takeaways
• Speech marks are special punctuation marks that show the exact words someone has spoken
• Speech marks look like this: “ ”
• Knowing the difference between direct speech and indirect speech can help us know how to use speech marks

Table of contents

What are speech marks?

Where are speech marks used, how to use speech marks.

From novels to news reports, speech marks are used in all sorts of places! In this guide, we take a look at what they are, where they’re used and some handy rules to keep in mind when using them.

Speech marks are special punctuation marks that show the exact words someone has spoken.

They’re also known as quotation marks and inverted commas, and they always appear in pairs at the beginning and end of what was said.

This is what they look like:  “ ”

And here’s an example of some speech marks in action:

“The words that appear between speech marks are the exact words that someone has said,” said the teacher.

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You can find speech marks everywhere. They’re common in stories, news articles, poetry and essays. By showing when someone is speaking, speech marks can help make a text more lively and easier to read.

In a story, speech marks may show which of the characters is speaking. For example, in a children’s book you may read:

“We always eat in the garden,” said Markus.

In a news article, speech marks can be used to show a statement made by an expert. For example:

Economists say that “the increase in production will help the job market to grow”.

Explore speech marks with DoodleEnglish

DoodleEnglish is an award-winning app that’s filled with thousands of questions and games exploring spelling, grammar and punctuation!

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When do children learn about speech marks?

Children usually start learning about speech marks around the age of 7.

Before they learn about speech marks, they’ll first be taught about other forms of punctuation, including full stops, commas, exclamation marks and question marks.

Being able to tell the difference between direct and indirect speech will help children to effectively use speech marks.

• Direct speech:  shows the exact words that were spoken by a person or character. Speech marks are used at the beginning and end of direct speech to represent what someone has said.
• Indirect speech:  shows what someone said without using their exact words. Speech marks aren’t used in these cases.
• A  reporting clause  will let a reader know who said the direct speech and how they said it.

You should always separate direct speech from the reporting clause by a comma.

This may sound a little complicated, but if we look at an example it will all be clearer.

Anne said, “It’s snowing!”

In this example, ‘Anne said’ is the reporting clause, as it lets us know that it was Anne who spoke. This clause is separated by a comma from Anne’s direct speech, which is represented by the text between the speech marks (“It’s snowing!”).

If you’re writing a conversation between multiple people, reporting clauses can also help to clarify who’s speaking, and when.

Speech mark examples

Let’s take a look at some examples of speech marks in actions. These will help us better understand the different uses of speech marks.

The teacher said that Anthony’s story was “exceptionally written” and that’s why she read it to the whole class.

In this example, a fragmented part of the teacher’s statement is quoted. This is why the statement isn’t capitalised and has no punctuation before or within the quotation marks.

Markus laughed, “Did you see how high I jumped?”

“I know! It was amazing!” Adriana agreed.

In this example, two different people are speaking. The reporting clauses (‘Marcus laughed’ and ‘Adriana agreed’) shows us who is speaking. Each speaker is also placed on a new line to help the reader see that a new person has started speaking.

“It’s amazing,” William exclaimed, “there are bubbles everywhere!”

In this example, the statement made by William is separated by the reporting clause. This is a fun way of adding some character to your writing when using speech marks.

“Polar bears are my favourite real animals,” Mario said. He then told us about the mythical animals he likes more than polar bears.

This is an interesting example because only part of what Mario said is directly written down. The rest is summarised in indirect speech, and this is why there are no speech marks in the second sentence.

How to use speech marks when writing

If you’d like to quote a phrase or statement, using speech marks will show the reader that these aren’t your original words.

Speech marks are also a great way to give emphasis to certain phrases.

If you’re writing stories, they’ll also help to separate when the different characters are talking. Keep in mind that speech is a faster way of moving a story forward, so be careful about how much you use them!

General rules for using speech marks

There are a few helpful rules to keep in mind when using speech marks:

• Sentences made by different characters or people will need to be in separate lines
• If you’re using a person’s full statement, the punctuation of the sentence will need to be within the quotation marks. This includes full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks.
• If a reporting clause is before the speech marks, you’ll need a comma to separate the two. This comma will be before the speech marks.
• If a reporting clause comes in the middle of two quoted sentence parts, you’ll need a comma at the end of the speech marks in the first part and at the beginning of the speech marks in the second part of the sentence

Final thoughts

Using speech marks is relatively easy once you realise they’re only used to express what someone said. When writing an essay or story, speech marks can also help to make your writing more interesting and lively!

To learn even more about speech marks, why not download the  DoodleEnglish app ?

It’s filled with interactive exercises exploring the topic, making it the perfect way to put your learning into practice.

Best of all, it’s designed to be used for just 10 minutes a day — and you can try it for absolutely free!

FAQs about speech marks

Speech marks are punctuation marks that show the words someone has spoken. They’re also known as quotation marks and inverted commas.

If we look at an example: Peter said, “It’s raining!”

‘Peter said’ is a reporting clause, as it lets us know that it was Peter who spoke.

This clause is separated by a comma from Peter’s direct speech, which is represented by the text between the speech marks (“It’s raining!”).

You should use speech marks each time someone speaks.

Speech marks are also called ‘inverted commas’.

You should use inverted commas whenever someone speaks in your writing.

Single speech marks (‘ ‘) can be used to replace double quotation marks (” “) when they’re inside of double quotation marks.

Try DoodleEnglish for free!

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Mini Lesson: Punctuating Interrupted Dialogue

• Use a speech verb with a modifier. For example: "Look over there," she said, pointing to the corner, "over by the bookshelves."
• Because you're using a speech verb ( said ), you punctuate it like any other dialogue tag, with a comma before the closing quotation mark.
• In this case, the extra action ( pointing to the corner ) is added on following a comma because the modifier is subordinate to the main verb (still said ).
• Because you're interrupting one sentence ("Look over there, over by the bookshelves."), a comma is also used to lead into the second half of the dialogue, and that second bit of dialogue is not  capitalized.
• Keep in mind, the dialogue in this example could be two separate sentences: "Look over there. Over by the bookshelf." This is a different speech pattern, and if this is how you'd like your character to speak, then there would be a period after "corner," and the second bit of dialogue would be capitalized: "Look over there," she said, pointing to the corner. "Over by the bookshelves."
• Use an em dash inside  the quotation marks to cut off the character mid-dialogue , usually with either (A) another character speaking or (B) an external action.
• A: "Look over there—" "By the bookshelves," Jamie added before Sheila could clarify. 
• B: "Look over there—" A stack of boxes clattered to the ground.
• Including the em dash at the end of the line of dialogue signifies that your character wasn't finished speaking.
• Sometimes unfinished lines of dialogue end with an ellipsis. This is grammatically correct, but it signifies your character trailing off as if losing their train of thought or drifting off to sleep, not  something or someone else interrupting their words.
• If you want to make a point of the speaking character's action interrupting their own dialogue, you could also use this punctuation, writing: "Look over there—" She snapped her mouth shut so she didn't give the secret away.
• Note that in most such instances a new sentence starts after the closing quotation mark, so of course the first word would need to be capitalized.
• If instead you're following the interrupted line with a dialogue tag, you would leave the tag lowercase, as usual. For example:
• Use em dashes outside  the quotation marks to set off a bit of action without a speech verb. For example: "Look over there"—she pointed to the corner—"by the bookshelves."
• Do not  merely use commas, because in such cases there is no speech verb, and therefore it isn't a dialogue tag and can't be punctuated like one.
• Wrong: "Look over there," she pointed to the corner, "by the bookshelves."
• Pointed  isn't a speech verb, but this punctuation indicates that she is "pointing" her words to the corner. If we were to replace pointed  with called , this punctuation would become correct, as in example #1 above.
• Do not put the em dashes inside the quotation marks if the line of dialogue continues after the interruption. 
• Wrong:  "Look over there—" she pointed to the corner "—by the bookshelves."
• Also wrong? Putting em dashes half in and half out, or combining em dashes with commas. If you're segmenting a line of dialogue without using a speech verb, make sure to close the quotation marks after the first bit of dialogue, use two em dashes around the interruption, then open the quotation marks again for the second part.
• Bonus: If we're tuning into someone's dialogue in the middle, you can absolutely open  the dialogue with an em dash or an ellipsis, making sure not to capitalize the first word. For example: Sheila found Jason leaning against the wall. "—why we'll never go to Starbucks again," he was saying. (Or: "...why we'll never go to Starbucks again," he was saying.)
• This does not work if we're catching a full sentence, in other words if there would have been a period (or question mark, or exclamation point) had we "heard" what came before. In such a case, the narration or tag can clue us in to having missed part of the dialogue: "So that's why we'll never go to Starbucks again," Jason finished explaining.

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128 comments:

How do you interrupt a dialog with the characters own internal dialog?

Great question! You'd choose option 2 or 3 as appropriate, based on whether the dialogue cuts off entirely or continues after the interruption. With direct thought, you would also capitalize and italicize. For example: "Look over there"— Do I have to do everything? —"over by the bookshelf." Some in-house style guides don't italicize direct thought, in which case you'd follow the guide but still punctuate according to the same rules. With indirect thought, you would follow the rules in the post like with any other narration.

Capitalization is different in your example though: Wrong: "Look over there—" she pointed to the corner "—by the bookshelves."

The example above includes direct thought. The example in the post is narration. As I said in my comment above, direct thought is (conventionally) italicized, and I would recommend capitalizing as well.

What about dialogue that is interrupted mid-word?

Hi Katie, If you're cutting off dialogue mid-word, rule #2 applies: "He was defi—" A stack of boxes clattered to the ground. If you want to interrupt a character in the middle of the word and then have them finish the thought, convey that via narration: "He was defi—" Her hand flew to her throat as she stifled a cough. After a sip of water, she continued, "—nitely planning on coming." Use an option like this sparingly, and make sure your character really would choose to continue mid-word, rather than repeating the full word or even starting over.

Hi there - how would you punctuate when the interrupted dialogue is not connected. I have just changed the following to a cap D for Do. Would you all agree? “I’ll have a coffee,” he said to the waiter then, turning to her, “Do you have any more information? Have I kept you too long this time?”

Your capitalization is correct, Glenda, but the tag is awkward right now. I'd actually recommend splitting it up, for example: “I’ll have a coffee,” he said to the waiter then turned back to her. “Do you have any more information?” or: “I’ll have a coffee,” he said to the waiter. Turning back to her, he continued, “Do you have any more information?” Does that make sense?

I am using the "—" to indicate dialogues. So how can I indicate an interrupted dialogue in a mid-word? Can I use the "—" or maybe "-"?

First, unless you have a compelling reason to use a quotation dash in an English-language work, I'd strongly recommend you use quotation marks. While some authors writing in English have chosen to use the quotation dash, there's a reason most use quotation marks: clarity. Remember, the goal of punctuation is to help get your meaning across to the reader. That being said, the specifics of how to punctuate an interrupted word, or rather how awkward it would look to use an em dash (still the appropriate punctuation), would depend on precisely how you use the quotation dash as there are different options. However, it will almost certainly look awkward, and I would generally caution against using that kind of construction if you're using the quotation dash. (This is another reason to use quotation marks—the flexibility their clarity gives you.)

Oh, I see... I'm from Brazil and here we usually use dash to write dialogues, and your blog was the first I've found explaining about dialogues interrupted in a mid-word (I couldn't find anything about it in portuguese). I totally forgot that here we construct dialogues in a different way. We hardly ever use quotation marks this way.

If you're writing in Portuguese and can't find an answer, I'd recommend prioritizing clarity. if your readers can understand exactly what you mean and you're consistent, then you should be okay.

I've never been taught about the em dash in school. I had to go out of my way to find this information because I kept finding the em dash in writing, but never had an explanation about when and where to use it. That being said, I use commas for just about everything, including interrupting dialogue with an action. So, just to clarify, should you only use commas when there is a declaration of speech? I'll give an example. This is what I've been taught (using an offhanded excerpt from my writing): "Um," James pointed his thumb at the exit, "The sign outside of your town says, 'Ghoti.'" But this is what it should be: "Um—" James pointed his thumb at the exit "—the sign outside of your town says, 'Ghoti.'" Unless it is worded like this: "Um," James began as he pointed his thumb at the exit, "the sign outside of your town says, 'Ghoti.'" Am I understanding this correctly?

You almost have it right, Megan. Yes, only use commas when there's a speech verb, like in your last example. Your first example, as you said, is wrong because there is no speech tag. But remember that when using em dashes to interrupt dialogue like in your second example, the em dashes have to go outside the quotation marks (like in example #3 in the post). So it should be: "Um"—James pointed his thumb at the exit—"the sign outside of your town says, 'Ghoti.'" Let us know if you have any other questions!

Hi! I am so thankful I found this page. Would you please show an example of two people continuing to cut each other off, using em dashes? Are they used on both ends of the sentence and/or how many dashes on either end? (ie) "I don't know. I don't know what to think about-" "-you're still lying-" <--(I'm not sure whether to capitalize "you're") "-I'm not lying!"

Glad you found it helpful, Mandy! In your example, the second and third sentences are not interrupted—they're full thoughts. Only the first line is actually interrupted, so the way it would be punctuated is: "I don't know. I don't know what to think about—" "You're still lying." "I'm not lying!" Narration of course helps if you want to clarify that they're speaking over one another. But the em dash is only necessary when someone's sentence is being cut off. Another example: "I don't know what to think about—" "Why are you still ly—" [note: an em dash can cut someone off mid-word] "I'm not lying! You're just—" "Oh yes you are, always making things up about me." In this case, the first three lines are interrupted, so all three use an em dash at the end. But since we "hear" each person's first words, the start of each line of dialogue is punctuated (and capitalized) like usual.

Thank you so much, that clears up a lot of confusion for me. For some reason I had it in my head that the em dash needed to occur where the first speaker was interrupted, and then continued at the beginning of the 'interrupter's' sentence as well, which looked very messy (to me) in print. I'm sorry if you repeated yourself - I did read through the previous answers before posting, but wasn't seeing anything that specifically pertained to both speakers cutting each other off. So is there any time that if both speakers are cutting each other off continually, an em dash would go at the beginning? Like if one finished the other's sentence? "We are sisters and we always know--" "--what the other is going to say." (would an em dash be appropriate in beginning here, or just for the first speaker and not for the second?) "We are sisters and we always know --" "What the other is going to say."

The em dash in this case replaces something the speaker said which the reader doesn't get to "hear." So in your example, no em dash because the second speaker is chiming in with a fragment. There aren't any words missing for the em dash to replace. If you had overlapping snatches of speech, you could in fact have lines that both start and end with an em dash, like so: "Why are you still ly—" "—not lying, you just never—" "—always making things up—" "—let me finish!" [In this case, the em dash is replacing something like "will you," though the sentence could also be complete, in which case no em dash and capitalize "let" like above.] So it's definitely an option if we aren't hearing the beginning of the speaker's words. In that case, do use an em dash and don't capitalize the first word since the beginning of the sentence is cut off.

My question is when using em dashes to interrupt dialogue are all forms of punctuation ignored prior to the to the interruption. Example: "Dialogue ending in an exclamation mark!"—action—"continuing dialogue..." So, would the exclamation mark be omitted in this case or is this grammatically correct? Furthermore, would this also apply to a question mark?

If you're including terminal punctuation (period, question mark, exclamation mark), your speaker's sentence isn't being interrupted, so you wouldn't use em dashes at all. You would simply end the line of dialogue, have a sentence of narration, and then have a new line of dialogue, even if it's the same speaker continuing. For example: "Look what we have here!" He put his hands in his pockets. "Didn't think I'd be seeing you today." The exclamation point can be replaced with a period without changing any other punctuation. Similarly, with a question: "What do we have here?" He put his hands in his pockets. "Didn't think I'd be seeing you today." Em dashes are only used when you're interrupting a single sentence of dialogue. For example: "What do we"—he stifled a cough—"have here?"

I see. Thanks for the clarity. I find dialogue to be the hardest thing to get correct.

Occasionally, I use ellipses at the beginning of dialogue to indicate a pause or hesitation before speaking. First, is this acceptable? Second, if it is, would I capitalize the first word, since it is essentially the beginning of the sentence? For example: "Will you be there tonight?" he asked. "...Perhaps." I know it would be easy in this context to write something like: "She hesitated before answering." But there are times where that doesn't seem to fit the flow of the narrative.

It's absolutely acceptable to use an ellipsis at the start of a line of dialogue to indicate missing words. So if your "full" line of dialogue had been: "We could go to the market in the morning." And you wrote: "...market in the morning." That would be absolutely fine, since the ellipsis indicates (in a slightly different way than an em dash) that we missed part of what's being said. In your example, however, where the line of dialogue is complete (meaning your character didn't say something we missed before "perhaps"), you should indeed be using narration, not an ellipsis. And if it doesn't feel right the flow of your narration, you should try to adjust the way you describe it so it does.

Hi! So I'm struggling with this sentence and not sure how to do it. Basically, my character is saying "What? No" with the "no" having a confused tone. But he's cutting himself off as well, because he's flustered. So this is how it currently reads: "What? No," Luke replied with a shake of his head, finally unfolding the paper wad. "What the hell is this, anyways?" Would I keep it as is? I know an ellipses after "no" wouldn't fit because he's not trailing off. He's being ribbed about having a crush, so I kind of wanted to showcase that here. Thank you!

Hi Bee, There's nothing incorrect about how you currently have it, but you do have the option of playing with the punctuation a bit, depending on the inflection you'd like to portray. Consider the difference between: "What? No!" and "What! No?" (Or even "What? No?") If he's cutting himself off mid-sentence, you could use an em dash. For instance, if the full sentence would be "No I don't!" your text could read: "What? No—" Luke shook his head, finally unfolding the paper. You can also use more evocative narration, for example: "What? No." Hesitation clung to Luke's denial. Cheeks burning, he latched onto the wad of paper as a distraction, finally unfolding it. "What the hell is this, anyways?" So the great news is you have many options. It all depends on the nuance you want to achieve.

Thank you so much!

How would you show someone interupting a sentence with a sound effect? Like for example: Her voice slurred as she spoke, "I have," (Hiccup) "no idea what you are talking about."

You're describing an action, so in general, it would be punctuated according to scenario 3: "I have"—she hiccuped—"no idea what you are talking about." If you're set on including only the sound, not the action, you'd still use em dashes outside the quotation marks, since the dialogue is being interrupted without a speech verb involved, but also italicize the sound: "I have"— hiccup —"no idea what you are talking about."

I am formatting my deceased mother’s books and see she has used the em dash 100s of times but with a period after it, i.e: “Glynis—.” He dismounted, and looking at her he seemed curiously unsure of himself. “My lord—.” and her voice was shy. He tried to—.” but she could say no more. I cannot find any examples anywhere on the web nor in my bookshelf where em dash is punctuated. However my mother was English and old school educated. 1. Should I just delete the period or can I leave it as it is? 2. You mentioned we must capitalise the following sentence after the em dash/quotation mark? In some places my mother has and others she hasn’t. Can you kindly point me in the right direction? It's so confusing...

1: An em dash is considered terminal punctuation when it cuts off dialogue, so you wouldn't need the periods before the closing quotation marks and should remove them. 2: Thanks for this question, which prompted me to add clarification to the post. In some cases, a truncated line of dialogue is followed by a dialogue tag, which would remain lowercase as usual. In all of your examples, your mother started new sentences, so those would be capitalized. But if, for example, she'd written: “My lord—” she started to say, but a sharp gesture cut her off. The dialogue tag would remain lowercase. A separate question is whether your mother's writing really needs hundreds of em dashes cutting off lines of dialogue, but of course that's for her (and now you) to decide.

Thank you for this post. I know this is specifically targeting interruptions, but what if a character is stammering in his sentence, so he is "interrupting" his own flow of thoughts? I found information on people having a stutter, but I don't mean for him to stutter but to simply change what he's saying, or to stutter between two whole words rather than just sounds. For example, would this be correct: "I don't really—Actually, never mind," he said. What if he was just stammering: "I don't—don't really..." In this case he's stuttering the whole word rather than something like "d-don't" because I feel like people stutter whole words at time?

The main thing to focus on is of course clarity for the reader, and your use of em dashes does achieve that. But using your examples, you could make the first one more clear by shifting the dialogue tag: "I don't really—" he said. "Actually, never mind." People do occasionally repeat entire words as they're searching for what to say, but I'd suggest using that sparingly. First, we don't write fiction exactly how people speak, for example cutting out the many "boring" pieces of our usual conversations. But also, you can convey in narration that a character has this tendency to repeat words and highlight it in dialogue only when it's especially relevant, such as when the character is first introduced or perhaps particularly nervous.

Thank you so much for this entire lesson! I think all of the comments propelled this "mini" lesson into a full one, thankfully! I truly appreciate all of the time you have spent on this topic. I was wondering about the example used in the above post; you rewrote the line to clarify it, not correct it. I'm transcribing a lecture and I have run into the same question about how to use the em dash when the speaker changes what she is saying. Since I am transcribing instead of writing fiction, I do need to write exactly how people speak, so I went with this: “Oh, if only I—you know, if I just ignore it, it’s going to go away.” Is this the correct way to use the em dash in this sentence? Thank you so much for your time!

You're right, Megan, it's become a bit of a monster lesson! You're in a bit of a unique position since you aren't writing fiction but transcribing natural speech. (Fiction is never 100% true to how people actually speak or behave.) My first tip will still be to prioritize clarity, so as long as it's understood, you should be fine. In your example, I would say you could make it a bit clearer that the speaker started saying one sentence, cut off, then started a new sentence by separating the two: “Oh, if only I— You know, if I just ignore it, it’s going to go away.” I made two very small changes (adding the space and capitalizing the second sentence), but in my opinion this reads a bit more clearly. If the person is trailing off, you could use an ellipsis in place of the em dash, to demonstrate that slower pause. I would still recommend separating the sentences if they are two distinct ones, rather than an aside or the continuation of the same thought. Hope that helps!

How do I punctuate if the dialogue of one character is interrupting the dialogue of another character?

Take a look at example 2A in the post.

Hi Anya! I work on subtitles, and clarity is of the utmost importance. There are two issues I keep running into. The first one is whether or not the word following the interruption has to be capitalized. For instance, in the example above, “Oh, if only I— You know, if I just ignore it, it’s going to go away,” you suggested capitalization as a way of introducing clarity. However, it seems to me that the speaker continues the same thought, merely inserting an interjection. I also encounter many examples where the speaker repeats the same word/word combination, e.g.: "That's... that's not true." So, the questions is, to capitalize or not to capitalize? The other issue is rendering stammering in writing. I often see linguists do this: "W-W-What did you say?" Is this how you would suggest going about it? I would really appreciate your opinion on these issues.

My recommendation would be to consider whether someone is starting a new complete thought. If so, start a new sentence (so include a space and capitalize). If not, if they're continuing or rephrasing but not starting anew, then no space and no capitalization, whether you use an em dash or an ellipsis. In some cases, it's a judgment call. Usually if someone is repeating one word or a short phrase, that's the same thought continued. In the first example you referenced, it seems as if the speaker is about to say one thing ("If only I [could do something about my problem] "), changes their mind (indicated by the em dash), then starts a completely different thought (thus the space and capitalization). There is no interjection (which would be set off by em dashes on both sides). Your usage of hyphens is a common way to indicate stammering in fiction, and for what it's worth, that is also the preference stated in the BBC Subtitle Guidelines, section 13.7 (https://bbc.github.io/subtitle-guidelines). If you're writing for a specific network, they may have their own style guide.

Hi Anya! I read your article, and I have a question. When writing dialogue, is it okay to state an action after parenthesis like this: “Yes.” Pushed from my mouth, and her head shot up. "Yes" (Period) and then a capital 'P'?

Hi Girl Who Writes, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Could you clarify your question, please?

How would you punctuate a character interrupting themselves? I usually end up formatting it more or less like this: "Hang on, that's not fa- wait, did you just say what I think you said?"

Take a look at my answers to Megan's and Fidgety Linguist's questions.

This was fantastic. It was exactly what I was looking forward. Thanks.

Glad you found it helpful, Chad!

Hello! Thank you for the information, it was of great help! Although, I would still like to ask for some help... How exactly would you write a sentence where a character started saying a word but stopped mid-way through, and replaced it with another. All within the same quotation marks. Example (how I did it, thinking it was right): “What?” Arlo asked quietly, looking at him in confusion. “The alie—, the creature’s blood,” Liam answered, “I had no water to wash it off.” Is this alright? :/ If not, please enlighten me haha. Thanks in advance!

Hi David, The em dash is considered terminal punctuation, so you wouldn't use a comma after it. Otherwise, it becomes a question of whether the speaker is starting a new "complete" thought (which can of course still be a fragment) or not. Take a look at my answer to Fidgety Linguist as well. In the specific example you used, the result could be either option: “The alie—the creature’s blood,” Liam answered... “The alie— The creature’s blood,” Liam answered...

I am not sure how to use dashes when a dialogue is interrupted, then followed by someone else talking, and then the original speaker continues. For instance, is this correct: "I want you to—" "I will do what you ask." "—clean the floor." What about this one: "I want you to—" "I will do what you ask." "—and you will learn not to interrupt me." Also, do dashes that come at the end of a sentence that is not dialogue, follow the same rules as dashes that interrupt dialogue?

Hi Simon, In your first example, that's a fine option. Although without narration, it remains a little ambiguous whether the second and third line are said simultaneously or in sequence, so you have the option of using tags to clarify. Adding a tag to the last line, you could also skip the second em dash entirely, making it: "I want you to—" "I will do what you ask." "Clean the floor," Alex finished, arching an eyebrow at Sam's interruption. For your second example, because the third line is an entirely new thought, not a continuation of the original sentence, you would punctuate it as an independent line of dialogue. I'm not sure I understand the scope of your last question, but if you're wondering whether em dashes at the end of a sentence are considered terminal punctuation outside of dialogue, they are.

What I meant to say about em dashes at the end of a sentence was: must the em dash at the end of a sentence outside of a dialogue have to be closed? I.e.: That was the last he was seen— Or can it also be written as: That was the last he was seen —

Clarificaton: by "closed," I mean closed on the left side of the dash (obviously, as a terminal punctuation point, it would be open on its right side).

That's correct, there would be no space before the terminal em dash, even if the sentence wasn't in dialogue.

Hello! I’m currently trying to write a small comedic piece but I’m not sure how to properly use dashes when it comes to self-interrupting action. What I mean by that is in my piece, my character is basically face palming herself over and over mid-conversation with herself. For example: She’s trying to tell herself to control herself. “Control”—smack—“yourself”—smack. “Control”—smack—“yourself”—smack. Is this correct?

What about dialogue that is constantly interrupted due to the twists and turns and changes of partner in a Regency era country dance. The partners are not pleased with each other. One would prefer not to be there and the other. The other is manipulative. The comments are complete, but the separation comes before the reply. How would I write this in a novel?

I currently have the word "Separation" like a one-word sentence to indicate the dance has separated them. I have also mentioned that the dance often separates them. I want the conversation to feel stiff and disjointed.

If the line of dialogue is complete, it would be punctuated the standard way, whether using a comma with a dialogue tag or terminal punctuation (with or without a tag). The separation you are describing would be narrated, though I would caution you against simply using the word separation as if you were writing stage direction. Action beats, internal narration, and even direct thought can all be combined to help create the stilted effect you would like.

What if the speaker stops speaking because he hesitate to tell the rest of his thought, not because he is interrupted by something or someone? Should we use the em dash or suspension points?

Either is an acceptable option, even if it's the speaker's hesitation preventing the thought from being completed. If the comment ends abruptly, I'd recommend an em dash; if it trails off as if slowly losing confidence, then an ellipsis.

Hi Anya, This is a great article! If a character's dialogue is interrupted by the first person narrator's internal dialogue, would the following be accurate? “Well, it’s really not terrible. We’re looking at twelve hundred for a week—“ I try to hide my complete astonishment. Does he truly think that’s a reasonable expense? “—but the amenities are remarkable considering the cost."

Hi there, Yes, if you absolutely must interrupt dialogue with subjective narration (or direct thought) from someone other than the speaker, that punctuation would work.

What happens if the dialogue is an exclamation (!) and is interrupted. Can the word after the article be capitalized and is there only one exclamtion? For example: “Stop! Stop the music! This is—no... stop the music now” she screamed. “And restart!”

This is an interesting example! Consider: "Stop the music!" she screamed. Here, we know that the speaker is screaming the words between the quotation marks. Or: "Stop the music!" She screamed. The capital letter in she makes "She screamed." into its own sentence rather than a dialogue tag. So in this case, there is an exclamation ("Stop the music!") followed by the speaker screaming (think: Aaaaaaaah! ). So yes, absolutely you can capitalize the pronoun—just be aware of how it changes your meaning. If you want "Stop the music now and restart" to be a single sentence of dialogue interrupted by its tag, you would punctuate it like any such line of dialogue: "Stop the music now," she screamed, "and restart!"

Can I cut off mid-word even if the character isn't actually speaking? For example: He remembered his wife used to sit in that very seat, back when she was aliv—

Absolutely.

How would you punctuate speech that's sort of stuttered and broken? I've been using hyphens for in-sentence breaks and em dashes for breaks that occur at the end of lines. Is that right? Or should I use em dashes for both? I'm also not certain whether I should be using the em dash at the beginning of the continuation of the interrupted speech as well. In this specific example it's cross-talk—so the first speaker doesn't really stop talking—but I still felt it was the best way to represent that. e.g. "I'm- I'm sorry, I just—" "Dude, what the hell are you talking about?" "—I can't be here."

In terms of cross talk, you're using the em dashes correctly at the closing and opening of the interrupted speech. For your first question, it becomes a touch more complicated. When someone is stuttering , hyphens are correct, e.g.: "wh-wh-why." When someone's speech is halting or broken, but they're repeating syllables or words (not sounds), the em dash is more appropriate.

Hello Anya, I'm glad I found your blog. It's quite useful. I have a doubt. How would you punctuate a dialog that is fragmented along a paragraph with multiple actions? Especially when you want to introduce dialog after an action, I've found several sources that are quite contradictory. Eg. "Let me think," he said. "When did you last see him?" He started walking in circles while taking a drag off of his cigarette. "I need to know." Thank you!

Hi Malfriv, Jennifer actually covered this in another post! Check it out here. The short answer is that your example paragraph is punctuated correctly (assuming all the dialogue is said by the same person).

Hi. How to place em dashes when an action of one character is set off while the other is speaking without an interruption in their speech? For example: "You haven't faced—" She looked up at him. "—the worst yet." In this example, it appears to me that the speaker took a break as she looked up (which I don't want to imply). Another option could be: "You haven't faced," he began and she looked up at him, "the worst yet. Is the first example fine or should there be any changes?

Your first example is correct because the paragraph breaks indicate the action is being done by a different character than the one speaking. Remember that if the "she" in question were the speaker, this would be punctuated as per #3 in the post. To clarify further, you could add action beats to either or both of the paragraphs with dialogue. I would recommend using this construction sparingly, but it is correct. The good news is that the punctuation in your second example is also correct (aside from the missing quotation mark at the end), though I would recommend as rather than and . If there isn't a compelling reason to have the other character's action interrupt the speaker's dialogue, it would similarly be correct to have: "You haven't faced the worst yet," he said as she looked up at him.

Dear Anya, I hope I am not repeating a previous question. But I am looking for an answer to punctuating dialogue within an action sequence. For example: As they approached the bottom of the stairs, he pulled back on her hand. “Let me go first.” And stepped in front of her. I want to include the dialogue simply as part of the action. It's kind of like setting off dialogue with em dashes for action within dialogue but I am not sure about the reverse. Thank you!

Hi there, Check out Jennifer's post: Punctuating Action Beats in Dialogue .

What a useful post! I do have one question that doesn't seem to have been addressed here: I set off em dashes with a space before and after -- I'm old, it's the way I was taught to do it -- but I'm not sure what to do at the end of something in quotes. For instance: "This place – ” she commented, waving her coffeecup at nothing in particular, “ – is more a haven for people who have run out of other places to go.” Keep both spaces, fore and aft, or lose the space that adjoins the quotation marks?

It's tough to answer a question when you seem to say preemptively that you don't want the real answer, which is: no spaces, no matter what you were taught before. Style guides do evolve with time (and technology). For example, you may have been taught to add two spaces after a period. Now, you should only use one. If you do not want to change how you do it, a copy editor could do it for you. Separately, note that you would not use em dashes at all in your current example; you would punctuate with commas, as in #1 in the post.

Could you please explain how to punctuate this correctly? My mind has drawn a blank. “Oh hey! I didn’t know you guys were here… Is-”, but before Will could finish, he was sucker-punched from behind.

Hi KatScratch, Take a look at example 2B in the post.

Love the thread! It's been super helpful. In first person monologue, how would the character interrupt themselves? I'm unsure which would be correct: Why would he–Oh! That looks like a nasty fall. Why would he– Oh! That looks like a nasty fall.

Glad you've found the post and comments useful! If you're capitalizing the second sentence (or fragment), then use the space after an em dash: "Why would he— Oh! That looks like a nasty fall." However, you could also keep that oh lowercase and not add the space: "Why would he—oh!" It's the tiniest difference in how it reads, but either option is fine.

Hi! I'm not quite sure how to phrase this, but I'm writing a mock example for a Tumblr post and therein decided to learn how to properly use the em-dash for the post. Anyway! Say Person A is rambling about something and Person B interjects with their own line of thought/asks a question. Then, Person A answers that question but continues their original ramble/whatever they were saying before in the same sentence. Like, they answered Person B in an absent minded manner and continued with what they were saying—how would that work? My example doesn't include dialogue tags or context—just dialogue—primarily because it's something like... Person A: "*insert text*" Person B: "*insert text*" Person A: "*insert text*" So I'm mainly asking for an example that provides how the dialogue would be writing if possible. Thank you!

Oh! And too elaborate it'd be like... Person A: "What's your favourite colour? Mine's purple. Did you know that— Person B: "Mine's blue." Person A: "Okay cool! —that there's a type of cauliflower that's purple? Like purple cauliflower? How cool is that!?" Something along those lines ahh. I've tried multiple different ways to punctuate it but I just can't figure it out.

This is an interesting one! I agree that your sample isn't a great option, as it looks messy and unclear. (I'm assuming the lack of quotation marks to close the first line of dialogue was a simple typo.) In terms of clarity, I would perhaps recommend: "What's your favorite color? Mine's purple. Did you know—" "Mine's blue." "Okay, cool! There's a type of cauliflower that's purple. Like, purple cauliflower?" It does change up the pacing somewhat, but you still get the sense that speaker A is rambling on a bit. Alternatively: "Mine's purple. Did you know—" "Mine's blue." "—that there's—okay, cool!—a type of cauliflower that's purple?" It's still quite messy, and it wouldn't be my first choice, but this way you show that speaker A kept talking while speaker B answered, and then speaker A interrupted themselves to respond. For me, though, there would have to be an extremely good reason why narration couldn't be used to clarify in place of this kind of awkward punctuation.

Hey Anya! I wanted to ask how you would punctuate cuttofs when a character is jumbling up their words or cutting themselves off? Currently, I'm writing it like this: “Wh—how—did you—is that a bear?” her voice was hushed, though breathy, like she was prepared to scream but didn't. I'm not sure if I phrased this correctly, I could not find an answer elsewhere. Would the em dashes be correct here?

Your use of em dashes is certainly an option, though you'd want to remember to capitalize the Her , since your sentence after the dialogue is not a dialogue tag. I wouldn't recommend using too long a string of words or partial phrases with em dashes like this, or to do this too often, but it does work. For clarity, you may want to split up the partial thoughts and the complete one, by capitalizing the complete one and adding a space before it. So it would be: "Wh—how—did you— Is that a bear?" Or you could play around with the punctuation, depending on your aim. For example: "Wh—how..? Did you— Is that a bear?" This reads quite differently, in terms of the pacing it suggests to the reader, but you do have many options for avoiding a long string of em dashes.

I am thinking punctuation would be different if there is a pause in the dialogue versus no pause: (no pause) “I’ll take that one”—she pointed—“and that one, and that one, too.” (pause) "Sometimes a fire can—"The inspector gave an apologetic glance to the grieving widow"—reduce a body to ash." where the dashes above are em-dashes. Is this correct?

Hello Tom, Your first example is correct. Your second isn't. You could make an argument for: "Sometimes a fire can—" The inspector gave an apologetic glance to the grieving widow. "—reduce a body to ash." In this case, the first em dash signifies that the sentence is cut off, and the second shows that the second piece of dialogue is starting in the middle of a sentence. The two pieces of dialogue would need to be separated by a full sentence (or several), thus the addition of the spaces and the period. However, readers often read quickly, and they don't consider the technical arguments surrounding punctuation, so I wouldn't recommend going this route . There isn't a prescribed answer to whether the narrated aside punctuated with em dashes happens along with the words or as a distinct interruption, or something a bit in between. The good news is you can absolutely clarify this in other ways if you'd like to emphasize the pause or that the gesture is happening simultaneously. For example: "I'll take that one," she said, pointing, "and that one, and that one, too." "Sometimes a fire can—" The inspector shot an apologetic glance to the widow before finishing, "Reduce a body to ash." Remember, clarity for the reader is key. You don't want them pausing to figure out whether your punctuation is arguably correct.

Hi, I'm having trouble finding info about multiple interruptions in dialogue. For example, if someone is talking while doing something, can you interrupt more than once? The following is an example: "Darling, are you alright?" she asked, embracing her daughter. "What's wrong?" Nila buried her face in her mother's breasts, sobbing. "Have you been beaten again?" The girl didn't answer. Her sisters shrugged in response to their mother's look. "Oh, my spirited child." I know I'm doing something wrong but I don't know what. It's the same speaker throughout but should I be starting new paragraphs? Yikes. I appreciate any help. :)

Hi Jacy, You can certainly start new paragraphs to break up the tex, even though it's the same speaker. But of course you can interject narration as many times as you would like (so long as it's having the effect you intend and not frustrating/confusing readers). In general, it can be helpful to add paragraph breaks when the main subject of the sentence changes away from the speaker. So in this case: "Darling, are you alright?" she asked, embracing her daughter. "What's wrong?" Nila buried her face in her mother's breasts, sobbing. "Have you been beaten again?" The girl didn't answer. Her sisters shrugged in response to their mother's look. "Oh, my spirited child."

Hi, my question is with regards to punctuating unfinished words or trailed off words. Ex.: "Wai... Wait." Here, should I be using ellipses in the first place, or an em dash would suffice? Secondly, if ellipses make do, how should I be stylizing it in this instance (without a space after the unfinished word?)

Adding to the query, I noticed you answering to a question above: ... 'Wh—how..? Did you— Is that a bear?' .... Is the two dots followed by a question mark a typo? If not how did you structure it?

If you're interrupting mid-word, an em dash is usually the way to go. As for the question mark following an ellipsis, you're right, that was a typo—nice catch! It should be an ellipsis followed by a question mark, without a space in between.

Thanks for the post. How do you punctuate someone telling information but the reader can't hear all of the words. Example: A woman in another group leaned toward her two companions. “ . . . in the secrete alcove . . . untiled her kirtle exposing her . . . kissed her hands . . . took shallow breaths.” Should these be em dashes rather than ellipses?

Ellipses work well for this! If in some cases words cut off in the middle, you could add variety with em dashes, but it's perfectly correct to use ellipses to indicate portions of dialogue are being omitted from the narrating character's POV.

Hi Anya! Are you able to let me know if I have got your ideas down correctly? “Where do I even start with him? I’m so scared he won’t like me, or th-that he’ll be disappointed in me. I mean, I mean, look at him! He’s him, and I’m” -he gestured his hands wildly around his face- “I’m just me. Just some wannabe from halfway across the world. An anxious, awkward, ordinary kid. How could I ever hope to meet his expectations?” Thanks for your time!

Hi there, You want to make sure that you're using em dashes around the interruption, not hyphens as you did here. If you do not know how to create the em dash, it can be marked while drafting by using two hyphens (--), which MS Word will often automatically change into an em dash, as will a copyeditor. Also, don't include spaces outside the quotation marks. It should look like this: "He’s him, and I’m"—he gestured wildly around his face—"I’m just me."

I use dashes with spaces for all other cases, but feel that, for interrupted speech, the dash is just begging to be glued to the last word. This gives me a feeling of betraying my own style, though. Any thoughts? Even as I'm writing this, I think I'm already accepting that I'll stop using the spaces altogether, but I guess I'm asking whether I can have both ways coexist, or there can be a space between the last word of the interrupted sentence and the dash.

Hello Rafael, While spacing with em dashes ultimately comes down to a style preference, the style guide most often preferred for fiction is CMOS, which does strongly prefer omitting spaces around the em dash. (The obvious exception is when the em dash is used as terminal punctuation, in which case it would of course be followed—though still not preceded by—a space.)

Super helpful for clarifying the different forms of interrupted speech. I use it all the time so this is a great resource. Thanks!

Glad you find it helpful, Alex!

Hello, Anya! I'd like to thank you for the great punctuation advice. In my writing, I always try to strive for correct grammar. Correct punctuation is something I care about a lot since I want my writing to stay consistent and look more professional. I write fiction, and I was wondering about the correct punctuation and capitalization when a character stutters or the speech is interrupted mid-word. Would I use a hyphen or an em dash? (I'm sorry if this seems trivial to you, but I haven't found any answers anywhere else, and I was hoping you could provide me with some insight into this topic. English is not my first language, so I am not all that familiar with the correect punctuation.) For example, you have these sentences: "Wh-what?" she stammered, her voice full of shock. or "Wh-What?" she stammered, her voice full of shock. Or what if the character stammers after already finishing the first word? "What-what did you mean by that?" she asked, mild panic in her voice. or "What-What did you mean by that?" she asked, mild panic in her voice. Which would be the correct capitalization? And is my use of a hyphen even correct? I come from someplace where that use of a hyphen would be correct, but I haven't found anything detailing interrupted dialogue via stammering online to prove me otherwise. Thank you once again for the great puctuation advice, it helped me a lot. I wish you a wonderful day! -Max

Hi Max, Glad you found the post helpful! To indicate stammering when the word is incomplete, a hyphen is correct. You do not capitalize the second (or third, etc.) time the word starts, unless the word itself would always be capitalized, regardless of whether it starts the sentence. For example: Wh-what, but Je-Jer-Jeremy. When someone's speech pattern includes repeating a full word, I would not us a hyphen but rather a comma, an ellipsis, or even an em dash, depending on the context. For example: "What—what do you mean by that?" "Perhaps, perhaps we could try something else." "Still...still it's important." <-- Depending on how long you want the pause between those words to be, you could also use a simple period since dialogue allows fragments. Hope that helps!

Is heard an action tag or a dialogue tag? "Hello." She heard her answer in a sweet voice. Or, "Hello," she heard her answer in a sweet voice.

In subjective narration, heard is primarily a filter word I would recommend cutting from that construction. Remember that everything your narrator describes is something they're seeing, hearing, thinking, etc. The tag "she answered" is sufficient to convey your narrator heard it. Let's say you're using omniscient narration, and there's no other way to convey your meaning. In that case, you would punctuate a phrase like that as a dialogue tag. Consider, for example: She heard Mary ask, "Why?" When we flip the sentence around, there is no question we need that comma. In effect, the ask trumps the heard , even though heard itself is not a speech verb.

Hi Anya! I'm writing a short story and I think I'm using the em dash appropriately per example #3 but it just doesn't look right to me. Is this correct? Thanks in advance! “They wanted to maintain the mysteriousness of their presence but it”—she grunted when she hit her hand against the shelf while trying to reach a book shoved toward the back—“ended up backfiring and created fear which mostly manifested in written stories and folklore."

Hi there, Your use of em dashes is correct! Because the interruption is somewhat long, however, you may prefer to split things up differently. For example: “They wanted to maintain the mysteriousness of their presence.” She grunted when she hit her hand against the shelf while trying to reach a book shoved toward the back. “But it ended up backfiring and created fear, which mostly manifested in written stories and folklore."

I’ve seen the em dash used in the following manner: “I was worried sick! You left without saying — didn’t know where — could have been dead — did you care? — never, would I have thought — you wait until I tell your dad — " Is this correct usage, as they are all partial thoughts?

Sorry, I’d like to clarify. In the past, you’ve mentioned that when starting a new “complete” thought, it’s best to include a space and capitalization. What if, though, the thought is new but incomplete? All previous examples in the comments clearly had a new thought with a natural end. But my example is not as clear. The thoughts feel new (as they are not rephrasing or continuing) but they also don’t feel completed. Is this the correct interpretation? If so, which one has more power? In other words, do I always space and capitalize before a new thought or before a complete sentence? I hope this isn’t too confusing! Please let me know what you think and how you would punctuate something like this. Thanks so much!

Hi Roberta, You're right that your example is a little less clear, and clarity for the reader is always key. I'd recommend relying on the em dash less in your example, even though the thoughts are partial or fragmented. For example: “I was worried sick! You left without saying—didn’t know where—could have been dead! Did you care? Never would I have thought— You wait until I tell your dad!" Notice I do use closed em dashes for the first few fragments, to illustrate the jumbled jumping around of partial thoughts. By contrast, "you wait until" is clearly the start of a new full thought, so that follows an open em dash. (Closing with an exclamation point rather than an em dash would be a matter of context, as it indicates the speaker is finished rather than interrupted by whatever follows.)

I have some dialogue with a repeated action interspersed through it. So I utilized rule 3 since it action without a verb and wrote it like this: “You“—poke “are“—poke “a” —poke “hypocrite!” I want to emphasize that the character is poking with each word. But is this correct? It reads clunky to me

You almost have it, but you missed the second em dash in each break. It should read: “You“— poke —“are“— poke —“a”— poke —“hypocrite!” Notice I also put every poke in italics, to emphasize the repetitive action.

I see, thanks that reads much better now!

Hi, Anya! Could you please tell me how I would punctuate a dialogue constantly interrupted by the barking of dogs? Is the following sentence the way to go? "So, my update for the day is"—woof woof—"that I have to comp"—woof woof woof—"complete the task that Mark had"—woof woof woof grrrr—"I'm sorry." Please let me know. Thank you.

Hi Ram, Yes, you can use em dashes like your first pair to interrupt speech with onomatopoeia, but like anything, try not to overuse it. Some of those woof s could be replaced with narration, for example. Keep in mind that if you're cutting off a word in the middle, like complete in your example, an em dash must be used: "comp—" It would indeed look awkward if you had written: "comp—"— woof woof —"complete." Instead, you could write: "that I have to comp—" More barking interrupted him. "Complete the task that..."

How would you punctuate the following? Robby was talking on the phone, saying, "You can't leave me hanging!" but realized the other person hung up after 'can't'. It it became, "You can't--" said as an exclamation. And I don't want a dialog tag, so "You can't--" he exclaimed is not really an option. Suggestions?

Hi Anya, you're the best. I'm writing my first novel. I kept procrastinating because of grammar and stuffs. Now I feel confident after your post and I've started to write because of you! Can't thank you enough! I have two doubts need to ask you. 1) I'm an Indian. But I prefer writing book in American English is this allowed or one should follow one's country's English? 2) Is it okay use em dash in the place of colon and comma for eg: Sarvesh exited the van and met the Security Officer in his cabin. He greeted the Officer and said, "Excuse me, sir— I'm Sarvesh Xander." or "Excuse me, sir: I'm Sarvesh Xander" "Yes, Mr.Xander informed me about that an hour ago before"—the Officer made an entry in the registry and issued a form—"Fill out the form Sarvesh, it is the procedure." Once he filled out the form, the Officer handed over a walkie-talkie and said, "Can you see this Alert button, huh? Used to connect to me in case of an emergency. Remember— this is the only way you can talk to me. So, do you have the map or want one—this forest is damn deep to track routes unless you've got a map?" Kindly clarify me Anya!

I'm glad you found this post so helpful, and congratulations on taking the leap to start your first novel! 1) You can write in whatever language or dialect you would like. Anything's allowed! There are some things to consider, however. What is your narrating character's background? Would they use US English? Are you sure you want to use US conventions rather than the ones you're more comfortable with? Are you worried about publishing? Because it's fine—even good!—to expose readers to language that's authentic to you, even if it's a little bit outside some readers' comfort zone. For example, Talia Hibbert recently added a glossary of UK terms to her book Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute , cluing in readers from outside Britain, but retaining her voice and elements that were authentic to her characters' experiences. So I'd say write in the version of English that's most authentic to you and/or your characters. It's also possible to switch conventions down the line if you decide that's necessary. 2) It is acceptable to use an em dash as a type of super comma, and it depends a bit on the voice of your character, but like anything, try not to overuse them. For example: "Excuse me, sir, I'm Sarvesh Xander" works just fine. Don't overcomplicate it with an em dash. (A colon wouldn't really make sense in any case.) Or: "Remember, this is the only way you can talk to me. So, do you have the map or want one? This forest is damn deep to track routes unless you've got a map." Even in your middle example, the action isn't interrupting one sentence of dialogue, so the em dashes are unnecessary: "Yes, Mr.Xander informed me about that an hour ago." The Officer made an entry in the registry and issued a form. "Fill out this form, Sarvesh."

Thankyou so much for taking time to clarify. I'm hoping to self publish my book soon. I'll try my best!

Hi! This post is incredibly helpful so I want to thank you up front for that! But there's one thing that I haven't yet been able to find the answer for, and I was wondering if you could help. How would I format dialogue that's all spoken by one character, but which is split by the reaction of another character? For example: The man smiled. "Ah, good. You get the picture. Smart kid, might I add." The boy rolled his eyes at this. "You know the synopsis. Let's begin our work at the top of the first verse..." Would it be new paragraphs? Em dashes? Parentheses, even? Thank you again!

Glad you found it helpful! Your example is absolutely right. When one person is speaking and another person is acting, switch paragraphs every time you switch characters. (If there are multiple characters acting while one is speaking, all the action could—but doesn't have to—go in one paragraph.) If the person speaking is actually interrupted mid-sentence, you would use em dashes like so: "You get the picture. Smart kid—" The boy rolled his eyes. "—might I add."

You are a lifesaver! Thankyou so much! I wanted to ask you something. If a character speaks to herself/himself, between the lines should I use em dash? Should I italicize? eg: Nina overheard everything they spoke. She was in the room under the outside staircase. That's the moment when all her beliefs turned into despair. Her heart wanted to scream. 𝘈𝘮 𝘐 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨? 𝘐'𝘮 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦! 𝘛𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘻𝘺 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘩? 𝘐 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘩𝘪𝘮. 𝘋𝘰 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘺𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘺? 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘎𝘰𝘥, 𝘞𝘩𝘺? 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘮. It all ended in tears in the shower.

Hi! So I'm writing a book and I'm having a bit of trouble. The sentence I have is "He’s never hit me, but recently he’s been—” she bit her lip, “The problem is that he’s started to verbally hurt me until I mentally and physically don’t want to fight with him anymore." I'm just not sure if it's correct or not and I'm not really good with knowing where to put em dashes. I was also wondering if I used the comma correctly. Thanks!

No, your example isn't correct. First, "she bit her lip" is not a dialogue tag, so you would not use a comma to introduce the second piece of dialogue. Your example would follow option 2 in the post: "He’s never hit me, but recently he’s been—” She bit her lip. “The problem is that he’s started to verbally hurt me..."

Hey, thanks for this amazing lesson. I am currenty working on a short story and I have a question. She looked up at him, frowning. “I don’t believe–” “You don’t have to,” he interrupted her before she could finish her sentence. Would this be right?

If you make sure to use an em dash (—), then yes. Keep in mind, you don't need to include that it was "before she could finish her sentence," as the em dash already conveys that she's not done speaking.

Hi Anya, I'm writing a novel. I've got three problems. Think I could use your help. My character is expressing surprise by saying "Whaaaaaaaat?" instead of just "what" so can I write like this? Despite the chagrin, she asked pityingly, "Then what's this—" She lifted the cup. "Oh, God! That's the jerk, Nicholas. Whenever he gets an urgent call, he'll leave whatever he is up to and run away, even if it is eating. So you drank that?" "Whaaaaatt-who-who is that?"—touching her head—"Humiliation of the day, huh?" Nina stood like a sad kid. Sedona mocked her wholeheartedly. Second one is when my character narrates a story to another character, should I put it under double quotes and italicize it? Third one is suppose my character receives an SMS. How should I write that. Any example? Thanks in Advance Anya

Thanks for this article. :) How do I use an em-dash when a character interrupts themselves mid-dialogue. For example, my inclination is to leave a space after the em-dash ("I didn't say— Forget it.") To to me, it would read more like interrupted dialogue like that but ProWritingAid wants a space on either side ("I didn't say — Forget it.") or no space on either side ("I didn't say—Forget it."). But to me, either option reads like it's being used in place of a comma. What are your thoughs?

What would be the appropriate punctuation when a quote within a dialog line is interrupted? Example: The man glanced at the back of the bottle, saying, "The label says 'May contain traces of—'" In this instance, would you place a single quote after the em-dash? Also, would you add a comma right after "The label says"? Thanks in advance.

Social Life

The emotional power behind our punctuation, when did our periods start to sound so angry.

Posted April 14, 2024 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

• Punctuation as we know it is a surprisingly recent invention.
• The use of punctuation to grammatically mark a text was not prevalent until well after the Middle Ages.
• Modern texters are re-adopting the rhetorical focus of the ancient Greeks.

If you hang out with anyone under 30, you might have noticed that punctuation has been getting a bad rap lately, especially when it comes to texting. While putting a period at the end of a sentence might be seen as good grammatical form to some, many younger texters increasingly find that its usage comes across as insincere or even angry.

This increasing suspicion of periods joins long-standing arguments over topics like Oxford commas and the proper usage of semi-colons. Clearly, commas, colons, and periods can get people of all ages worked up, so perhaps a look back at punctuation's role in history can give us a little insight into its surprising power.

Ancient marks

It might feel as if punctuation has been around forever, but both punctuation marks and their grammatically informing purpose are surprisingly recent.

In ancient Greece, there was no agreed-upon system of punctuation, and in fact, often very little notation of any kind was used to separate written words or phrases. While some ancient Greek texts used points (i.e., dots) to separate words, it was more common to simply write words one after the other, withnobreaksatall.

Around 200 BCE, Aristophanes, the librarian of Alexandria, devised a point system that was intended to instruct readers on appropriate pause lengths to heighten the rhetorical effect when reading aloud, as was the typical practice when reading texts at the time.

Aristophanes suggested a system of points that should be put in different positions, i.e., after a letter, under a letter, or over a letter, with each positioning indicating how long a pause to take afterward. The labels he gave each of these different pause lengths might sound familiar to modern ears: comma , colon, and periodus . A comma (a point placed at mid position after a letter) indicated the shortest pause, while the periodus (a point placed at the top of the letter) indicated the longest pause.

Though Aristophanes is credited with this first official Western punctuation system, his influence did not go far among his Greek contemporaries or the later Romans. Up to the second-century AD, Latin texts still appeared without any kind of separation between words, although within a couple more centuries, some Latin grammarians had taken up Aristophanes’ point conventions. In fact, we get the word “punctuation” from the Latin word punctus , meaning “point.”

While this system was promoted here and there throughout the Middle Ages, punctuation remained limited and idiosyncratic, with scribes typically coming up with their own systems. For instance, those who created manuscripts of Chaucer’s work in the 15th century rarely used much more than a period to mark the end of related text units—what we might today call a paragraph.

What’s your point?

The modern function of punctuation, which is to separate phrases on the basis of their grammatical role (i.e., setting off a subordinate clause or a list with a comma or using a period to mark the end of a sentence), did not gain steam until about the 17th or 18th century, when reading as a silent and solitary pursuit became more prominent. Before that, the purpose of punctuation was to indicate proper breaths and pausing, used in particular when reading aloud, as was often the practice in antiquity and through the Medieval period.

Our forms of punctuation have changed over time as well. Aristophanes used only the relative placement of a dot as the main clue to its role, though he did give us the familiar names of our comma, colon, and period. However, the actual punctuation marks that we have adopted to go with these names in modern usage did not arrive until 1566 when Italian printer Aldus Manutius first printed books using symbols we know and love (e.g., periods, semi-colons, question marks and the like) in a somewhat more grammatically-oriented way.

This shift in function likely mirrored the shift in the purpose of texts over the centuries. From ancient times to fairly recent times, writing was secondary to speaking in the sense that it was used to as a way to record speech or stories for future oral presentation, i.e., to be read aloud. Texts were painstakingly written by hand on parchment, and few people were able to read or write.

As methods changed and texts became less onerous to create (especially after the introduction of printing in the 15th century), interest in reading as a private activity grew and the written word increasingly became valued over orality. By the 18th century, we find growing interest in standardization, grammar, and developing systematic written conventions, all of which elevated the written word over the spoken.

A throwback to orality?

Fast forward a couple of centuries and we find the opposite trend: Texting and social media have introduced written interactions that essentially involve a hybrid between speech and writing. The way we “speak-write” when texting has brought back this element of orality and has remade punctuation, with its formal feel, back into something of a rhetorical device.

Because of the typically short form and line breaks involved in texting, punctuation is less necessary for its structural organization; research suggests that not using a period is now the norm rather than the exception in text messages.

Instead, like the ancient Greeks, modern young people see punctuation as indicating something not about correct grammar, but about emotion and tone: The exclamation point points to one’s enthusiasm; the period, in contrast, becomes a mark of abruptness, proclaiming, “that’s the end of that.” As texting has gained momentum as a key form of social interaction, punctuation has been put to work as proxy for the non-verbal cues of face-to-face conversation.

Though not all agree on when and why punctuation should come into play, especially when texting, we can take solace in the fact that punctuation has long been put to work in the service of different masters. If ancient Greek and Roman civilization could thrive without agreeing on proper punctuation, I think we’ll manage just fine.

Baron, N. 2001. Commas and canaries: The role of punctuation in speech and writing. Language Sciences 23: 15–67.

Gunraj, D. N., Drumm-Hewitt, A. M., Dashow, E. M., Upadhyay, S. S. N., & Klin, C. M. (2016). Texting insincerely: The role of the period in text messaging. Computers in Human Behavior, 55 (Part B), 1067–1075.

Ling, R., & Baron, N. S. (2007). Text messaging and IM: Linguistic comparison of American college data. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26 (3), 291–298.

Luu, Chi. 2016. “The Strange Life of Punctuation!” Lingua Obscura. https://daily.jstor.org/the-strange-life-of-punctuation/ . Accessed 4/9/24

Valerie Fridland, Ph.D., is a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and the author of Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good and Bad English.

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Inner Dialogue—Writing Character Thoughts

_____________________________

FYI—I updated this article on Jan. 15, 2015.

The topic of character thoughts has come up repeatedly for me in the last couple of weeks, and I promised to address punctuation for inner dialogue.

Inner dialogue is simply the speech of a character to himself. He hears it and the reader hears it, but other characters have no idea what’s going on in his head.

It’s the same for us and our thoughts. Unless we reveal them, no one knows what we’re thinking. In our worlds, however, even if we do reveal our thoughts, it’s likely that no one hears those thoughts uncensored. Lovers may share most of what they’re thinking, or an abusive parent might dump every thought on a child, but for the most part, men and women don’t share every thought. If they did, they’d be talking nonstop.

And they’d be opening up the very most intimate part of themselves. Most people simply don’t tell what they’re thinking, in full, to others. To do so would make them vulnerable, naked, without protection.

That’s a bit too much for any of us 3-dimensional people.

With characters, however, we get to listen in. And we hear not only passive thoughts—the stream of consciousness patter that flows through the mind—but deliberate dialogue—a character giving himself a pep-talk or talking himself into or out of particular actions.

Thought and inner dialogue give the reader insight he can’t get from watching a character’s actions from the outside .

Inner dialogue and thought reveal truth. They reveal darkness. They reveal hope or dreams or resignation. They reveal emotions or beliefs too painful to be shared with other characters. They reveal the heart. They reveal despair of the soul. They reveal strength of the spirit.

______________________________

Thought and inner dialogue can be used to raise the emotional level of a scene . When we see a mother comforting her child, telling him all is well, and then we see into her thoughts, knowing that in truth she has no hope that all will be well, we feel her love for her child. We see her own feelings and the need she feels to protect her child from a painful truth.

Character thought can also lighten a scene . A man who’s holding back sarcasm or inappropriate humor may present a blank face to other characters but may reveal his irreverence to the reader.

What else can thought and inner dialogue do?

Thoughts and lectures to self allow readers insight into a character

They allow characters to be differentiated

They give characters an honest voice

They can reveal character motivation

They can slow the pace of a scene

They can reveal a character’s conflict between his inner man and the needs of others

So, how does the writer convey the thoughts and inner dialogue of a character?

First, the character must be the viewpoint character for a scene . Unless you’re writing from a completely omniscient viewpoint, which is quite unusual these days, you won’t be dipping into and out of every character’s head. And you certainly won’t be doing so within the same scene. So be sure we don’t get a thought from the dog when a couple is having a fight, not unless the dog is the viewpoint character for the scene.

Also, you’ll only want to reveal thoughts and inner dialogue that advance the plot . We don’t need to hear everything, just the good stuff. You could show random thoughts a time or two to establish the way a character thinks, but skip those kinds of thoughts for the most part. Give the reader thoughts that reveal the character and have bearing on the plot. Thoughts that up the emotional temperature for the reader.

In practical terms, try any of the following. But be selective: one option is likely to be a better choice than either of the others given the needs of a particular story and the effect you want or need to create.  Option #3, writing thoughts without italics, makes for the least intrusive read and is likely the best choice for most of today’s writers and for most genres . It may not be perfect for every story, genre, and set of circumstances, but it will work for many. Especially for stories with deep POV, that very intimate third-person point of view.

1.  Use italics and  thought tags

For traditional third-person narration, you can use italics to indicate a character’s thoughts or inner dialogue. This sends an unambiguous signal to the reader that what she’s reading is thought or inner dialogue and not spoken dialogue.

The use of italics for thoughts, however, can create a greater narrative distance , setting readers outside of the character and the events of the scene. The reader may feel herself an outsider to the character’s thoughts, reading them, as if they were reported to her, but not hearing or experiencing them for herself. Yet if that’s the effect you want/need to create, italics for thoughts is a valid choice.

Such a choice may be necessary if an omniscient narrator treats readers to thoughts from a variety of characters in the same scene.

Yet a thought tag alone, with no italics, may also meet your needs.

Pairing the thoughts with thought tags ( thought, wondered, imagined ) is helpful to identify the owner of a particular thought.

Montrose angled his head, taking in both Giselle and her sister behind her. They look nothing alike , he thought. He should have known Giselle was not Ariana. Also . . . Montrose angled his head, taking in both Giselle and her sister behind her. They look nothing alike , he thought. I should’ve known Giselle was not Ariana .

No need to write he thought to himself . The reader knows he’s not thinking to someone else. Unless, of course, we’re talking paranormal or sci-fi. In such cases, you might indeed need to tell us who Montrose is thinking to.

Note that the verb look is in the present tense. Because this is inner dialogue—words directed to the character from himself—verb tense can be past or present, even if the rest of the narrative is past tense.

2.  Use italics without dialogue tags

When you’ve made it clear who the viewpoint character is, you can use italics without the dialogue tags. Readers will understand that the viewpoint character is the one revealing his thoughts. This lessens the narrative distance, and the reader feels closer to the story events, less like the outsider observing events or reading a report of what someone thought.

Montrose tilted his head to get a clearer view of the hoyden behind Giselle. They look nothing alike . He dismissed the two of them with the flick of a wrist. And neither looks like my Margaret .

Use of italics allows the writer to treat thoughts as if the words are dialogue, as if the character is speaking to himself. So, we can use the present tense look rather than looked , even if the rest of the story uses narration in the past tense. The writer can also use I and me and we and our , even if the story is in the third person. Whatever you can do with spoken dialogue, you can do with a character’s inner dialogue.

3.  Don’t use italics or dialogue tags

This is likely the option most writers will use for most genres most of the time . Not always, but quite often. It creates the shortest narrative distance.

You can eliminate the use of and need for italics if you’re using first-person narration or deep POV in third-person narration. Since the reader knows and feels he’s in the character’s head, there’s no need to use italics to highlight character thoughts or dialogue directed to the character from himself.

You could throw in a thought tag every now and then for thoughts that aren’t italicized if you find it necessary—maybe the effect you need to create or a particular rhythm would make the tag necessary. But for the most part, a thought tag wouldn’t need to be included. The thought could just be blended into the surrounding text.

Note: Do note, however, that in stories with an omniscient POV, readers will need to be able to differentiate between thoughts of the omniscient narrator and the characters. This is especially true when the narrator is opinionated and when you share both the narrator’s thoughts and the thoughts of multiple characters in the same scene.

The following is an example of thoughts without italics from a third-person POV. In this example, the reader is not being told  Montrose’s thoughts, but actually hears them as Montrose thinks them.

Montrose tilted his head to get a clearer view of the hoyden behind Giselle. They looked nothing alike, these two women posing as his dead wife’s sisters. He dismissed both with a flick of his wrist. They also looked nothing like his sweet, sweet Margaret. Stupid, ignorant fool. Should have known better than to believe. Than to hope . . .

There is no doubt that Montrose is the one thinking these thoughts.

For first-person POV, there are not often instances when you’d even need to use a thought tag to identify a character’s thoughts, much less use italics for those thoughts. Yet one instance for using thought tags for first-person POV would be to create some narrative distance or to create the effect of the character reporting his thoughts to the reader, as if to an audience.

Still, most often the thoughts of a first-person narrator will blend seamlessly into the surrounding text—

I tipped my head to get a clearer view of the hoyden behind Giselle. They looked nothing alike, these two women posing as Margaret’s sisters. I waved them away. And they certainly didn’t favor my sweet Margaret. Stupid, ignorant fool. I should have known better than to believe. Than to hope . . .

Note that without the italics, I kept the verbs in the past tense to match the rest of the narration. This is a deliberate choice. It maintains consistency for the reader, keeps her from wondering why the writer changed from past to present tense.

With italics, the reader is given a signal to alert her to the inner thought. Without italics, there is no visual signal. Readers will understand that they’re reading thoughts, but a change to present tense in those thoughts—pushed up against past tense with the rest of the actions—may cause a hesitation for the reader. And you don’t want to do anything to pull the reader from the fiction.

This practice of switching verb tense only when using italics is a suggestion, not a hard rule. You’ve got options, and if you can make your story work by mixing present tense in your viewpoint character’s thoughts with past tense in that same character’s actions and do so without the visual aid of italics, try it. There’s nothing wrong with trying something.

Yet know that such a practice won’t be universally understood or accepted. Realize that you might lose your reader. And you definitely don’t want to make your reader hesitate, don’t want her wondering about the mechanics of story rather than being lost to the plot of story. Help the reader out.

While I wouldn’t want to say you can’t try something, my recommendation is to only switch tense in thought or inner dialogue if you use italics to highlight the thought.

I also counsel against using I , me , we , or our  in thoughts written without italics if you’re using a third-person POV. Without the signal of the italics, readers will think you’ve switched from third to first person mid-paragraph. Again, however, if you can make such an option work, try it.

Keep in mind—

While it’s certainly not required and you wouldn’t use the technique all the time—maybe not much of the time— consider putting thoughts and inner dialogue into a new paragraph , as if it were spoken dialogue. Yet even as dialogue can share a paragraph with action, so can thoughts. Treat inner dialogue as you would spoken dialogue. Separate the thoughts into a new paragraph if you want to create a wider narrative distance, yet keep thoughts in the same paragraph to narrow the narrative distance.

Never use quotation marks for thoughts , even if those thoughts are inner dialogue, a character talking to himself. Reserve quotation marks for speech that’s vocalized. Readers should be able to tell when a character is speaking inside his head and when he’s talking aloud, even if he’s the only person in the scene.

Plus, if you can cut back on distracting visuals, including unnecessary punctuation, do it.

Be consistent . Use the same method of conveying character thought and inner dialogue on the last page that you use on the first page. Consistency keeps the reader grounded in the fiction. Changes in method distract the reader.

I hope these tips are helpful as you look for ways to convey thoughts and inner dialogue.

If you’ve explored other options, let us know what you’ve seen or tried for yourself. What works for you? What doesn’t?

Let your fellow writers and editors know how you write inner dialogue and character thoughts.

Share your own tips about punctuating thoughts.

Let us know how you write good fiction.

On May 16, 2012, I made a couple of changes to the examples and their explanations. I hope the options are now clearer.

Related posts:

• Viewpoint Character and the Need to Choose Wisely
• Claustrophobia—Don’t Imprison Readers in a Character’s Head
• Narrative Modes in Fiction—Telling Your Story (Writing Essentials)

Tags: character , dialogue , thoughts     Posted in: Craft & Style , Grammar & Punctuation , Writing Tips

Posted in Craft & Style , Grammar & Punctuation , Writing Tips

208 Responses to “Inner Dialogue—Writing Character Thoughts”

This got me a bit confused, because you used a style that made your examples all appear in italic. There’s no italic-italic (or mezzogiorno-italic) to distinguish your inner dialogue from the rest.

Free indirect discourse may have some use, but becomes a confusion to many readers when

The character has thoughts rendered in italics. Here, using ital and also having an omniscient narrator relate his/her/its thoughts confuses and distracts. While many disagree, i feel its poor form.

The omniscient narrator intermittently takes of the POV of multiple characters. Some writers get away with this — and even use of ital for character thoughts to boot. This really gets my goat and confuses many readers.

Though Free indirect discourse is an “accepted” technique in both cases above, I strongly recommend against using it; use ital only for rendered thoughts. If one is stubbornly determined to use Free indirect discourse, consider no ital for thoughts or making sure Reader is less forced to pause & think about who’s thinking by using the technique in passages where the POV is crystal clear for Reader.

If I controlled the world, writers who used Free indirect discourse would have their ears flicked twice for ever instance. Who’s with me to create the Department of Writing Style, with regulators fully authorized to flick offenders’ ears?

I think you’re confused. Free indirect speech is a Third Person POV style. It’s to do with the narrative distance. It’s when you have Third Person with a First Person feel to it. It’s not Omniscient. Omniscient is a different POV and the techniques used are different. Here’s a link that might help clarify a few things about the POV https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/omniscient-pov/

When free indirect speech is used “CORRECTLY”, the italics are the right choice to express the MC’s inner thoughts, and they don’t cause any confusion, at least they shouldn’t cause any confusion. Of course, there are some readers, that even when you spell everything out for them, they won’t get it. It can’t be helped.

For more info about Free Indirect Speech, you can read James Wood’s How Fiction Works (this is supposed to be in italics, but I can’t use them on this site).

With Omniscient, the narrator is the one telling the story, almost as a judge. The narrator is privy to all the characters’s thoughts and knows everything. The story is told in way that conforms with the author’s agenda. In omniscient, you can have the POV of a dog or another animal thrown in, if you want. Can the Omniscient narrator slip in inner thoughts as in third person close–maybe, but it’d probably come across as incongruous. Can anyone do it right? Maybe. Who knows!

I use free indirect speech, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow anyone to flick my ears, especially coming from people who don’t understand the technique. What makes you think you can tell writers how to write? Let’s support each other, mate. It’s hard enough for many of us to finish a first draft. We don’t need people regulating our writing styles.

Hajo, the italcs and roman fonts show up here on the article. Is it just on the e-mail version where some paragraphs are shown in all italics? I don’t know that I have control over that setup. I’ll have to check. Thanks for the heads-up.

True. I read the email version. All the indented paragraphs are italic there. Thanks

What would it look like if the character’s thought was a question?

You, your blog and this article are a godsend. Thanks so much for the very helpful tips and attention to all the questions. I have two. 1) I’m struggling a bit with paragraphs, especially in dialogue and narrative. How best should one continue the same paragraph including dialogue, while still using new paragraphs to indicate the change in speakers? For example;

My mother is sitting on the balcony, but she’s alone. There are no pointy heels punctuating the floor and Ma’s face is a crumpled handkerchief. “What happened, mom? Where’s Aunt Stella?” “I don’t know.” My mother looks down, her eyes red and wet. “Didn’t she call?” She just shakes her head.

Should the sentences following the dialogue be indented as new paragraphs or left as they are?

Question 2.

In dialogue, should titles like “Mom” be capitalized? Many thanks!

BG, I’m glad you’re finding something you can use.

Mom is a name as you’re using it, so yes, it gets capped. Sir or honey or sweetie wouldn’t get capped.

The lines after the dialogue look like new paragraphs in your example, but that may be a function of the comment. So . . .

My mother is sitting on the balcony, but she’s alone. There are no pointy heels punctuating the floor, and Ma’s face is a crumpled handkerchief.

“What happened, Mom? Where’s Aunt Stella?”

“I don’t know.” My mother looks down, her eyes red and wet.

“Didn’t she call?”

She just shakes her head.

Or try . . .

My mother is sitting on the balcony, but she’s alone. No pointy heels punctuate the floor, and Ma’s face is a crumpled handkerchief.

My mother looks down, her eyes red and wet. “I don’t know.”

Also, you’ve got mother, ma, and mom. How does the narrator think of her mother? My mother can be paired with either of the other options, but there’d be little reason to have all three words for mother, especially in a section this short. Does she think of her mother as Ma or Mom?

A bit more than you asked for, but I hope this helped. Use a new paragraph when a new speaker talks, even if that character has an action beat before the dialogue begins.

You are a lifesaver. Thank you so much. This is incredibly helpful. I”ll be back for more!

BG, you are most welcome.

I tried to reply to Bethy Hill, but Phil Huston keeps coming up. Anyway, here’s my question. I think I know the answer but I’m interested in hearing what others think. Here in Australia, we often call each other “mate”—as you probably know. Should this be capitalised? It isn’t a name, but it means more than just saying ‘How’re you going, friend?’

Thanks. A big help as my current WIP is in first person with plenty of inner dialogue.

Sheryl, I’m glad to have had something timely for you. Good luck with the WIP.

I think important to point out the topic discussed is inner monologue, which is one character voicing thoughts silently. The best example I can think of is Hemngway’s one character novel, The Old Man and the Sea.

Inner dialogue is a rare and challenging device used when within the head of one character, the voices of two entities have a dialogue. It could be a true conversation between the character and a spirit i.e. a deceased parent or mentor.

This was a key device that made Magic, the 1978 movie starring Anthony Hopkins movie, in which the his own dummy overtakes the mind of his ventriloquist.

Al, thanks for joining the discussion. I remember Magic . It’s one of the reasons I find certain kinds of dolls creepy. They did a great job with the movie.

While dialogue, monologue, and character thoughts are each different, I used the term here for any kind of character speech, whether that speech is between characters, is a character speaking aloud to himself or an object, or is a character speaking in his mind. Dialogue is a more commonly discussed fiction term than is monologue, so I hoped those searching for dialogue tips, no matter what their form, would be able to find and use the article.

Also, I’ve found that the meaning of dialogue has expanded beyond a conversation between two or more people. Dialogue in one sense is a reference to any of the spoken words in a piece of fiction. Thus we wouldn’t need to specify that a novelist writes both good dialogue and good monologue; dialogue by itself conveys our meaning.

But true inner dialogue—a conversation between two parts of the same person—that indeed would be fascinating.

Thanks for pointing out the classic definitions of dialogue and monologue.

I considered that some will regard my comment as overly picky. I did not mean to dilute your otherwise great discussion of monologue.

Your additional remarks flesh out the concept even further. Thanks for that.

The only real I had is how does inner dialogue look on a page? I did a story once with only one character for the first 2/3s of the story. He has an inner dialogue with his deceased father. I remember agonizing over how to express it. I think I punctuated it as though it was simple dialogue.

Hi Al, I don’t regard your comment as overly picky. I think it was spot-on! I was looking for such a distinction in the main article which, by the way, was fantastic and very helpful, Beth. (Thank you, Beth. As with your other articles, this one was well done!)

I am writing a sci-fi novel that involves advanced technology which allows characters to speak to each other telepathically, sharing thoughts and feelings. I also have several characters that speak their thoughts in the traditional sense of dialogue, not project them. Furthermore, the POV is first-person, so my main character can be doing all these things simultaneously: holding a vocalized conversation, sharing thoughts telepathically, and having an inner monologue for himself. Font-wise and punctuation-wise, it’s very challenging to say the least!

Obviously, I try to minimize the reader’s confusion by limiting the use of those mechanisms in a chapter. And I build up to it, not just lay it all on the reader at once and hope for the best. I have found that using italics to convey telepathic messages works well, with each new speaker getting a new paragraph, just as in spoken dialogue. Since the POV is first-person, I also have (I think) the choice of non-italicized font for direct narration by the first-person/main character and italicized font for his own inner thoughts (pep talks, satirical comments, self-doubts, snide remarks, whatever).

I do have one question for Beth. Perhaps it was answered elsewhere in the long comment section. If so, my apologies for not looking harder. The question regards long passages of italics. I saw you talk about this elsewhere in the comments. Thanks for that. But I need a clarification. If my first-person main character (MC) is “obtaining” a large bit of info (i.e., reading it, sensing it, feeling it) from a source that he is telepathically linked to, would you still NOT use italics?

At first, I used italics, but what you’ve written in the comments elsewhere has given me cause to change it to indented text, read like a collection of newspaper articles. This will help avoid the “eye strain” problem you mentioned. It’s about a page-and-a-half long, a lot of material that, by this time in the story, I owe to the reader (and her patience!), having hinted at all of it in previous chapters. The gravity of the situation is also expressed in the frankness of the articles the MC is reading/sensing/feeling. I think this is also what George Orwell did in the middle of “1984” when his MC reads the treatise “War is Peace” (or whatever it was actually called in the novel).

Think that’s still a better way to go?

Cheers and thanks for all the excellent help!

Richard, since it sounds like your character is actually reading material from another character and not exchanging dialogue with him or her, indenting on both sides sounds like a great option. Especially for something that goes longer than a page. I think you’ve chosen the best option. Treat the mental download just like a newspaper article or letter or diary entry.

Al, no worries. All discussion is good discussion.

Though we always want to get it exactly right, being consistent is sometimes the most important issue. If your character never spoke aloud to others, the reader probably wouldn’t have gotten confused, would not have assumed the character was talking aloud rather than thinking to himself. Yet, I still like reserving quotation marks for spoken dialogue.

But need sometimes trumps rules. And that’s part of what makes the written story so fascinating and unpredictable.

Thank you so much for this blog post. This topic had me so confused and now it’s all clear to me.

You are most welcome, Julieann. I’m glad the explanations helped.

I have two or more characters communicating mentally in my manuscript. I start a new paragraph every time and put it in italics should I also put it is quotation marks since they are talking to one another?

By the way thank you so much for this blog it is the most helpful thing i have found so far!

Misti, with all the paranormals and sci-fi that have come along, the need for writing mind-to-mind communication has increased. There’s no one standard yet, at least as far as I can tell.

But you definitely don’t want a lot of italics taking over your manuscript. Paragraph after paragraph of words in italics is simply hard on the reader. And you don’t want both italics and quotation marks. That’s just overkill.

Reserve quotation marks for spoken words. If you used them for thought and speech, readers wouldn’t know which it was. Also, let readers know right from the top that characters can mind-talk. And then keep that mind-talk brief.

Unless someone comes up with something we all can use and easily recognize, the best option for mind-talk at this time is still italics.

But just as you would break up spoken speech with action beats and action and description, break up mind speech as well. Don’t let any one character talk for pages. Breaking up the visual of all italics will give the reader a break. And giving characters more than mind-talk will give them a break.

Maybe another reader has a suggestion regarding this issue, something they’ve seen or tried.

A few of my reminders about mind-talk have to do with other issues that might come up. That is, how do you turn off the thoughts from others? Can your characters shut them off or are they bombarded by mind-talk constantly? How far can your characters mind-talk? That is, do they need phones or can they reach around the world with a thought? Or maybe they have to be in the same room with the other person. But why would that be so?

Just some issues to consider . . .

Great questions, Misti.

I know this is a bit late…

I’ve read books where characters hold telepathic conversations, but unfortunately I don’t remember exactly how. The books that come to mind belong to two different series: The Dresden Files and The Infernal Devices (how do you do italics?). In a couple of books of The Dresden Files(I don’t remember which ones exactly), Harry, the protagonist, has a demon inside him and he holds conversations with her inside his head. The demon can’t take possession unless Harry agrees to it, so she’s always tempting him. I don’t remember how Jim Butcher did it–I think he used italics–but it worked well. The same goes for The Infernal Devices. One of the protagonists, Will and his “parabatai”, Jem, communicate telepathically from time to time.

If I were trying to have characters communicating telepathically,I’d probably try a couple of things, but of course, it would all depend on my characters and how important and how often the telepathic exchanges occur. For instance, if my main character’s head is “invaded” by another character, I’d probably start by alerting the reader of the invasion… the pounding headache started again, and suddenly Chapra was in his head. “Hello, lover-boy.”(this would be in italics) Cassius shook his head. “Get the hell out of my head.”(italics) “Why don’t you make me(italics)?”

If my main character is going to initiate a telepathic talk,I’d also alert the reader… Cassius concentrated, “Chapra, listen… are you listening?(italics)”

Now, if the voice just pops in the head of the character, that’d be more challenging:

Cassius pulled Martabix toward him. “You are so beautiful–” “Don’t do it, Cass!” (italics)” Cassius shook his head and without realising it, he was shaking Martabix as well.”Get out of my head!” Martabix screamed and pushed him away. “My father was right. You are a frogging psycho!” “Wait, no. I wasn’t yelling at you…” Chapra’s laugh reverberated in his head. “That went well, lover boy.” (italics)

If it the telepathic conversations don’t happen all the time and there are other aspects of plot that are more important, then the telepathic conversations might be incorporated in the way I explained above. However, if the head conversations are the only way of communicating ,then I’d probably come up with a more inventive style. I might even try using a “fuzzy” font.

I’m sorry the italics option is greyed out and I couldn’t work out how to italicise. I hope this isn’t too confusing.

I have just found this site on searching for information about using punctuation when a character is sitting back and reliving in his thoughts a word by word converstaion he had with someone in the past. Would I be right in thinking that in this case puctuation would be the correct method

Margaret, I’m glad you found the blog. However, I’m not sure what your question is. Are you asking about quotation marks for a reply of a past conversation?

Thank you for coming back to me Beth. I am and have never been a writer of stories, but I am now making an attempt to write a short fan fiction story.I should have made myself more clear….Yes, I am looking at quotation marks. My main character is going back six years in his thoughts and is recollecting a word for word conversation he had with someone, and I am writing the conversation down word for word. But, as this was a conversation in the past, but being re lived in his mind now….I am not sure if I should use quotation marks in the conversation as if it is happening in his thoughts now.I hope this makes sense. I may be making a meal of this and perhaps the quotation marks should be there anyway. whatever way I am writing this into the story line.

I’m a first-time writer and I struggled with this topic. I googled all over and found your post to be BY FAR the best explanation. Succinct, clear, and just totally awesome. Someone on AbsoluteWrite had the same question, so I posted a link to your post and raved about it. I hope it’ll help him/her as much as it helped me. Thanks.

Thanks, Alex. I’m glad you found the information useful. And I like raving—thanks for the plug.

Thanks for your advice on how to write a character’s thoughts. I have one question though for which I cannot seem to find the answer. Do you insert a question mark into a thought? For example- is the following correctly punctuated? What is happening to me? he thought despairingly. (The thoughts would be in italics.) Thank you very much for your help!

Cindy, Chicago MOS (16th Ed. 6-67) says yes, use the question mark with direct questions in the middle of a sentence. I’m sure, however, that I’ve also seen such sentences without the question mark.

While the CMOS example is not italicized, I definitely like the question mark with italicized thought— What is happening to me? he thought.

Thank you so much Beth!

I’ve bookmarked this and will refer my friends! Thank you for clarifying much of which I knew internally, but was unable to articulate to my friend.

Riley, I’m glad you found this helpful.

This is a great explanation for using or not using Italics for your characters thoughts. I plan to use italics for remembering the past. Does that work

Thanks Toni

Toni, I wouldn’t recommend italics for remembering the past because you don’t want to overuse italics. If you give your readers a memory or flashback, that’s likely to last for more than a line or two. Italics are both noticeable and sometimes difficult to read. I’d reserve them for words, phrases, and short sections of thought. You don’t want to do anything that might slow the read for your readers and italics can do just that.

Help the reader out whenever you can.

I have the same question as Margaret Smith, which you didn’t answer here. My character is remembering something someone said to her. Example:

He’s never vague with his opinions, so what does “Yeah. It was fine.” really mean?

I’ve used quotes here, but I’ve also considered quotes with italics. And do you include the end punctuation?

Linda, you’ve got a couple of options, but let me address the last question first—no, you don’t include the period for the example you cited. Sometimes you don’t need to include the capital letter either.

Don’t use both quotation marks and italics—there’s no reason for both. Simple, if it’s clear, is almost always better.

If one character isn’t really quoting the other character’s words, you can use italics: He’s never vague with his opinions, so what does yeah, it was fine really mean?

Or you can use quotation marks, but I’d suggest not using a cap for yeah : He’s never vague with his opinions, so what does “yeah, it was fine” really mean?

No commas needed for either of these examples.

You could just as easily say: He’s never vague with his opinions, so when he said it was fine, what did he mean?

Or, to indicate a direct quote: He’s never vague with his opinions, so when he said, “Yeah, it was fine,” what did he mean?

Another option: He’s never vague with his opinions, so what did he mean when he said, “Yeah, it was fine”? (No period here after fine .)

Does that help?

Yes, that’s an above and beyond help. 🙂 Thank you.

Linda, I’m glad the examples were useful. I might have to copy some of this info to the article on punctuation in dialogue. It could come in handy there. Thanks for the questions.

How do you properly puncuate He said, she said and I said. I am having a debate with a friend as to what’s right and what’s wrong.

Correct: He said, “Look I will call you later.”

Incorrect: He said. Look I will call you later.

Does this apply to he said and I said?

Tracie, I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking. Your correct example is correct and your incorrect example is incorrect (though both need a comma after look ). This would be the same setup for any dialogue tag, no matter who was speaking. I’ve got a lot of examples in the article Punctuation in Dialogue . Let me know if it doesn’t answer your question.

What about punctuation with question marks in thoughts:

Is it: What was the use? he thought. – as it would be in quote dialogue OR What was the use, he had thought? OR, do you lose the question mark all together… What was the use, he thought.

That has always been my question too! I usually prefer this: Where have my keys gone? he thought. The thought,Where have my keys gone, is also in italics. But, Microsoft Word always corrects it to have NO question mark at all, just a comma. I’ve tried looking it up in The Chicago Manual of Style, but it really does not give a clear answer, at least one I could find. I think the most important thing to do is to be consistent, whatever punctuation you decide on. Hope this helps.

My main character is going back in her thoughts to a scene that happened hours ago. She is remembering word for word conversation and action she had with someone, and I am writing the conversation down word for word as she remembers. But, as this was a conversation in the past, but being re lived in her mind now. Is it best to just say, It was some time before she could find rest as her remembered what had occurred AND THEN just give the scene as though the reader is experiencing it, then have her come back from her thoughts? In this way, (3rd person) I would just give the scene from her perspective including action and conversation with quotes. Would this be the best way to handle?? Margaret Smith asked this last year and I can’t find an exact answer to this queston.

Seamus, I agree with Cindy that the question mark goes before the thought tag, just as it would go before a dialogue tag. You definitely don’t want it after the tag.

Yet, for such a sentence, you could also consider dropping the question mark and simply using a comma—de-emphasize the question part. Soften the feel of a hard question.

Would that be correct in terms of the traditional rules of punctuation? Maybe not enough for some of the sticklers. But would it be stylistically correct for your story? It might well be perfect for it.

In a related issue—I just finished reading a novel that used almost no question marks at all, not for any questions. It took me a while to get used to it, but then I felt what the writer had established with her choice. The characters asked a lot of questions, many rhetorical, and question marks would have cluttered the text, been a visual distraction.

Had I edited that book, I probably would have suggested using question marks for some of the characters. As we use different sentence constructions to differentiate our characters, we can also use different punctuation. Some characters would naturally emphasize the question as a question in their thougths and speech, even if others didn’t. It would be a way to accentuate those differences.

For your example, Seamus, the thought tag may or may not be necessary. If you’ve put readers into your character’s head, they’ll know such a question is his thought, making the thought tag unnecessary.

Dana, you have some options here.

If you want to show the conversation exactly as it happened, treat it like any other flashback. That way you can include setting details, the dialogue word for word, and the characters’ movements. Use quotation marks for the dialogue, just as you normally would. And introduce the flashback in a way that lets the reader know it’s a flashback and then bring the reader back to the present in a way that indicates that’s what is happening.

If, however, you want to show how the words from that conversation affect the character in the present—she’s tossing and turning and can’t sleep—you may just want to pull out a line or two of the conversation. The emphasis here is less on the whole conversation and more on how the character is reacting to what was said. If what she remembers is a short line or two, consider italics rather than quotation marks. An example—

Janelle couldn’t sleep, certainly didn’t want to dream now that her precious dreams had been shattered. Matthew had finally told her what he felt about her. My wife must be of one of the First Families, a woman of pedigree. She pounded her pillow and pounded again. You come from . . .

She knew her background, much, much better than he did. She’d heard the accusations since her first days in the capital. She pressed the pillow over her face, hoping to drown out not only his spoken words, but those he’d left in his thoughts. You come from trash. You are not worthy of my name.

You could also separate out his words in this manner—

Janelle couldn’t sleep, certainly didn’t want to dream now that her precious dreams had been shattered. Matthew had finally told her what he felt about her.

My wife must be of one of the First Families, a woman of pedigree.

She pounded her pillow and pounded again.

You come from . . .

She knew her background, much, much better than he did. She’d heard the accusations since her first days in the capital. She pressed the pillow over her face, hoping to drown out not only his spoken words, but those he’d left in his thoughts.

You come from trash. You are not worthy of my name.

You can, of course, always use quotation marks for the dialogue.

Janelle couldn’t sleep. Her conversation, her fight , with Matthew wouldn’t stop looping through her mind. She covered her eyes and ears, but she still saw his face, heard his words.

“My wife must be a woman of pedigree,” he’d told her, his face averted. “You come from . . .”

Trash. He’d almost said it, the epithet for all her kind. ————-

The best option for one story, for one scene, won’t be the best for another. Flashbacks always stop the forward motion of a story, but they get the job done. If the scene is powerful and necessary, show it in a flashback.

If what’s more important is the effect of an earlier scene on the present, consider pulling out only certain parts of it and playing up the impact on the character in the now.

Which would be more dramatic? Which would do a better job of raising conflict and tension? Which would be more revealing of character?

The good news is you have options. The bad news is that sometimes we don’t want options. There is no general right or wrong for this one. Try both and see what works for the story.

If this the kind of thing you were looking for?

Thanks a million! This is just the information I needed to figure it out. Regards! Dana

I’ve written and self published a novel wherein characters are possessed by demons, angels, and spirits. These characters interact on occasion but they all have their own agendas. There are also many conversations that take place internally between host and possessors. At times I can have two or three physical beings in one place but 4-6 different personalities engaged in conversation with the other characters as well as internal dialogue with their hosts.

I have taken to putting these internal dialogues between host and possessor between asterisks and anchoring the text to the character.

“I mean you no harm, human. Nor you, demon.” Uriazel spoke quickly to Alistair in his head. *Don’t acknowledge that you are possessed.* “No demon here, other than yourself, demon.” Alistair spoke aloud immediately. “Don’t attempt to play games with me human, I am not known for my patience.” Belial warned ominously. *He’s not lying.* Uriazel cautioned internally. *He’s quick to anger, and we’re not in fighting shape.* “What can I do for you, Prince Belial?” Alistair asked in a more diplomatic manner. “You can start by recognizing my act of truce and put your weapons away.” The Forbidden Prince stated. Alistair shrank his weapons back down into its bracelet form. “Fair enough.” “Who is the demon possessing you?” “I’m not possessed.” “How would you know who I am; were you not possessed? Also, I can smell him embedded within you, human.” The massive demon stated as he inhaled deeply. “Is that you Uriazel?” He asked as he recognized a familiar scent. *We’re had.* Uriazel spoke internally, then aloud. “Yes, it’s me, Prince Belial.”

My dilemma: I have started query letters to different agencies and I keep getting turned down. Now, I don’t believe that my writing is bad and I have received some input back from several agents. They say the same thing. “We’re afraid your project isn’t quite right for our lists at this time, but we encourage you to continue editing and querying other agencies.”

My gut tells me it’s because I don’t use italics for internal dialogue, but I don’t feel this will work with my situation of characters. Do you have any suggestions?

Chad, while I doubt that punctuation alone would keep a story from being accepted, your punctuation/font choice is unusual. Those you’ve sent it to may get the impression that since you hadn’t used traditional methods for conveying talk/thoughts, you also haven’t used other writing conventions. Consider sticking with italics for these characters thinking inside other characters. Or, since they do this a lot and you probably also have the characters thinking to themselves, consider quotation marks for the character-to-character thought. It really is conversation. You just need to make sure readers know who is think/speaking.

You do have some other issues in this example. The punctuation for the dialogue itself needs a review. Also, you typically don’t want to refer to one character by several names. With the high number of characters you no doubt have, I suggest you stick to one name for each one in a scene. You’ve got Belial , Prince Belial , the Forbidden Prince , and the massive demon referring to the same character in only a few lines. Readers will not know if you’re referring to the same character each time.

Also, who is the viewpoint character here? I assume it’s Alistair, since you’re showing us his thoughts. But then we have a line that shows Belial recognizing the scent of the demon. That’s a viewpoint violation that doesn’t belong in a scene from the Alistair’s POV. And does Alistair know Belial’s name before anyone mentions it?

Also, consider cutting the explanations in the dialogue tags. Let characters speak without qualifying how the words are spoken.

This example supposes that you’ve already explained that Alistair hears Uriazel in his head.

“I mean you no harm, human. Nor you, demon.” Uriazel cautioned Alistair, “Don’t acknowledge that you are possessed.” “No demon here, other than yourself, demon,” Alistair said. “Don’t play games with me, human. I am not known for my patience.” “He’s not lying,” Uriazel told Alistair. “He’s quick to anger, and we’re not in fighting shape.” “What may I do for you, Prince Belial?” Alistair asked. “You can start by recognizing my act of truce and put your weapons away.” Alistair shrank his weapons [plural] back down into its [singular] bracelet form. “Fair enough.” “Who is the demon possessing you?” “I’m not possessed.” “How would you know who I am; were you not possessed? Also, I can smell him embedded within you, human.” He inhaled deeply. “Is that you, Uriazel?” “We’re had,” Uriazel told Alistair before saying, “Yes, it’s me, Prince Belial.” ——– How does something like this sound to you?

Thank you for taking the time to look over my extensive question! The example I gave you probably wasn’t the best to throw out there as it takes place in the beginning of the fourth chapter. It was just a quick excerpt I grabbed out of the text to illustrate my dilemma. You did answer my question for me. Thank you! Now I have to sit down and figure out how to dial this back into the accepted norm…. Again, thank you for your time and feedback! ~Chad

My pleasure, Chad. Good luck with your changes.

Can you please help me out? I have a character who is at home remembering a converstation he had with police officers earlier on that day. Do I use italics for this or use normal dialogue with quotation marks? This is the first time readers will know of this conversation.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Barry, you have a couple of ways of playing this.

If the character’s replaying the moment and the dialogue word for word, you can treat it like a flashback and use quotation marks for the dialogue. Show readers the scene as it happened—

The precinct had been crowded and noisy. When he’d caught the eye of both Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, they’d aimed straight for him.

The sergeant pulled him aside and then, with a long sigh, he dragged him into a tiny office and slammed the door.

“You’re damned lucky to be alive.”

———–

But if he’s just remembering bits and pieces, you could use italics or quotation marks for the dialogue—

What had that sergeant said? “You’re damned lucky to be alive.”

What had that sergeant said? You’re damned lucky to be alive.

———-

I like italics for this short memory-dialogue, but when italics are used too often, they lose their effect and start to annoy. You wouldn’t want to use them for more than a line or so. If you’re going to write out the dialogue in full, use quotation marks.

Quotation marks are the standard punctuation for spoken dialogue, so you’re safe to use them for that purpose.

You can also use indirect quotations—

The sergeant had said he was damned lucky to be alive. He didn’t know if he was lucky, but being alive sure felt good.

————–

Thanks Beth. That did help A LOT! I’ve tried playing out the scene many different ways but none of them looked quite. . .right. You’ve made it look so simple; why couldn’t see it like that before?

Can I be a lad and ask one more thing?

What’s the best way to write dreams? To be italic or not to be italic? That is the question.

Thanks Beth. You’re not bad at this writing lark, are you!

Kind regards.

Thanks, Barry. I do love writing and editing and putting it all together.

There are for specific reasons to use italics in fiction, but using them for long passages of text is not encouraged. For one thing, it’s simply difficult and distracting to read long sections of text in italics.

Is it done? You bet it is. But that doesn’t mean using italics is the best choice.

I read a book a couple of weeks ago that used italics for long stretches of text. It was done for a particular purpose, and I recognized that as I was reading, but I found myself having to reread sentences or words because they just didn’t look right on the page. I also rubbed my eyes because the read was a bit of a strain. The font looked smaller in italics (thought I’m sure it wasn’t) and had they bumped up the font size, that might have eased my problems.

So, to answer your question, the recommendation is to stay away from italics for long sections of text whether that means dreams or flashbacks or even thoughts between mind-talking characters. (A publisher may choose italics for any of these purposes, of course. But that’s their decision. What you want to do is identify that the dream section is something other, something different from the surrounding text. And you want to make it easy to read.)

Roman text is sufficient for dreams. Simply introduce the dream as a dream and show when it begins and ends. You can do this by writing us into and out of the dream with words that indicate that the character is dreaming.

Or you can use the present tense in your dreams, giving them a feel different from the rest of your story (if you’re using past tense).

If you choose not to introduce the dream with words, set it up as a scene of its own, with scene breaks at both ends.

If your character dreams a lot or has nightmares that you want the reader to see, once you’ve shown one or two, readers will catch on to your setup, whatever it is, and know you’re presenting a dream. So you wouldn’t have to show a character falling asleep every time. Simply give us a scene break and introduce a recurring dream element—the character walking down a deserted street, the character being chilled or hearing her own footsteps echoing louder and louder as she walks, the image of a broken doll or a cloud-shrouded moon or the murmur of indistinct voices.

Readers are smart, so if you give them a hint, they know how to run with what you’ve provided.

Not be italic is my suggestion.

No italics then.

I know what you mean about italics making the print appear smaller. I reckon it’s an optical illusion.

Don’t know if you’re familiar with British crime writer, peter James but he sometimes writes whole chapters in italics! It sometimes seems like the words run into each other. Great writer though.

Anyway, I’ve used up way too much of your time.

I’m off to dreamland now (without italics).

Thanks for the advice. You’ve been a great help.

My pleasure, Barry. Take as much of my time as you need to.

That’s nice of you Beth, thanks. I need all the help I can get!

Thank you SO MUCH for the very clear explanation of when and how to use italics when portraying a character’s thoughts. The best explanation I’ve found.

Connie, you are welcome. We’ve covered a lot of related issues here in the comments, so I might need to do a Part Two on this topic.

My current problem is trying to figure out how to punctuate a paragraph in which a character is reading something to herself. If I just put quotes around the material being read, it looks like she’s reading it aloud. I’m wondering if single quotes would work. The paragraph which is from my upcoming novel The Heart of Applebutter Hill is: Block quote When he reached Abigail, Thornhammer pressed a stiff card into her hand. She fumbled with it and, after getting the Braille right-side up, read, ‘Professor Thornhammer’s Banned Four-Letter Words.’ Her heart raced in anticipation of the words he might have included, but the list was a simple one: ‘Like, Sure, very, fine and just.’ Block quote end Thanks for any suggestions.

Donna, you have some options, but using single quotation marks isn’t one of them unless you’re using rules for British English. American English doesn’t use single quotation marks in fiction except as a quote within a quote.

If you’re going to use the word read as you have, then using quotation marks is okay. So—

She fumbled with it and, after getting the Braille right-side up, read, “Professor Thornhammer’s banned four-letter words.”

Or you could use italics. But since you used the word read, the quotation marks do work. Think of read as equal to said in this case.

For the second section, I suggest neither quotation marks nor italics (though if I had to choose, I’d go with italics). But because this is just a list, you don’t need anything special.

If someone’s reading a paragraph or so of text, you can use quotation marks—think of it as quoting someone, though the character isn’t truly speaking. If the words are few and interspersed with comments from the character, use either quotation marks or italics, depending on how you introduce the text and how many or few words you’re reporting—

She had picked up the book, but had never gotten past the first line— Home wasn’t a place to live; it was a circus complete with animals, con men, and clowns.

. . . gotten past the words Home wasn’t a place to live; it was a circus complete with animals, con men, and clowns.

. . . gotten past Richardson’s opening. “Home wasn’t a place to live; it was a circus complete with animals, con men, and clowns.”

If your character is reading a lot of text—several pagragraphs or pages (though that could be very boring for the reader)—consider indenting on both left and right and not using italics or quotation marks. This simply sets the text off so the reader (if you’re submitting, this means agent or editor) knows that the text is something other than exposition or dialogue or action. With this choice, however, you do need to make clear when the text begins and ends. You can do that with line spaces and/or words that introduce the text at the beginning and then indicate, at the end, that the special text is finished

Using italics for a lot of text makes a tough read for the reader, so for submissions, try what I’ve suggested here. If the publisher wants to use italics for long sections of text, that’s their choice. What you’ll want to do is be consistent and clear.

Unfortunately, there’s no one option that’s always right because the circumstances, especially the amount of text, is different.

I think…as may have been said here in prior posts…that text being read by your POV should be offset and and blocked. Decide what margins will work for you…say one inch on both sides. That way it stands out from the regular text and lets the reader know that this text is different..usually preceded by narrative indicating that the reader is about to witness the POV read something.

However, it’s not necessary in most cases to have the reader witness the POV read directly from a book…because paraphrasing works just as well and better in some cases.

This article has certainly cleared up a sticking point in my own writing. Always having tete-a-tete discussions with my editing friend, I preferred using quotation marks in the middle of a paragraph and at the same time being annoyed that I could not develop consistency. I would use variation in different works. I will use the italics method, thanks to you, and begin new inner thoughts as new paragraphs. I think it should also blend in with my personal style development. Thank you, Beth.

I am a retired IT maven. I procrastinated for twenty years, but in January I started writing Dragon at 1600. I had 200 pages of the worst grammar possible. In high school and college when they said grammar, I said already got a gramma. So, I met some writers on the Writers Network (LinkedIN) and started getting major help. One genius, took me under her wings. She is tough. For the past month, I have re-written the first 7 chapters five times. My grammar will get better, but my tenses and must have narration was killing me. I have had three different prologues. Hell I love Clive Cussler. The prologue is now chapter 15, but chapter 1 is killing me. I want it to explode. So, yesterday was a really bad day for me. I was searching the internet for answers and got your site. Hello, and thank you. I just re-wrote chapter 1 this morning. I changed 70% of the narrative to dialogue. I was having a problem because Buck was all by himself. Oh my God. I looked around my office and said what can i do. Hey, I yell at my TV all the time. I’m a NY Met and NY Jet fan. I’m lucky the TV still works. Thoughts, what an interest concept. I’ll be damned, someones at the door. Next thing you know, the whole narrative, minus what was not needed… became dialogue. I read something the other day that hit me hard. Write your scene like someone is paying $300,000.00. for it. If its crap it gets cut. The movie is only two hours. Everthing has to count. I would love to SHOW you the before and after, but won’t waste your time. What I do want is more ideas and ways to make narrative into dialog. In the past two weeks I have read 6 books on writing. Yes they all helped, but your site woke me up. Thank you.

Stephen, you are welcome. I’m guessing that consistency is going to help not only the manuscript, but the way you approach your characters’ thoughts and their inner monologue. Keep in mind that if you’ve clearly shown the reader that they’re in the character’s head, hearing his thoughts, italics aren’t even needed. Or you might want to differentiate between passive thoughts and the self-directed thought-talk of your characters by not using italics for the first but using them for the self-directed thoughts.

Here’s to the change making a difference.

Gene, congratulations on your jump into writing. You’ve aleady begun the two best practices you could undertake at this point, as you begin your writing career—writing and studying the craft of writing. I’m glad you found something you could use here.

Of course I’m going to caution you to not go overboard the other way with your use of dialogue. How much action do you have in that opening chapter? Perhaps some of that 70% of the narrative that was changed to dialogue should be action instead? Finding the balance is part of the writing experience, and each story will have a different balance of elements. And you’ll find that your style will naturally tend to lean toward one of the elements at the expense of the others.

Thought and dialogue are vital, but so is action. If you want your opening to explode, light a match. But keep in mind that you’ve got to have an explosive of some kind attached, a situation that could explode. And sometimes you need to show the reader some of the setup, the reason why there’s a possibility of something explosive happening. You can play around with cause and effect, action and reaction, to see what works for the story’s needs. ———– Regarding action, even a character alone, as you pointed out from your own experience, can be active. A guy can reveal his rage or despair by throwing objects or kicking through walls. He can pound his fists into a floor again and again, until they’re bloody, as he tries to deal with the death of a lover or child. A psychopath could painstakingly put together a bomb, talking to himself all the while, as he readies the device for his next attack.

You didn’t specifically mention action, but these are a few reminders to give the reader a break from thoughts and dialogue. Too much of any one element—dialogue, action, thought, exposition or summary, or description—is too much.

As for ideas to make narrative into dialogue, one of the most effective is to make sure you’re writing scenes and not reports. Scenes mean people in specific places doing something. Sections of all thought all too often become a bodiless mind, and not a full character, thinking of past events. Reporting past events. In contrast, for a scene, characters need to interact with others, if those others are in the scene. But characters also need motion and interaction with props from the setting. And the passage of time should be clear. So a character is in an identifiable place, doing something, including talking to other characters, interacting with objects and moving around, as time advances in a recognizable way.

Even if a character goes on for a stretch simply thinking, readers should know where the character is and what he’s doing, even if the focus is on his thoughts. Where is Roger when he takes a trip down memory lane to think about the guy who mentored him in high school, the coach who set him on the right track? Is Roger sitting alone at a bar? Is he pacing in a hospital ER? Is he on a stakeout? And what’s the catalyst for his trip down memory lane? What event gets him thinking? People don’t simply willy-nilly start thinking of events or people from the past—something brings them to mind. Be sure that stimulus is clear.

So to show a detective lost to his thoughts of his ex-wife, the one he let dovorce him without a fight in order to protect her, readers could see the character tapping the steering wheel as he sits a stakeout. Readers should feel the wind shaking the car, the biting cold as it creeps in through the window that doesn’t close all the way. Readers should hear the crackling as the character shifts in his seat, smell the odor of drive-thru chicken and burgers from the bags piling up in the back seat. And readers could hear the detective make a report to his partner or dispatch and then watch as he fiddles with the ring he still wears. And then readers could listen in as the detective remembers events from the past.

But the present scene shouldn’t be forgotten and events and the reality of that present should interrupt the memories of the past. Coming back to the present scene will keep characters and readers grounded so neither are lost to memories and thoughts that play out only in a character’s head.

The suggestion, then, is to write scenes and not simply character remembrances.

Ways to convert narrative into dialogue (and action) would make for a good article. I’ll have to think about that one.

Thanks for joining the discussion, Gene. I’m sure your comment sparked ideas and questions for others.

Thank you Beth. Maybe explosive was the wrong word. This is my 6 draft of chapter 1. I want it dynamic, but I’m introducing my protagonist. I did not want the narrator doing it all. Some people told me it was too wordy. Here is what I’m talking about.

Buck believed America was a pretty damn good place to live. The US Constitution guaranteed that. He believed most people came here for that reason only. Some people— not just the rich— came to America for another reason. To bleed the red, white and blue for all it is worth. He was in his home office at his computer programming. He was making enhancements to his tracking system. The music was blasting through the computer speakers, his kind of music… It was another typical week for Buck, twelve to fifteen hour work days. This time around it was for America… not the man. Bruce Greenwood was getting his juices flowing. …That I’m proud to be an American, / where at least I know I’m free. / And I won’t forget the men who died, / who gave that right to me. Buck was retired now; he was finally done with the corporate bullshit. No more asshole bosses, who hired their even bigger asshole kids. There he was, poppa’s proud whatever… Mr. Vice President of just show the **** up to work.. The back-stabbing and the cry baby demands, yeah, Buck was done with that bullshit too. …And I gladly stand up, / next to you and defend her still today. / ‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land, / God bless the USA. A special report on the news, caught Bucks attention. Look at them he thought, they seek any law that can benefit their cause. They exploited it, twisted and use creative interpretation, only to push their own agenda… bleed America dry. They spit on Old Glory, stomp on her, then burn her. Why… because they can? “Damn,” said Buck to the TV. “They fight the very rights, our brave men and women fought to defend. The rights that made America… the land of the free.” Lynyrd Skynyrd was now rocking on the system. Buck muted the sound on the TV. Yeah that’s right! / My Daddy worked hard, and so have I, / Paid our taxes and gave our lives / To serve this great country / So what are they complaining about… Buck didn’t like people who took and never gave. Worse, Buck hated traitors. “Buck are you here?” said Roy. “Sorry didn’t hear you come in. Got the music blasting.” “I have a couple of things I’m working on,” said Roy. “I want to add it to the system, see how it looks.” “Knock yourself out.” Roy Singh was Bucks partner, best friend and Swami. Hell, he was a genius and had three pussy PhD’s to prove it. “What are your plans?” said Roy. “I was thinking of swinging by Sarge’s. Have a few beers, complain a little and blow off some steam. Micky’s up in White Plains, pushing his new novel, The Saratoga Project.. I want to go see him. He gave me a couple of people to look into and I want Sarge to drive.” My hair’s turning white, / My neck’s always been red, / My collar’s still blue, / We’ve always been here / Just trying to sing the truth to you. / Yes you could say / We’ve always been, / Red, White, and Blue… Buck had met Micky on an IT Security project in Purchase, NY several years ago. Micky was his mentor. They worked together, played golf and were constant dinner and drinking companions. Micky gave more than half his life to America, he was legit, and got the whole God and Country meaning. He put five years in the Navy and another twenty in the Air Force… he was still involved. He parlayed his IT Security and Auditing background from the Air Force into a nice career. After he retired, he became a mega-millionaire author. …If they don’t like it they can just / get the HELL out! “Hey Roy, I’m out of here.”

First off… you don’t see that I used italics on the song words between the paragraphs. I want the reader to say… I’m with BUCK!

Gene, I’ve got some suggestions for you, but it may be a day or two.

Beth, Thank you for responding. what I had listed was the first page and a half of a 3200 word chapter. The rest of the chapter has a 55-45 blend of dialogue to narration maybe even 60% dialogue. I have been working hard at turning narration into dialogue if I can. I realize that some narrative maybe important to me but does not move the story along. I have my orignal draft so it’s not like It’s gone forever. Hell, some are memories from 30 years ago. Obviously, I didn’t forget them. I created an inside cover that will grab the reader, if political espionage and suspense is their thing. Also, in my first draft, I gave all the goodies away in the first 30 to 40 pages. Why read the rest, when you know how it’s going to end. This time around, I want them saying, “I’ll read one more chapter before I go to bed, maybe two.” I read a lot. Some books you just can’t put down. I love James Patterson, but one of his last books just didn’t do it. I just kept putting it down. This may also be, because I’m reading in edit mode so I’m not enjoying it. I write 8 to 10 hours a day and edit in between. I start at 6 am and stop around 8 pm. So when I finally want to read for fun, I’m spent. I will tell you one thing I have learned. There is nothing that compares to writing. It is the one thing in life that you totally control. My protagonist had just saved two Russian Scientists who were kidnapped. They were boring. I went to bed and dreamed about my book. When I woke up, they were not longer boring. I made them smarter and more beautiful. They are now part of Bucks team. Writing is more than fun. It’s the funnest. How that for the grammarians.

Gene, I didn’t intend to take so long to get back to you.

Writing in a way that makes the reader have to read just one more page is a perfect goal to strive for. We don’t want them stopping. Yes, we understand that they have lives, but if they have to be pulled away, that means they’re locked into the fiction.

Look down the comments list for a few suggestions on your earlier text.

Best article on internal dialog that I’ve read. Thank you.

My pleasure. And thank you.

Gene, how does this work for you?

Buck believed America was a pretty damn good place to live. The U.S. Constitution guaranteed that. He believed most people came here for that reason only. Some people—not just the rich—came to America for another reason. To bleed the red, white and blue for all it was worth.

He sat in his home office, programming at his computer, making enhancements to his tracking system. Music blasted through the speakers, his kind of music. It had been another typical week for Buck—twelve-to-fifteen-hour days. But this time around it was for America, not the man. Lee Greenwood’s iconic song had his juices flowing.

“I’m proud too, Lee.”

Buck, finally done with the corporate bullshit, had retired. No more asshole bosses who hired their even bigger asshole kids. There he was, papa’s proud whatever, Mr. Vice President of just-show-the-****-up-to-work. The back-stabbing and the cry-baby demands? Yeah, Buck had retired from that bullshit too.

Buck joined Lee, holding the long note near the end of the song far longer than Lee did and then laughing when he could finally catch his breath. A special report flashing on the TV caught Buck’s attention.

Look at them, he thought, seeking any law that can benefit their cause. They exploit it, twist it and use creative interpretation to push their own agenda to bleed America dry. They spit on Old Glory, stomp on her, then burn her. And why, because they can?

“Damn,” Buck said to the TV. “They fight against the very rights we fought to defend.” Stupid pr***s. Fighting against, weakening , the rights that made America the land of the free.

Lynyrd Skynyrd was now rocking on the system, singing about working hard and paying taxes. Buck muted the TV.

Buck had been raised to work hard, to do and contribute. His dad hadn’t been a slacker, and he wouldn’t allow any of his kids to slack off, to live off others. Buck had no respect for people who took and never gave. Of course, he hated traitors even worse.

“Buck, you here?”

He swiveled to see Roy standing in the doorway.

“Hey, didn’t hear you come in. Got the music blasting.”

“I got a couple of things I’m working on,” Roy said. “I want to add them to the system, see how it looks.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Roy Singh was Buck’s partner, best friend and Swami. Hell, he was a genius and had three pussy PhDs to prove it.

“What are your plans?” Roy asked.

“I was thinking of swinging by Sarge’s. Have a few beers, complain a little and blow off some steam. Micky’s up in White Plains, pushing his new novel, The Saratoga Project . I want to see him too. He gave me a couple of people to look into, and I want Sarge to drive.”

He turned down the final chorus of “Red, White and Blue.”

Micky was his mentor. Buck had met him on an IT security project in Purchase, NY, several years ago. They worked together, played golf and were constant dinner and drinking companions. Micky gave more than half his life to America, he was legit, and he got the whole God and country thing. He’d put five years in with the Navy and another twenty with the Air Force and was still involved. And he’d parlayed his security and auditing background into a successful career as a mega-millionaire author of political thrillers.

The American dream writ large.

“Hey, Roy, I’m out of here.” Buck shoved away from his desk, timing his words and his exit to Skynyrd’s final chords. Get the hell out indeed. ——————- A few general notes—

Lee Greenwood, not Bruce (who’s an actor)

Unless you got permission to use lyrics, you can’t quote them in books. There are some exceptions (public domain songs and not-for-profit scholarly books), but for the most part, steer clear of using someone else’s words, especially poems or song lyrics. Much of the song’s value is contained in a single line and writers don’t get to tap into someone else’s work to bolster their own. Use allusions to the song if you need to bring it to the reader’s mind, or mention the title. But keep in mind that readers don’t always have the same reactions to songs that you do. You may be introducing an element that doesn’t fit your intentions, but one you have no control over.

Was is a workhorse word, but you’ve used it 18 times in this little snippet. Cut some uses and substitute more specific verbs for others. That will strengthen images and the feel of the passage.

Try the more common order of Buck said rather than said Buck . It gives a story a more contemporary feel.

I cut some words, changed some around, made some punctuation changes. I may have missed on the intent of some phrases, since I don’t know the story, but I hope this gives you some ideas.

Beth, many thanks.

I was watching a movie with Bruce Greenwood in it, and without thinking put Bruce instead of Lee. The who said, said who, always got me. It’s automatic to write, he said, she said. I don’t know why I reverse it when using a name. Would you advise changing it for every ‘said’ tag. It’s probably a good exercise, for doing a full edit of my book anyway. Thank you on the ‘was’ also. It will make me think more, when writing. I sent letters to all the agents, whom I use songs, connected to their artists. They answered back within hours with a form to fill out. That’s when you never hear back from them. I like how you did it, and it makes sense. Be creative and stay away from problems. Thank you for showing me how to give the story impact. I noticed there were no spaces after the em-dash. I have the Chicago MOS, by my side and looked it up. I have some cleanup, on that too. I read somewhere, and didn’t mark it at the time, of a list of words, novice writers should watch for. Meaning there multiple usage. Do you know what I’m talking about. If so, I hope there is a list of alternates. I can’t say enough about your blog. Thanks!

I had another thought. You know, when we first learned how to drive, our parents taught us the pass the driving test. Then–they taught us how to stay alive. We write a MS to pass the test. Then what, someone makes it look good. They and fonts maybe. They do different paragraph spacing, etc. I looked back over the edit you did for me. I like the way it looks. Certain lines are double spaced to separate a paragraph. Like the, “I’m proud too, Lee.” But we’re not allowed to do that in a MS, can we do it after? Also, I had reworked the first chapter. When I decided to move my prologue to chapter 12, I realized there was information that had to be told sooner. So I moved it while I was waiting to hear from you. I wasn’t expecting, what you did for me. I combine it all and rewrote it. I think I have something now. YOU ARE THE BEST.

Gene, you wouldn’t have to change all said he to he said , but I’d recommend changing most.

There are all sorts of books and articles that talk about words to use or not use, but I’m not sure which you’re referring to. I’d check the Internet, see if you can’t find a couple of good lists.

As for format, there is a standard manuscript format, with first lines indented and no line spaces between paragraphs, so my presentation for your text wouldn’t be the way you’d format a ms. for submission. But the format I used is much easier on the eyes for online readers. Besides, it’s near impossible to indent with blog posts and comments.

I’m glad to have been of help. One other change you might consider is removing some instances of Buck’s name. He doesn’t need to be named so many times in those opening paragraphs.

Supposing you are writing 1st person narrative and your pov character relates what another character is thinking? How would you punctuate that? For example:

I didn’t move or say a word, knowing the cop was thinking, Just give me an excuse, please, and I’ll gladly rid this world of your worthless punk ass.

Would you use a comma just before the thought quote? Capitalize the first letter of the thought, as I did here? Use italics for the thought? Thanks.

James, I would suggest using italics for this. The comma is good, as is the capital J.

Or you could add the word what and use a colon or dash to introduce the cop’s supposed thought—

I didn’t move or say a word, knowing what the cop was thinking: Just give me an excuse . . .

You could italicize or not in this case; the colon or dash should serve as a strong enough indicator that this is the thought of another character, so italics are not required, though you may want to use them. Just be consistent with your choice.

Thanks for the question; it’s one that needed to be addressed. And it points out the fluidity of our options; there’s a lot that isn’t set in stone, and a writer can create different effects and a personal style with his choices.

Hi, I would just like to ask about the dialogue of a machine or computer. In my writing I have written:

My name and photo appear as a robotic female voice says access granted.

Do I need to use italics or commas or speech marks anywhere in the last bit of the sentence ? If you could help me that would be great!! Thanks

Tasha, typically you’d use quotation marks, just as for normal speech. Yet if you want to highlight that it’s not human speech, you could italicize; that would be a style decision. Will the computer talk a lot? Is she a character? If so, quotation marks might be your best option. They are the least confusing option.

So, yes, if you are actually quoting what the computer says, you will want formatting to make the quoted text stand out.

My name and photo appear as a robotic female voice says, “Access granted.”

My name and photo appear as a robotic female voice reports access granted.

You wouldn’t need quotation marks or italics if you wrote—My name and photo appear as a robotic female voice tells me access is granted.

Quotation marks for spoken speech is the best choice. But you do have options.

This was a very useful guide for me, thanks very much, now I feel happy entering a flash fiction competition.

Kim, you’re welcome. Good luck with your flash fiction.

I just wanted to say: You’re soooo helpful… Thanks!

My pleasure, Haydee.

Hi, I wonder if you could help me. My character is telling her story directly, and keeps jumping from past to present. How should I punctuate the past? Italics, or trust the reader to use their heads… I just feel it could get confusing for the reader without clear indication as it does jump back and fourth. (don’t judge all my punctuation and spelling this is purely a rough draft!)

Belmont, California: April 2008

I still believe he visited me that day with the intention of killing me in cold blood. My memory of it is so blurry yet so clear. Almost surreal. I am sure the figure behind him had been holding a gun as he had walked out of the room when the ringmaster had dismissed him. Then again it could have been the radiant artificial glare blinding me, playing tricks on my mind. An illusion to suit the story. If he had entered that day to assassinate me, then he had been right. I will regret spitting at him forever. It would have been the kindest mercy to have killed me so painlessly that day. But my emotions had got in the way. I allowed my anger to dictate my fate. Allowed my pride to take precedence. I was a fool. I fought them every step of the way. Believing somehow that I would conquer. I had starved myself for those several days of solitude. Attacked anyone who tried to come near me. It didn’t matter that I was shackled to the wall. What leeway I had was enough to kick scratch and bite. I was a wild animal in a cage. I may have been contained physically but emotionally I was completely unrestrained. That was at least until they changed me, or tried to. They had offered me an alternative. ‘Kuthi, are you aware what bribery is?’ The ringmaster chided from a safe distance, as I pulled at the chains to get at him. I wanted to beat him. Punch, scratch, spit – any physical abuse would have sufficed. I knew I was wasting energy, but I could not restrain my desire to physically assault anyone who threatened my freedom. Perhaps I believed they would let me go in defeat. Give up on trying to tame me. I had been so wrong. ‘If you are a good doggie I would listen very carefully… If you do not start to co-operate with us we will have to take matters a step further. We know where you live and we know who your family are.You have one warning’ He ended sounding so sure of himself. Despite his dark and evil threat I had laughed at him, looked him in the eye and laughed. ‘You have NO idea who my family are! Nor where they live. If you did, you wouldn’t have DARED treat me like an animal’ I threatened back with a menacing triumph, still yanking at my chains to get at him. ‘Believe what you will…. but I have every idea of who they are and where they live and I do dare to treat you however I see fit Kuthi. And if you do not learn to co-operate you will get your answer shortly’ He sounded almost sad for me as he closed his statement with a pained sigh and locked the door behind himself, leaving me with my own tortured thoughts again. Oh I had convinced myself they had no idea. How could they? Afterall I was really Audrina Grace Todd, not the Audrina Mary Fynn they would have found me to be on the passport in my bag. I thought back to the few other items I had packed and what they might have found. I had cautiously stored the photo’s and letters in America, in fear of being connected to the Todds in anyway. There was nothing sentimental in that bag, I had made sure of that. It was just clothes and about a thousand dollars to get me started. The rest of the money had been thrown at a get rich quick investment before I had left. Which, at the time, I had ciphered would have been complete flop – how wrong I had been. I poured a glass of amber liquid, what was it Scotch? I slugged it back thirstily – Rum, my own stamina surprised me as I replaced the empty glass back onto the table. I felt a slight dizzying warmth wash over my chilled bones as I tried to remember and forget how that week had ended. ‘I blame myself – entirely’ I looked at the camera to confirm my guilt. ‘This is something that could have been avoided… If only-’ I sniffed back my hurt and huffed amusement ‘I promised I wouldn’t use those words “if only” – then again I promised myself I wouldn’t feel, yet here I am crying and smiling all within the same moment.’ I shook my head in disbelief at it all. Another glass of the golden nectar was required. I took another large glass in a single go. ‘This is the part where I killed my father…’

at this point I would jump back into india 2006 (when and where is happened) and let loose with the story in its ”present” form….

Greatly appreciate your input.

I’m writing in Deep POV and would like to limit the use of italics as much as possible.

Regarding inner dialogue: Is it the use of I/me that dictates use of italics? Or is it the use of a present tense verb? What about inner dialogue that has an understood “I”?

For example: Lab today. Need to move.

Does the above example of inner dialogue need to be italicized?

Many thanks, Christina

Christina, you’ve hit the major reasons for using italics for a character’s inner dialogue—using I in a third-person narration and using present tense in a past tense story.

Cutting down on italics is great, because they can be bothersome for readers, but you also don’t want to throw readers by switching from third person to first or from past to present tense.

Without knowing the surrounding text, it’s difficult to give you an absolute answer, but if you read this as the character saying I need to move, you’d probably want to go with italics, even though the I is only implied.

Even if the character is instead talking to herself the way she would to another character—That’s it, that’s it. Focus, Libby. You need to move—italics are still probably necessary. (Though not in all instances.)

You can easily stay in deep POV using third person—Lab started in ten minutes, so she needed to get her butt in gear. But she’d much rather help herself to another cup of coffee.

The thing is, the rules are sliding a bit regarding this issue. The trend is toward fewer intrusions into the text, including italics and commas. I’ve read published works that switched from third person to first in thoughts and didn’t use italics to do so. It was noticeable, but not awful.

So nothing is set in stone, yet until it is, you may want to stick with the tried and true. If there’s any chance of a reader becoming confused, you want to prevent that. If there’s any chance you’ll annoy the reader with too much use of italics, you’ll want to prevent that too.

Short answer? I’d go with italics for now.

This is the best blog post! I’ve been struggling with how to properly punctuate for two characters who are having a telepathic conversation. They can channel each other. Often their conversations are brief. But it’s mixed with the MC’s actions while in a telepathic conversation with a character in another place. I’ve been using italics for the non-mc telepathic comments and not for my MC’s. However its still confusing my readers. What if I bolded or off set the non-mc telepathic comments and italicized the MC’s comments? Or would that be overkill?

You’ve got two sets of telepathic communications going on at the same time and one person is part of both of them, is that correct? You’ll want to treat all telepathic communication the same way. Just as we use quotation marks for all spoken words, you’ll want to use something identifiable for thought speech.

You won’t want to use bold—it’ll prove too distracting for readers. Can you use italics for all thought-talk? As long as you identify who is speaking to whom, you should be okay.

This need for additional ways to show communicating is an important issue. I’m not sure that I have an answer for you at this time, not one that will satisfy every consideration. Italics may be your best choice at this time.

do you use italics when writing about a dream

I’d say it depends. If the character describes the dream… “I had a dream. I was walking…” I wouldn’t put it in italics. If I were to have it as a scene and want to make sure the reader knows it’s a dream, I use italics. It’s also about style. I’ve read books were they don’t italicise dream scenes, and I still get it. Personally, I’d prefer italics.

Jess, Mar has some good advice.

If you’re only talking about the dream, not showing it, no italics are necessary.

If you show a dream playing out, you could use italics, but keep in mind that italics can be hard to read. How long is this dream? If it’s long or you’ll be showing several dreams, consider setting the dreams off as scenes of their own. You wouldn’t need the italics with the scene breaks. Do be sure, however, to note when the dream begins and when it ends.

Thank you Beth, this article is exactly what I’ve been looking for (smiley face…happy dance).

I’m glad it’s what you needed, Lyn. And I love happy dancing.

I know you that know how terrific you are, but it can’t be said enough. I wonder if you can give advice on how to introduce a bit of history into or after a scene. The characters are commenting on a certain fashion and political climate that was going on when the story takes place. The location is another country, thirty years in the past, and without this history knowledge, the reader wouldn’t get a full understanding of what the characters are talking about.

Hi, i have read your blog and found it really helpful, but i have flashbacks in my narrative as well as the character’s thoughts. would you have the thoughts in Italics and singluar quotation marks ‘ ‘ or would you have them in “. Thanks

Renee, we typically use italics for character thought, but not in all circumstances. If the thoughts are first person in a third-person story, then italics are probably what you want. You don’t want thoughts in quotation marks—save that for spoken words. For American English rules, the only time single quotation marks are used is inside double quotation marks, when someone is speaking quoted material (or something else that gets quotation marks). For British English rules, you can use single quotation marks rather than doubles, but reserve them for spoken words and some other rare uses.

Thank you so much for this! Very clear and concise.

My pleasure, Cyndi.

Something that I’ve seen other authors use (Galsworthy in Forsythe Saga for instance) is the single quote for the “spoken” thouht. Sense both vocalized and unvocalized speech are represented by a type of quotes there is a partial resemblence. It also limits italics to emphasis whether speech or thought.

An example: Stan said, “[italic]I[end italic] went to see Mildred yesterday.” He found her in her usual hostile mood. ‘I couldn’t [italic]believe[end italic] what she said.’

(Terribly writing, but it illustrates the possibilities.)

Matt, there are a couple of issues here.

The first is the difference between British English (BrE) rules and American English (AmE) rules. Galsworthy was a British writer, so it’s likely he followed BrE rules. For AmE, single quotation marks are only used inside doubles (and in a few other unusual cases). This rule has nothing to do with thoughts—in AmE, single quotation marks simply aren’t used except for specific situations.

Also, while quotation marks might have been used to show thoughts a lot more in the past (Galsworthy wrote about 100 years ago), the trend today is for fewer punctuation marks. If thoughts can be shown in other ways (we know they can be), then using those other ways is the first recommendation.

Also, we’re looking for ways to be clear with readers. If quotation marks are used solely for spoken words, readers don’t have to guess whether a line is thought or speech. The punctuation gives clarity from the first page.

Does that mean that all writers today follow these same recommendations? Not necessarily. You’ll still find some writers using quotation marks for thoughts. But they aren’t necessary and they could cause confusion.

Yet too many uses of italics can create another problem, thus the current practice of moving away from italics even for thoughts. Readers are getting used to seeing thoughts in roman type, so I’m guessing that will be the standard before long.

Yet writers always have options. And if a writer can make something work without causing new problems, then he’ll probably try it.

A good observation. Thanks for sharing it.

When writing one character’s dialogue and another character’s internal thoughts on the same idea, should these be treated as more than one character ‘speaking’ where each time I have dialogue from a new character, I begin a new paragraph? Or should both characters’ dialogue and thoughts be in the same paragraph?

Thank you. Love your blog.

Maria, this is one of those “it depends” situations. Often, even most of the time, you will put them in separate paragraphs, yes. But not always.

If the viewpoint character in a first-person story or a story using deep POV has a thought relating to another character’s words, you could put the dialogue and the thought into the same paragraph. It’s not a necessity, but it is a possibility. If readers know that any thought that’s not the dialogue of another character belongs to the viewpoint character, you could slip those thoughts between the sentences of dialogue of the other character. They aren’t true action beats, but they can serve the same purpose. So . . .

“I already told your sister yesterday.” The loser was smiling as he said it. “She’s a bit perturbed.” And he looked extremely pleased, the jerk. “I think she plans to write you out of the will.”

But this could just as easily be written . . .

“I already told your sister yesterday.”

The loser was smiling as he said it.

“She’s a bit perturbed.”

And he looked extremely pleased, the jerk.

“I think she plans to write you out of the will.”

The feel is different, the effect is different. It’s just one more option to create effects as you write.

You don’t want to use extended thoughts of the viewpoint character in the same paragraph as the dialogue of another character because, yes, that’s like putting the dialogue of two characters in the same paragraph. Multiple or obvious references the viewpoint character makes to him- or herself should also be separated into a different paragraph. Knowing what is too much would be a judgment call, but if there’s any doubt, separate the dialogue of one character and the thoughts of another—that would always be correct.

This next example shows the combined thoughts of one character and the dialogue of another in a way that doesn’t work . . .

“I already told your sister yesterday.” I contemplated murder when the loser grinned. “She’s a bit perturbed.” And I think I could get away with it. Poison in his coffee. His grin widened. Or maybe cutting his break lines. He was a lousy driver; no one would suspect. “I think she plans to write you out of the will.” XX

What does work . . .

“I already told your sister yesterday.”

I contemplated murder when the loser grinned.

“She’s a bit perturbed.”

And I think I could get away with it. Poison in his coffee.

His grin widened.

Or maybe cutting his break lines. He was a lousy driver; no one would suspect.

“I think she plans to write you out of the will.”

Again, you can always separate the two, but combining them in a way that works gives you another option.

I just had a question about a sort of, oversaturation, of the conscience in a work. I appreciate this article for the actual fundamentals of my work, but this question is more about the content than the basics of it.

What if the conscience were to become it’s own character. is there any way to really make it acceptable? I know it’s not something that has been done too often, but it’s something that I have been playing with in a couple of projects. With the most recent work I can see it working in my favor. My question is if it would be appropriate for this character that the conscience becomes was seen in both the main character’s dreams and real life? Or would this be overwhelming to the reader. The story can be maintained without the conscience, but I like the spice that she gives the main character, thus the reason for my question. I’m sorry if it’s confusing, but it’s something that I would really like to explore and I just wanted an outside opinion on it.

K., I see no reason you couldn’t try using a character’s conscience as a character. Treat it/him/her just as you would another character.

You wouldn’t want him taking over—is there a way the character can ignore him? Are there conditions under which he wouldn’t/couldn’t appear or make his presence known?

What’s the genre? The genre may affect how readers receive or don’t receive the conscience as a character, but otherwise, you should be able to try using it.

Did you have specific concerns about reasons why it wouldn’t work for your story?

I guess you could call it a science fiction-y love story. I never know how to properly put a story into a genre (but that’s for another day). But the reason I’m questioning it is because it’s something that almost always happens and when I was in my last fiction class I introduced it for a workshop and it was either completely loved, or hated, OR the character of the conscience was loved, but her presence was hated. So I removed it.

I’m working on a new work, but the reason for my concern is that this one has a lot to do with dreams. I’m thinking this combination of a dream world and a conscience in the real world might be a little overwhelming, don’t you think?

One thing I have noticed about this and other articles regarding interior monologue is that no one is addressing the issue of submission guidelines. I think anyone wanting to submit anything should first investigate the submission guidelines for their intended recipient to verify first what punctuation / type format is acceptable.

I am writing what I hope is the required format for TOR publishing, and their guidelines are quite clear:

http://us.macmillan.com/Content.aspx?publisher=torforge&id=255#ctl00_cphContent_ctl30_lblQuestion

under the topic: How do I submit writing to Tom Doherty Associates, LLC?

submitted text must be made up of consecutive pages and should end at the end of a paragraph, not in mid-sentence. Standard manuscript format means margins of at least 1 inch all the way around; indented paragraphs; double-spaced text; and Courier or Times Roman in 10 or 12 pitch. Please use one side of the page only and do not justify the text. Do not bind the manuscript in any way.

So. I look at that and I see no mention of punctuation, formatting, etc., of any kind, including the use or non-use of italics. Given what it takes to get hold of these people to find out anything else (and I haven’t), could we presume that the use of italics is okay, were we wanting to use that for small stretches of interior monologue, or do I really need to ask TOR?

Mark, you don’t need to ask TOR about italics for monologue. Using or not using italics for character thoughts is a style choice, not a standard formatting issue for submissions. So, yes, use italics for interior dialogue if that’s your choice. But do follow TOR’s guidelines for submissions. You can also check out this article on formatting a manuscript for submission , though you always want to go with the publisher’s guidelines if they differ from this standard format.

Publishers assume that most of your text will be roman, not italics, though they will expect italics for some words or phrases or situations. Simply make a decision for how you’ll write character thoughts and then be consistent throughout the manuscript. Publishers will have their own ideas of how they like to convey such interior monologue in a published book, so be prepared to be advised about such topics after they buy your story. Such a detail is likely to be covered in their house style sheet, even though writers do have opportunity to ask for exemptions. But because there are different options for this issue, it’s not something you’ll find as part of the submission guidelines. That is, even one publisher may not use one rule regarding italics for every style of book or genre. This is an item with leeway.

I don’t suggest contacting a publishing house to ask these kinds of questions—the information is on their website so they don’t have to deal individually with the same questions again and again. And they know formatting information is available online and in books and in writing groups. They expect writers to do a bit of homework before they submit.

Write a solid story. Rewrite and edit it. When it’s ready for submission, use standard formatting guidelines and submit according to the agent’s or publisher’s own guidelines. And then get to work on the next manuscript. You want to be a professional about your submissions, but don’t let questions about individual formatting issues get you unduly worried. Agents and publishers have seen lots of submissions, with all sorts of styles. As long as you keep to the general and expected standards, your submission should be fine.

Mark, The reason why you don’t see articles about interior monologue/dialogue addressing the issue of submission guidelines is because they are not mutually exclusive.

Interior monologue is just one of the many writing techniques used for adding dimension to a story, just like dream sequences and flashbacks. As with most writing techniques, interior monologue isn’t an essential part of writing or story-telling and it’s not an essential part of a submission either–unless it’s specifically stated, of course.

Submission guidelines are not rules on how to write your MS. They are instructions for writers who want to have their work considered for publication. From time to time, you might come across guidelines stating the publisher’s pet peeves in relation to writing mechanics, elements of writing, genre or whatever–MCSweeney’s, for instance, doesn’t want MSS with semicolons (I think)–but normally submission guidelines are more to do with things such as: format, word count, topic; the form of writing acceptable (poem, articles, short story…); the way of sending an MS (snail mail, email).

I wouldn’t advise asking TOR about the interior monologue punctuation etc. It would come across as lazy and amateurish. Asking to clarify something about their guidelines is okay, but asking them how you should format and punctuate your inner monologue or anything else isn’t. That’s like a carpenter asking his clients which tools he should use to build them their house. Grammar, punctuation and all that stuff are part of the craft of writing. It’s the writer’s job to know how to use them.

Submitting work is tough, especially if you’re new to it. However, if you want a chance at getting published, the most important thing is to make sure you have a well written and engaging piece. If you haven’t workshopped your MS yet, please do so. Find other writers who write in your genre, especially if they’re published, and ask them to critique your work. Also, before submitting, make sure you’re familiar with the stuff they publish.

Thanks so much for this. I have a question. in my WIP, there is this secne: Taylor looked around the room, seeing her teenage self reflected in the posters on the walls. The only thing that’s changed here is me she thought to herself as she moved into the middle of the room.

Does a comma need to be added after the inner thought?

Yes, add a comma for this purpose, Colleen.

Test this comment.

I am writing my first novel about an Indian woman in her fifties. I started the book and the first chapter is about celebrating her birthday. I am writing this story as myself as the narrator of the story. More than half of the story is in thoughts describing her initial days and the rest is her present situation. Sometimes I write about present and then swiftly enters my character in thoughts. Is it correct to write story with mix time, sometimes in thoughts, sometimes in present? I do get confused as how to enter in thoughts from the present time so that readers can understand where the character is actually. This is the first time I am trying my hand in writing novels, please help me.

Another related query for you on this topic. Mother and a son who have s strained relationship and who are both taciturn. They have a habit of communicating with expressions. Here is an example:

Joe gave her a sidelong glance that seemed to ask, “What makes you so sure?” She shrugged and made a gesture with her chin that seemed to answer, “I just know these things.”

Quotation marks? Italics? Nothing?

Temple, for these I’d consider what else is going on in the scenes and how often this happens. If the first question was the only one in the story, it’s likely I wouldn’t do anything special with the font. The answer, however, seems to ask for italics. I probably would not use quotation marks for either.

I was wondering how one would go about defining a conversation between two different characters that are outside of the narrator’s presence? This is an issue, with first person narratives that I struggle with. For instance, the main character, the narrator, is being discussed by two other characters. How would that conversation be related in the storyline?

Meagan, you’ve got to have more than one viewpoint character if you need to show events, including dialogue, that happen outside your first viewpoint character’s presence. Or you may have to forget about presenting that information.

You could always have someone report what they saw or heard to your narrator, but for the events to happen in real time, you’ve got to have a viewpoint character present. Or you need an omniscient narrator.

I have scenes with multiple conversation at once. One scene takes place in a classical ballroom sort of setting. My family of paranormals are surrounded by unsuspecting humans. The bride to be is talking to the eldest sibling of the paranormals. She’s trying not to be obvious about her sudden attraction to him since she is engaged to someone else. His sister is telepathically talking to him at the same time. Do you have advice on how to keep the two conversations distinguished. He is capable of verbal communication to the human and telepathic communication to his sibling at precisely the same time. I want to make it clear when he speaks verbally and telepathically at once without using unnecessary words to address who is saying what and to who since there are two different conversations taking place.

Tina, if you’ve got the two conversations going on at the same time, using quotation marks for the spoken one and italics for the thought one is probably your best bet. Use action beats and dialogue and thought tags only as necessary, but do use them so readers don’t get lost.

Ahhhh! I’m so happy I found this. I just wish I would have found it say, 5 years ago. I’ve been blogging for awhile and I’ve NEVER ever been sure how to write my thoughts. I’ve seen some use the single quotation (apostrophe?) as if it distinguishes it? Ha. I’ve got a lot of practice. This article is now bookmarked. Thanks again!

Cool beans. I’ve been intuitively doing it right.

I have a main character that is thinking about a specific dialog someone else said. The other person said, “How would you define love?”

Here’s the example: “How would you define love?” Her words echoed through my mind.

Now when my main character is thinking about this quote as above, do I use italics (since we are in MC’s head) and quote marks (since it was someone’s direct dialog/quote in the story) ? Or should I only use italics and no quotes?

Happyjbelle, if the character is hearing the memory, which is basically what you’ve written, go with italics. If the character thinks something such as the following, you could go with quotation marks—

“How would you define love?” she’d asked me.

I kept hearing her plaintive question— How would you define love?

We don’t typically use both quotation marks and italics for such a purpose.

I am writing a story in first person POV and the main character uses a form of telepathy to “speak” to another character. I am thinking that italics for these thoughts formatted like speech might work best, since two characters are thinking back and forth to one another. What do you think?

I have one question, and sorry if it was answered in the comments. How do you properly write a thought that is also a question, which is not the end of a sentence? For example

Looking up at the cave I wondered what ancient secrets it might hold? Could there be bones and tools and old indian artifacts in there? I wondered.

I want to use a thought tag “I wondered”. But should I use a question mark? If so, where?

Could there be bones and tools and old indian artifacts in there, I wondered?

Or do I use quotations?

“Could there be bones an tools and old indian artifacts in there?” I wondered.

Thanks, I find this very confusing.

Good questions, Alec.

There is no question mark for your first example. Although characters can wonder questions, wondering in itself is not a question.—Looking up at the cave, I wondered what ancient secrets it might hold.

At the same time, I wouldn’t use wondered twice. So perhaps—Looking up at the cave, I wondered what ancient secrets it might hold. Were bones and ancient Indian artifacts buried inside?

——-

You would include the question mark with a direct question—Could bones and Indian artifacts be buried inside? I wondered.

That would be the same as saying—Could bones and Indian artifacts be buried inside? I asked myself.

Note the placement of the question mark. It comes at the end of the question, not after the tag. This is the same format found in questions with dialogue tags.

You could argue, as a style choice, that under some circumstances, maybe when you want to play down the question, you could skip the question mark—Would it end soon, I wondered. Yet for the most part, do include a question mark since this is a question.

There’s no need to use quotation marks unless the character is speaking aloud. We can wonder out loud, so quotation marks might be necessary in some examples, but don’t use them for thoughts.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to include “I wondered” in first-person narration. You also don’t need to include a thought tag for many version of third-person POVs, especially deep POV. You can use a thought tag for variety or rhythm, but in these points of view, readers know the viewpoint character is thinking these thoughts. That is, any thought in scenes with such points of view belongs to the viewpoint character, and characters will know this. There’s no need for thought tags to identify the speaker; they are redundant.

I hope this answers your questions. Let me know if it doesn’t.

Alec, for some reason your question got inserted out of order. Please see my answer a couple of comments above this one.

Just found this forum while looking for some answers I need. My ms deals with some ancient gods and their oracle, the deities often speak telepathically, using internal dialogue. Sometimes the oracle replies verbally, for which I use the appropriate punctuation. Would the internal dialogue need quotation marks or speech marks? Or should I use italics? They do speak a lot, and I have been advised to use italics sparingly. My apologies if this has already been asked and answered, I’ve probably missed it.

Jen, italics is an option for mind-talk. You usually want to reserve quotation marks for spoken dialogue.

Are you saying they speak telepathically a lot? That would be a lot of italics. But you’ve got to differentiate between speech and thoughts somehow, and italics is one way to do it. And if you have characters with regular thoughts as well, you have to portray those in a way that readers will understand. If you can fold those thoughts into the text without calling attention to them—so no italics—using the techniques of deep POV, that would help differentiate at least some of the thoughts.

Italics is probably your best option. We do try to minimize the use of italics, but your situation is a bit unusual. And readers should be able to quickly understand what’s happening. Italics would be an instant signal that characters are talking mind to mind.

Where is this cloud thing your talking about?

One other thing that isn’t a MAJOR factor in this but might still be something worth considering (as it has come up a good number of times for me in the past few years), is how it will come out in an audio format. For example, a good number of Stephen King books choose to forego the “he thought” clarification in favor of just embedding the thoughts in the text itself. But when you’re listening to an audiobook and the character is engaged in a dialogue with someone, it starts to get messy when he is both talking out loud to someone while thinking thoughts in-between the spoken dialogue. As a listener, it usually makes me take a second or two to decipher between what he’s saying vs. thinking. Not that it makes it impossible to read, but that slight pause of confusion ends up removing me from the story just slightly enough to remind me that I’m listening to a book, not staying engrossed in a spellbinding story.

Mike, that’s a great observation. As you said, maybe this isn’t a major factor in deciding how to handle character thoughts, but it is a consideration.

I admit that I don’t listen to books—I get frustrated that I can’t get those narrators to talk any faster. But audio books do have an audience, and we should at least recognize that the listener’s needs might be different from those of a traditional reader.

I’m glad you brought up the subject.

I might have missed this, but I just throw thoughts right in behind dialogue sometimes. Is that correct?

“Hey, I got your message last night. You okay?” Man, sounded lost and a little spacey. “Yes. You still nee to be here by eleven-thirty. When you stop for the chicken, can you pick up some cilantro?” “Sure.” Wha…chicken? She didn’t say anything about chicken last night. “Now you’re doing it. Are you okay?” What’s his problem? “Yeah. How much chicken again?” That will work, clear it up without busting her. “Two pounds, breasts, get them butterflied if you can.” Jesus, how many times do I have to say this? “Cool. Eleven-thirty.” It must be that stuff they gave her for her foot. Anything stronger than Tylenol and she’ll go make the bathroom safe for guests. He grinned. Maybe a good time to drop some hints about how dirty my car is, see what happens. “You’ll never be here in time in you don’t hang up and get on it, Bobby. What are you thinking about.” “Nothing. You want any seasoning on that chicken I didn’t know anything about?” Ohhh…damn. Blew it. “You never listen to me, do you?” Now he’ll lie and say yes he does and it’s my pain meds. Jerk “Bobby? Are you still there?”

Is that acceptable form? I mean that’s a drop in example, but is that sort of thing considered okay?

I DO use quotes with thoughts, in place of italics, but not normal ones.

~Should I really be telling everyone this? Putting myself out there like this?~ I wonder even as I write.

By using Tidles (~) I make it clear that something is being said, but to one’s self, in the privacy of the character’s own head, as most of us do.

~Nothing ventured nothing gained I suppose.~

It also allows me to write mental speech on sites which do not support Italicized text, such as this one for example… When writing I have to include a brief note about this unconventional notation, but I hope to see it become the standard one day, and think that it doing so would be of benefit to all.

~There, I have done it, now to see what comes of it,~ I sighed inwardly.

I love this blog, and I have a question to contribute. What if a character is remembering the voice of a character who is now deceased? Consider the example below:

As she shivered in the dark, she heard her mother’s reassuring voice: “The cream always rises to the top.”

Is the way above correct? I tried it with italics, and the italics seemed a little distracting to me. In my current WIP, I have a couple of similar situations where the character will be recalling “specific” quotes from other characters. Not all will be from deceased characters, as in the case above.

Thanks in advance for your kind reply.

Great article, great website. I have a question re: punctuation of inner dialogue when using first person POV. 99% of the character’s internal dialogue is not in italics. Occasionally, though, I switch to “you” when the character berates herself internally. I do that to emphasize how messed up she is psychologically. She not only overthinks everything, she also has a self-hating side. I also use it when she gives herself internal pep talks. In these cases, I use italics because I’m switching from first person to second. I read elsewhere that I need to use italics because otherwise, the reader might think I’m addressing him/her (“Hey you, buck up!). Could you advise on best practices? I do this so sparingly that I could easily rewrite to eliminate the “you’s” if you think they’re off-putting. Thanks.

I tend to avoid writing ‘thought’ because maybe I read somewhere it wasn’t a good idea. I use ‘wondered’ on occasion. I’ll tag inner thought right behind dialogue. But here’s one where the character is doing her own call and response, playing the whole conversation to herself. I just plugged it in without popping a new line for every change. any thoughts?

“Deanna? Sweetheart?” Sunday morning coffee and “How are you feeling, dear?” Deanna knew how it would go. Oh I’m fine, How did you sleep, Really good, You were home early, It was a stupid movie and I wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to go to the Lantern or make out with him so I kept him off my boobs until the stop sign by Desley’s. Don’t be silly dear, it wasn’t that bad, was it? Yes mom, it was. Cups?

Phil, this probably isn’t clear enough. Maybe use an ellipsis after “how it would go” and include periods after the supposed words of each person so readers can see where each character stops.

You may also want to tell us outright which character has the first line—

I’d say I’m fine and Mom would ask how did you sleep.

Just some options. You might want to play with this a bit. Make sure readers know where the breaks between the (anticipated) words of each character fall.

Hello! I have a question regarding internal thought. I recently joined a critique group, and one of the women in the group shows her characters’ internal thoughts in bold-faced font. I have never seen this approach in any book I’ve ever read, but she says she has, and writing it that way–rather than putting the words in italics–keeps her from becoming confused. Is this a matter of personal preference? Would agents/editors correct her if she’s wrong? Does anything go these days in terms of writing style? It seems like many of the hard-and-fast rules I’ve learned about writing are being turned on their heads lately. 🙂

Take care, Laurie

Laurie, the other writer has seen bold fonts in a manuscript or in a published book? Unless this is something experimental, it’s not something a writer should be doing. We should be writing the words in ways that head off confusion rather than relying on punctuation to do that for us.

I don’t know anyone who would recommend bold for such a purpose. I don’t know anyone who’d recommend bold for any text in fiction outside of chapter headings.

Agents and editors would recommend changes if the manuscript got that far, but she really should take care of this before she submits to agents and editors. She should learn how to make the text do what she needs it to do.

While changes are always taking place, I don’t think the use of bold text in fiction has become an in-thing. Suggest that she rethink her use of bold. You’ll be doing her a favor.

I’m curious, do you think it’s possible to write a novel without sharing the character’s thoughts at all? Has it been done? I’m a huge fan of all sorts of storytelling, one of the greatest stories out there has to be Silent Hill 2, and for one of the most interesting reasons. You’re never flat out told what your character is thinking, instead his psyche is reflected into his environment. Each and every flaw, everything that haunts him, everything is reflected into the environment, allowing the player to come up with an interpretation. I’m not sure if this can reflect into a novel, and it may be a bit too experimental, but it’s just a thought. I was thinking somewhere along the lines of a limited third person book where there’s narration and you’re told the character’s actions as well as parts of what the character’s feeling through dialogue but never what he’s thinking unless you can decipher him.

Nyxato, stories told from the viewpoint of an omniscient narrator don’t have to delve into a character’s thoughts. The effect may be distancing, especially compared to the more typical style of today’s novels that brings readers close to a character’s thoughts, but it’s definitely possible to write such stories. The feel would be observational rather than participatory for the reader, but doable for a writer, for sure.

Thanks for the reply, especially on a rather old post. How well recepted do you think a novel told like that would be? Again, it’s highly experimental, something not usually looked up to with most things. I’m sure someone out there could pull it off, however.

Hello! I have a question regarding internal thought. I recently joined a critique group, and one of the women in the group shows her characters’ internal thoughts in bold-faced font. I have never seen this approach in any book I’ve ever read, but she says she has, and writing it that way–rather than putting the words in italics–keeps her from becoming confused. Is this a matter of personal preference? Would agents/editors correct her if she’s wrong? Does anything go these days in terms of writing style? It seems like many of the hard-and-fast rules I’ve learned about writing are being turned on their heads lately. 🙂 take care Regards.M.Hammad mob.no:03214311390

Hammad, we typically don’t use bold for anything other than chapter titles. If she needs to write the thoughts that way to keep from being confused, that’s okay for a work in progress. But if she’s confused, it’s likely that the reader will be too. And that’s not a good thing. She needs to write the thoughts in ways that aren’t confusing.

It’s not likely that any publisher will publish thoughts in bold. (However, I did just start reading a book with some odd bold text. I can’t remember what was bolded or why, but I definitely noticed. I’ll have to see the reason for the bold.) But even if a publisher uses bold, the writer shouldn’t. The words need to be able to stand on their own.

Early in the blog stream, Anna asked, “What if the thought is a question.” This comes up a lot in my writing because I do not italicize thoughts.

Here is an example.

What was Matthew thinking? she wondered. Does he have absolutely no clue how I feel about his brother? Of course he doesn’t. I never told him. “I’ll have to think about it, Sean, and . . . I feel certain my mother has something scheduled for me before I head back to Columbia, and—”

And, should I capitalize She wondered. In dialogue you would not capitalize the first word after the question mark. But it seems that CMS says that you would in this case.

You might say that I don’t need She wondered as it is evident that these are Penelope’s thoughts. Hmm.

Thanks. Brian The Perpetual Writer

I was wondering if inner dialogue/monologue in a first person novel is required in order to make the story more believable/better? Can one write a first person story without any inner dialogue?

Maggie, I’m not sure why your comment has appeared out of date order, but I hope you find this response.

A character doesn’t have to talk to himself, yet the ability to do so is one of the hallmarks of first-person narration. Is there a reason you wouldn’t want to hear what a character comments on, what he thinks of some other person or some event?

Are you intending to include some kind of thoughts, just not self-directed thought? You could do that, of course. But for first person, I probably wouldn’t suggest you skip all thoughts. If you’re showing readers that they have access to a character’s mind but then deliberately withhold thoughts, that’s a bit of a cheat. Readers will likely feel that they’re missing something.

Still, there is a difference between thoughts and thought-dialogue with a character giving himself pep talks or telling himself how foolish he’d been. What kind of inner dialogue did you want to omit and why? There might be some other options for you.

Can anyone help a relative novice; what is the best way to write a line of dialogue in a characters thoughts: my character is thinking about something his father once said to him when a child, it is just one line. Would I use italics &/or speech marks or not?

Ann, for a single line, italics would work well if you’re not using a dialogue tag and if you’re not using italics for the character’s other thoughts.

Dad’s words from that time I came home at three in the morning came to mind as I waited for John. Your mother and I can’t turn off the worry. Be courteous and give us a call next time. I’d need to try to be as calm and direct with John. If he ever got home.

My dad was pretty forgiving. But I still remember that time he’d said, “You’re in the house by midnight or you call at eleven fifty to tell me why you’re not or I’m coming to find you. Those are your only options.”

I hope that helps.

Thanks for your help, that is perfect!

I am still confused by this because you say to never use quotation marks for inner thought and yet when I look at CMOS it states: 13.41Unspoken discourse Thought, imagined dialogue, and other interior discourse may be enclosed in quotation marks or not, according to the context or the writer’s preference.

“I don’t care if we have offended Morgenstern,” thought Vera. “Besides,” she told herself, “they’re all fools.” Why, we wondered, did we choose this route? The following passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses illustrates interior monologue and stream of consciousness without need of quotation marks:

Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F?

Hi, I love your blog. You always have such good tips and ideas. I was just wondering what to do for memories of another person’s quotes. It’s not a flashback. It’s in 3rd person, and the POV character is angrily remembering what someone else said to him. It was originally written with the thoughts in italics, but I’m trying to get rid of that. I like the way its written though, and would hate to change the form. Do you have any way to help clarify which line is what without the italics?

He shook his head, trying to get Aaron’s angry words out. I hate you. He fell backward on his bed. Go away. He grabbed his pillow and put it over his face. You coward. He screamed. Too late now. Aaron would never forgive him. Jimmy had lost his only two friends. Forever. And it was all his fault. Jimmy, help me. He lay there, still. Not moving. Jimmy, help me!

Dadler, is there a particular reason you don’t want to use italics for this purpose? Pretty much your only choices here are quotation marks and italics. Readers need to know who is—or was—saying what, and paragraph breaks aren’t enough. We often use italics to indicate speech that’s being remembered by another character.

Also, if the character is “hearing” an earlier conversation between himself and another character or between two other characters, you may have to use a dialogue tag or an action beat once or twice to keep the speakers’ identities clear for the reader.

I’m trying to keep it consistent with how I have done inner dialogue in the rest of the WIP and i have not used italics anywhere else. He isn’t remembering the whole conversation. Lines of it are coming back to him between each action beat. The whole conversation happened a page or 2 earlier. But without the italics, it isn’t clear. I added quotes to the words he is remembering. But I don’t want to add quotes in the real story because it will be confusing with whats now and what he’s remembering.

He shook his head, trying to get Aaron’s angry words out. “I hate you.” He fell backward on his bed. “Go away.” He grabbed his pillow and put it over his face. “You coward.” He screamed. “Too late now.” Aaron would never forgive him. Jimmy had lost his only two friends. Forever. And it was all his fault. “Jimmy, help me.” He lay there, still. Not moving. “Jimmy, help me!”

I’m hoping this thread is still active. The comments are a bit old. I gained a lot from reading this; not just the answer I needed, but lots more.

I do have a question, if you don’t mid; What are your thoughts on not using quotation marks at all in a story? I’m reading one such novel at the moment. An acclaimed prize-winning novel, in fact! I thought it must have been some sort on editorial slip-up, but I found another of the same author’s works and it’s the just same.

I found it very hard to read, as I constantly had to re-read passages to make sure what was dialogue and what was narrative.

I can’t believe the publisher/editor let this through!

I hope you can help clarify a punctuation question – how do I handle a scene where two sides of a characters mind are arguing back and forth. Putting everything in Italics would not help clarify the situation as to whom is *speaking* in the characters thoughts, the actual character, or one of the two voices. – think angel and devil on the shoulders sort of scenario. Also there is a certain amount of foreign language phases in the book – these are also in Italics – any suggestions as to how to make it easier for a reader to understand which are thought and which are phrases? Thanks for any help you can give me.

I wonder if you could help me out on this one, ‘Why wasn’t Harry killed next, he continued to wonder.’

I can always pop in here and pick up something useful. Like when I get stuck in “felt” and “thought” land, the way it often drops in a draft. I discovered reading a Fifties Brit author (Edmund Crispin) that one way out of tags and distance is to simply write the thought in as direct a manner as possible. Saves time and you can manipulate dialog tempo with some interiority instead of the usual crutches.

“Indeed?” His enthusiasm for Barber’s intellect dropped further. How could the man purvey such rancid sexism as ‘education’? “And you listened to him, did you?” “No sir. My mother says that’s man pig talk.” “Your Mother is quite correct.” And her language a good deal more useful than the need to carry a dictionary around to follow Barber’s loathsome pendantics.

That was impromptu but you get the drift. The more we get out of the story’s way the better for everyone.

So thanks, Beth! PH

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Thanks so much for this great post! I am still a bit confused… I am writing in first person POV with lots of inner dialogue sprinkled throughout. However, each chapter jumps between past and present. I understand all spoken dialogue needs to be in present tense. But for the chapters written in past tense what is the best way to add inner monologue. For example: in a convesation between the POV and her father: “So, what are your plans now,” Dad asked. “Not sure. Was thinking I could start photography classes. They were always too expensive in LA.” I’d love to be a wedding photographer. Maybe I could be good enough for people to pay my way to Bali or Hawaii. All the great destination wedding spots. But then again I’d always have to work Saturday nights. So maybe not. Maybe a baby photographer. Or maybe I should just open a bakery.

What do you think is the preferred method for this? I would appreciate any and all help!

Miranda, if the scene is past tense, that means a character’s thoughts should also be in past tense, unless she’s talking directly to herself (and only briefly to herself). Yet for first-person narration, since the character is already the one doing the talking and thinking, there’d be no reason to switch tenses for her to talk to herself. In this case her thoughts and the narration are the same thing and should be consistent.

The narrator is either in the past or the present as she narrates the story, and verb tenses should reflect that. (Keep in mind that some of your verbs will be in the same form whether the story is past or present.)

Two examples, past first—

I ran into the room, eager to talk to Dad.

“So what are you plans now?” he asked.

I wanted to be a wedding photographer, one good enough that customers would pay my way to Bali or Hawaii.

I run into the room, eager to talk to Dad.

“So what are you plans now?” he asks.

I want to be a wedding photographer, one good enough that customers will pay my way to Bali or Hawaii. ———

You’d maintain past or present in both action and thought unless your character, in her present, is reflecting on something that happened at another time and she interjects her present thoughts into her narration of past events. I don’t think that’s what you intended with this example, but I want to be sure, just in case.

The way your narrator’s thoughts are written here, they’re present tense, which doesn’t go with a past-tense narration for other events. Is she narrating the story as it happens or telling us what has already happened? Once you decide that, the choices for actions and thoughts should fall into place.

I hope this helps but if not, let me know.

For thought process, Larry, it seems best to trust reader intelligence. Only use speech marks for the words actually spoken by characters – otherwise it looks a mess and confuses the reader.

Sometimes you have to move from narrative to thought-process, and it’s best not signalled by a change of typeface, inverted commas or any enactment narrative.

Anybody know what to do with a character’s thoughts that include possible future dialogue? For example:

He’s going to propose. What should I say? Is it acceptable to say, “Maybe?” I mean, he’s probably been mulling it over for months. But I only get five seconds? Who am I kidding? Five seconds would be an insult. Etiquette dictates I should squeal enough to hyperventilate, and sing out “Yes” before the velvet cube pops open. It says, “I love you, and I’ll still marry you even if there’s a hideous, heart-shaped ring hiding in that box.”

Do I keep “Maybe” and “Yes” and “I love you, and I’ll….” all in quotation marks?

Miranda, I wouldn’t put maybe and yes in quotation marks. Single words including yes and no typically don’t need quotation marks in this kind of situation unless you’re actually writing dialogue.

As for the full sentence, yes, put that one in quotation marks. Or you could even try italics. But quotation marks would be perfectly appropriate.

I’ll make one suggestion regarding it if I may. When you write It says, what is it referring to? Try being specific so you can direct the reader.

That quick response says . . . That excited response . . . The excited answer . . . The excitement of such an answer says . . .

Thank you for this, this has helped me to decide what to do in my wip. I’ve gotten rid of most of the thoughts in italics. (One or tow several chapters apart for when I think it needs it.) If your having other writers critique your work make sure to tell them why your not putting the thoughts into italics or they’ll beat you over the head that you should. >_<

do you still have to put ” ” if the main character is not speaking

Good point, Darkocean. It’s a good idea to fill in readers/critiquers with special considerations. Yet at the same time you don’t want to burden them with too much information. Tell them what they need to know, but then sit back and let them enjoy the read.

(Sorry about not replying sooner I loose track of time when writing. 89k words now 🙂

-Nods- Yes definitely. It’s a little different on his writing site I go to for help. My main pet peeve is they still are trying to get me to put all the inner thoughts into italics and the last one told me all thoughts always have to get a new line. So now I’m at the point of just thanking them and ignoring when they say to do that. -sigh-

Do you have a posting that is to do with grounding characters and scene setting? like describing where the characters are and such? I like giving descriptions, I just dislike doing stuff like the insides of buildings and such (to me it’s boring, I tend to skim that stuff when reading as ugg it’d go on for paragraphs, yawn.) Do I have to put that stuff in? I have some here and there where I think it’s important, a sentence, a paragraph or so and then I move on. Am I being to skimpy? (It’s a dark fantasy adventure.)

Thank you if you answer my questions.

DarkOcean, congratulations on your word count.

You do need to include setting details, but you don’t have to write paragraphs about the insides of buildings or rooms. There are many ways to include setting details.

Setting details are important for a couple of reasons. You want readers to be able to picture the fictional world. And you want to make sure that your story fits the world in which it takes place. Including a few details about setting will help the reader experience the story world.

Setting makes a story unique. So a story that takes place in the Manhattan of today won’t be the same story that takes place in 1870 in Houston or in 1930 in Hong Kong. A story with the majority of scenes in alleys and bars at night will be much different from a story that takes place in the offices of a prosperous international company by day.

So, yes, do include setting details. But don’t think you have to stop the story to point them out.

Have a character note the gargoyles on the squat building he’s entering—he may pause as he enters, mentally comparing this building to the modern skyscrapers to the right and left of it.

A character might pick off the dead flowers from a plant outside the front door as he or she goes home at night. You can imply that no one’s been taking care of the yard or that there’s been a drought. Or maybe you’re implying that the character is a perfectionist.

A character might notice the scent of sour laundry or burning cookies. Another character might trip over items on the floor or even trip over the uneven ground.

One character might have to move piles of papers just to sit down while a character in another story might worry about sitting down on a white sofa in his muddy jeans.

Have your characters react to and interact with setting; that’s one way to make it real as well as useful. And you don’t have to go on and on about the details unless a character would notice them.

Also, remember that setting is more than buildings and scenery. Era, cultural elements (laws, politics, religion, art, media), and geography are all part of the setting. Use a variety of setting details in your story.

I do have a couple of articles on setting. Click on setting in the tag cloud in the right sidebar.

Make your stories feel real by making the story world feel real, as if the characters actually live and work and play in it.

Oh, wow thank you 😀 I have a question what about when characters are talking are action beats, props and inner thoughts enough or do I have to make my character look around the room? I try to keep her focused on what matters to her and or what she notices. (Well some times it’s hard not to notice something like say an explosion coming from outside.)

This is the new setting i’ve put in:

She crouched down and breathed slow focusing on her heart rate, slowing it. The the soft pink petals from the tree she was under floated to the ground. The streets were carpeted with them. People sat under the trees, chatting-ignorant. The petals did little to calm her, as she alone knew they created a false sense of serenity. She shivered, though this had nothing to do with the shade.

She worked her way towards the back end of the city, where the elite lived their houses of white washed walls decorated with painting of the spirits. A group of thirty people filled this area as they watched a juggler tossed several loafs of bread one after the other.

Merryn craned her neck at the towering homes that had long horned fire spirits near the roofs. The horns for the fire spirit, encased in a circle of flame for protection, glaring at would be attackers, while other houses had the spirit of water. Three fish heads facing each other, the tails joined forming a circle around with their bodys. Along the edges of the houses the blue foam waves just crested over the doorway, offering peace and blessings to those who resided or visited.

All the homes of this wealthy section, were decorated with ordinate carvings of the other spirits. She had no time to find her spirits and pray not now. Besides, Olenus knew she loved them all and that’s what mattered. The spirits were forgiving, with most things.

She padded closer, her footsteps, but of a whisper, her outline but a shadow. The hidden spell absorbed the darkness around her, wrapping her. She weaved between the alleyways to avoiding the sunlight and going around the few people that where still scattered near the castle. After weaving between them she stopped to crouch near the outer castle wall.

It still needs work but I think it’s better then before. The problem is I hate it when I’m reading a book and an author goes on to describe everything. Like the the walls, furniture, the draperies, rugs to the stained glass windows. I get bored and skip ahead. It feels like filter to me.

Thank you for explaining this, it’s hard to know how much to put in sometimes and I tend to go with the minimal. (The above is actually way more then I usually put in.)

Okay I will thanks ^-^

Zack, where do you mean? Only use quotation marks for a character’s dialogue.

Hello all! I am writing a novel that has a character frequently communicating mentally with a voice in his head. In your opinion, what is the best way to show this? For now I have been using Italics for the voice and single quotations for the character’s response like this:

(italics)That is the single worse idea you have ever come up with–including that time with the rubber chicken.(italics) ‘Hey! You’re not being fair. After all we’ve come up with way worse ideas than that chicken.’ (italics)Don’t you drag me down to your level! (italics)

Would it be better to use italics for both? I feel like this way the ‘voices’ are easier to differentiate.

Terra, I don’t have an answer for you, but I’ve got to say, I love the chicken dialogue. It made me smile.

This might sound like a rubber-chicken idea, but you can always have it all in italics, but indent the voice-in-his-head another notch, so it’s clear that there’s two inner voices…

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Quotation basics: grammar, punctuation, and style, some general quotation guidelines.

In an effort to make our handouts more accessible, we have begun converting our PDF handouts to web pages. Download this page as a PDF: Quotation Grammar, Punctuation, and Style Return to Writing Studio Handouts

When writing a formal essay, you will often need to use quotes from a text or texts as evidence to prove your point or to make an argument. Below are grammar and punctuation guidelines to help you integrate those quotes into your essay successfully.

We recommend consulting a style manual or your instructor for specific queries.

Periods and Commas

• You do not need to use any punctuation before a quotation if it forms part of your own sentence.

Example: Dennis cries that he is “being repressed!”

• Use a comma when introducing a quote with a phrase such as ‘he said.’

Example: The old man protests, “I don’t want to go on the cart.”

• Place parenthetical citations outside the end quotation mark, but before the punctuation.

Example: King Arthur declares, “Let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place” (13).

Colons and Ellipses

• Use a colon when introducing a quotation with a full independent clause (one that can stand on its own).

Example: Emily feels frustrated by his response: “Is there someone else that we can talk to?”

• Use an ellipsis (three periods, sometimes with spaces between: ‘…’ ) to indicate an omission in a quotation (Exception: it is not necessary to use an ellipsis when omitting words at the beginning of a quote unless you are using a block quote format).

Example: “The kind of intelligence a genius has … leaps with ellipses.”

• When you want to omit one or more full sentences, use a period and a space before the three ellipsis dots.

Example: “Hatred paralyzes life. … Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

Slashes and Brackets

• When you are quoting poetry, use a slash ( / ) to mark a line break.

Example: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments” (1-2).

• Use square brackets to add a word, change a pronoun, or change a verb tense in the quote.

Original quote: “It’s my duty as a knight to sample all the peril I can.”

In your essay: Sir Galahad thinks “it’s [his] duty as a knight to sample all the peril [he] can.”

Question Marks and Exclamation Points

• With a question mark or exclamation point, there is no need to use a comma or a period.

Example: The interested observer wonders, “Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?”

• If the mark is part of your sentence and not part of the quote, it goes outside the last quotation mark.

Example: I don’t think we can ever understand the “ineluctable modality of the visual”!

Block Quotes

• MLA style calls for use of a block quote (indent 10 spaces, or 2 tabs) when citing five or more lines of typed prose or four or more lines of verse. APA style calls for block quotes when citing forty words or more.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate. / Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, / And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. (1-4)

Quote Within a Quote

• When using a quote within a quote, single quotation marks are used for the inner quote.

Example: Josh laments, “Every time I try to talk to someone it’s ‘sorry this’ and ‘forgive me that.’”

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A Word, Please: Advanced punctuation tips for those in the know

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If you’re reading this, you probably know a thing or two about punctuation. But nobody — including punctuation book authors (ahem) — knows it all.

So here are some advanced punctuation tips for good punctuators who want to get even better.

A single quote mark followed by a double quote mark comes after a period or comma. Let’s say you’re quoting someone who’s talking about a specific word, so you put the quotation in regular quote marks and the word itself in singles, like this: “Stop saying ‘whatever.’” The rule that says periods and commas go inside quotation marks applies to single quotation marks, too. The order is period, single quote mark, double quote mark.

An apostrophe comes before a period or comma. Apostrophes look a lot like single quotation marks. Depending on the font, they can be indistinguishable. But they’re different. An apostrophe can represent an omitted letter: thinkin’, talkin’, sleepin’, etc. And unlike a single quote mark that would come after each of those commas, an apostrophe is part of the word. That’s why the apostrophe goes before a period or comma, even when it’s within a quotation: “He’s sleepin’.”

An em dash can have a space on either side, or not. Different publishing guides have different rules for whether you put spaces around a dash — like this, or not—like this. Either way is fine.

If you can rearrange the order of adjectives, they require commas between them. Why are there commas in “a red, purple, yellow and green shirt” but none in “a bright red Hawaiian shirt”? It’s because the adjectives in the first example all have the same relationship with the noun. You can swap the order and it doesn’t affect the meaning: a yellow, purple, green and red shirt. But in our second example, some adjectives are more closely related to the noun than others, so you can’t move them around. “A Hawaiian, red, bright shirt” just doesn’t mean the same thing.

If you can insert “and” between adjectives, they require commas between them. Here’s another trick you can use: Try “a red and purple and yellow and green shirt,” then try “a bright and red and Hawaiian shirt.” The first one works fine, but the second doesn’t because “bright” describes not the shirt but the color red and because the word “Hawaiian” is more integral to the noun than the other adjectives. That’s why experts say you put commas between “coordinate adjectives” that come before a noun — the commas are standing in for the coordinating conjunction “and.”

Semicolons can make sentences less readable. Semicolons can be used to show that two independent clauses are closely related; for example, like this. But that makes the sentence longer and more cumbersome. Semicolons can also be used to separate complicated sentence elements that commas just can’t handle. For example, if you were to write, “We visited Denver, Colorado, Augusta, Georgia, and Toledo, Ohio,” it looks like “Denver” and “Colorado” are two different places. A semicolon after each state shows the proper relationships of these nouns. But state-city combos are the rare example when semicolons help more than hurt. Usually, if you need semicolons to make sense of complicated lists, it’s better to break up the sentence.

Adverbs ending in -ly shouldn’t be hyphenated. Rules say you should often hyphenate words that work together to modify a noun: a test-taking strategy, a family-friendly movie, a state-of-the-art technology. But when one of the words is an -ly adverb, you don’t use a hyphen: a happily married couple, a recently renovated home.

A complete sentence before an ellipsis ends with a period. If you’re using an ellipsis to … indicate a delay or omitted words, you put a space before and after the three dots. But sometimes the stuff before the ellipsis is a complete sentence. … In those cases, end that sentence with a period, then insert a space, then insert the three-dot ellipsis.

June Casagrande is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at [email protected] .

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