Appendix: Punctuating Dialogue
Most of what you need to know about the mechanics of writing dialogue
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since the 18th century has followed these rules, although some great writers,
including William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, have violated them.
In the following paragraphs, Mr. Faulkner and Mr. McCarthy will help us
review dialogue rules.
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character, should be set apart from the rest of the text by quotation marks.
The second rule is that every time a new character speaks or the speaker
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letter. Here’s an example that illustrates these rules:
“Do you think quotation marks are necessary?” asked Mr. Faulkner.
“Some people say yes; some people say no.”“I don’t use quotation marks myself,” said Mr. McCarthy. “I think
they just clutter up a page.”Remember that these rules of punctuation serve two purposes: to set
dialogue apart from the rest of the narrative and to identify who is speaking
at any given time. The quotation marks and the paragraph breaks serve the
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with a GLDORJXHWDJ, which in its most basic form is simply the name of the
character or a pronoun standing in for the name plus some variation on the
verb VDLG. In the exchange above, DVNHG0U)DXONQHU and VDLG0U0F&DUWK\
are dialogue tags; other common tags include KHVDLG, VKHVDLG, KHUHSOLHG,
VKHVKRXWHG, and so on.
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that the dialogue tag is not part of the actual quotation; thus, it should never
be included within the quotation marks. The following example is incorrect: