How to Punctuate Dialogue

Incorrectly punctuated dialogue is one of the most frequent mistakes I see in manuscripts from writers who are just starting out. Luckily, you can master this skill with practice and patience. In this crash course, I’ll cover the difference between dialogue tags and action beats, where to shove your commas, what types of verbs to use, and the various kinds of punctuation that might appear in dialogue. I’m using the guidelines from "The Chicago Manual of Style," which is the preferred style guide for fiction publishing in the United States.

Dialogue Punctuation Cheat Sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r... (To download the file from Google Docs, go to the upper left-hand corner and click File, then Download, then Word or PDF.)

You can read a text version of this video on Medium:   / how-to-punctuate-dialogue  

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Opening Animation by Vitor A. Dupont: https://www.behance.net/vitordupont

Title and End Music: “Clockwork” by Vindsvept –    • Fantasy Music - Vindsvept - Clockwork  

Background Music by Vindsvept:
“A Place to Call Home”
“Chasing Shadows”
“Light the Bonfire”
“Illuminate”
“Alone”
“The Journey Home”
“The Forgotten Forest”
“Leaving the Dream”
“Keeper of the Forest”
“Voyage to Nowhere”

SOURCES

Crystal Shelley of Rabbit with a Red Pen (the copy editor who fact-checked my script): https://www.rabbitwitharedpen.com/ser...

A fun interview about writing that I did with Josiah Bradley, who narrated the “Beloved” excerpt in this video: https://anchor.fm/josiahsvoicepod/epi...

“How to Punctuate Dialogue in a Novel” by Louise Harnby: https://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.c...

“Dot Dot Dot: A Closer Look at the Ellipsis” by Russell Harper: https://cmosshoptalk.com/2019/07/30/d...

“How to Use Semicolons in Fiction” by Sophie Playle: https://www.liminalpages.com/semicolo...

“Unquote: The Benefits of Excising Quotation Marks” by Jonathan Russell Clark: https://themillions.com/2015/04/unquo...

“Does fiction still need speech marks? A potted history of vanishing punctuation” by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/20...

Introduction (0:00)
Commas with Dialogue Tags (1:24)
Action Beats (7:11)
Acceptable Dialogue Tags (13:00)
Direct Address/Vocatives (18:49)
Contractions (21:30)
Em Dashes, En Dashes, and Hyphens (22:34)
Ellipses (24:21)
Colons and Semicolons (25:31)
Quotes within Quotes (27:35)
Monologues (28:18)
Dialogue without Quotation Marks (29:29)
Practice Test (30:39)