|| GUIDE TO BASIC DIALOGUE ||

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

WRITING DIALOGUE

Let's start with the very basics.

WHAT IS DIALOGUE?

Dialogue is written representation of speech; in other words it is what the characters are saying.

HOW IS DIALOGUE NOTATED?

In American English, the double quotation mark is used to indicate dialogue: "Hi, there. How are you?"

In British English, the single quotation mark is used to indicate dialogue: 'Hi, there. How are you?'

If you're writing in American English, use the double quotes. If you're writing in British English, use the single quotes. Or, if you're like me, write in British English and use the double quotes! Mea culpa. So far, no one in fandom's objected: "Hi there. I was wondering if you'd do me a favour. It's rather specialised, so I want an expert's help." British English; American quotations.

Please note that all spoken dialogue must be in quotation marks.

Each new line of dialogue is its own paragraph:

INCORRECT: "I really think Harry should take the Felix Felicis," Ron said. "I agree," said Hermione. "It's his best bet to get to Slughorn."

CORRECT: "I really think Harry should take the Felix Felicis," Ron said.

"I agree," said Hermione. "It's his best bet to get to Slughorn."

BASIC DIALOGUE TAGS:

What you want your character to be saying goes inside quotations marks; you end the dialogue with a punctuation mark:

"I can't believe you just said that!" Harry said.

"I can't believe you just said that," Harry said.

"Did you really just say that?" Harry asked.

PRONOUNS AND DIALOGUE TAGS:

When using a pronoun, the pronoun is never capitalized unless it occurs at the beginning of the sentence.

INCORRECT: "I'm going down to see the Giant Squid," He said. ["He" should not be capitalized]

CORRECT: "I'm going down to see the Giant Squid," he said.

INCORRECT: "But, Harry, it's too dangerous," She said. ["She" should not be capitalized]

CORRECT: "But, Harry, it's too dangerous," she said.

Another example:

INCORRECT: Snape said "but I know you've been into my stores, Potter, and mark my words, I will catch you." [There should be a comma following "Snape said" and "but" should be capitalized as the introduction to the dialogue sentence]

CORRECT: Snape said, "But I know you've been into my stores, Potter, and mark my words, I will catch you."

INCORRECT: she said, "You'll be doing some lines for me today, Mr. Potter."

CORRECT: She said, "You'll be doing some lines for me today, Mr. Potter."

WHERE TO PLACE PUNCTUATION MARKS INSIDE DIALOGUE TAGS:

Your punctuation marks always go inside the dialogue tag (with one exception):

INCORRECT: "Draco, do I look pretty in these pink frilly robes"? [the question mark should not be outside the quotation mark]

CORRECT: "Draco, do I look pretty in these pink frilly robes?"

(and note: it's Harry in the pink frilly robes, not Pansy . . . )

The exception to the above rule is when quoting something someone has said inside a dialogue tag:

INCORRECT: "Draco, did you just say I've 'got it going on?'" [the question mark should not be inside the single quotation mark]

CORRECT: "Draco, did you just say I've 'got it going on'?"

In this instance, the internal closing quote (note it is the single quote that is used to quote within dialogue) comes before the closing punctuation mark and closing quotation mark.

USE OF THE SEMICOLON AND COLON WITHIN DIALOGUE:

There is debate whether it is appropriate to use either the semicolon (;) or the full colon (:) within dialogue. There are instances of both within Harry Potter canon.

A correct example of the full colon (:) and the semicolon (;) used in dialogue:

"The point of a Horcrux is, as Professor Slughorn explained, to keep part of the self hidden and safe, not to fling it into somebody else's path and run the risk that they might destroy it — as indeed happened: That particular fragment of soul is no more; you saw to that." Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - page 501 - US hardback edition.

A correct example of the semi colon (;) used in dialogue:

"Lord Voldemort liked to collect trophies, and he preferred objects with a powerful magical history. His pride, his belief in his own superiority, his determination to carve for himself a startling place in magical history; these things suggest to me that Voldemort would have chosen his Horcruxes with some care, favoring objects worthy of the honor." Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - page 504 - US hardback edition.

THE USE OF THE PERIOD WITHIN DIALOGUE TAGS:

The use of the period within dialogue tags is a little trickier than other punctuation marks. The period signifies the end of a character's statement and is never followed by he said or she said or any other speech attributions.

INCORRECT: "It's too late," Harry said. "We're going to war." he said. ["he said" is incorrect in this context]

CORRECT: "It's too late," Harry said. "We're going to war."

INCORRECT: "You're telling me it's too late to do anything more." Draco said, frustrated. ["Draco said, frustrated" is incorrect in this context]

CORRECT:"You're telling me it's too late to do anything more." Draco whirled on Harry, frustrated.

INCORRECT: "I'm selling S.P.E.W. badges for a Galleon a piece." Hermione said. ["Hermione said" is incorrect in this context]

CORRECT: "I'm selling S.P.E.W. badges for a Galleon a piece." Hermione looked at Harry and Ron, clearly expecting two Galleons straightaway.

SEPARATING A SINGLE LINE OF DIALOGUE:

You may separate, or split, a line of dialogue like so:

INCORRECT: "What I want," Draco said, folding his arms over his chest, "Is to go home, have an exceptionally fine dinner, and to soak in my bathtub for several hours." [In this instance the "i" in "is" should not be capitalized]

CORRECT: "What I want," Draco said, folding his arms over his chest, "is to go home, have an exceptionally fine dinner, and to soak in my bathtub for several hours."

Another example:

INCORRECT: "What did you say?" Ron asked, "do you have Dragon Pox?" [In this context, "Ron asked" should be followed by a period and "is" should be capitalized]

CORRECT: "What did you say?" Ron asked. "Do you have Dragon Pox?"

THE ELLIPSES:

There are a ton of uses for the ellipses; however, we're going to deal primarily with one type of usage when it comes to dialogue. In dialogue, the ellipses indicates a deliberately incomplete sentence. For example:

"So, what you're saying is . . .?"

"We were there alone and the unimaginable happened . . ."

"So I said 'You're completely mental' and Bill said . . ." Fleur gestured, prompting Bill to continue the story.

Note there is no space between the last period of the ellipses and the closing quotation mark.

THE DASH:

The dash indicates staggered speech, if the speaker is not speaking every word. For example:

"I don't understand how—" Draco started to say.

"I know you don't understand—" Harry said.

"If you'd let me get a word in edgeways—" Draco objected.

"You've got nothing to say that I'm interested in." Harry turned away.

The dash can also signify a pause in speech, as if the speaker is catching his or her breath. For example:

"I've been looking all over for you, Harry—" Hermione clutched at her side, catching her breath. "Dumbledore wants to see you straightaway!"

UNTAGGED DIALOGUE:

Untagged dialogue is an exchange of dialogue between characters that is not followed by "he said" or "she said" after every line of dialogue. For example:

"I'm going out there," Draco said, grabbing up his wand.

"You can't! The place is crawling with Dementors!" Harry objected.

"I don't care. I'm going out there anyway."

"But you don't know how to do the Patronus Charm!"

"I'll improvise."

"You can't 'improvise' against a hundred Dementors. Trust me, I know what it's like to have them swarming down on you—"

"Well, you're the one who keeps refusing to teach me how to produce a Patronus!"

Harry sighed, exasperated. "You have to have happy thoughts to produce a Patronus."

Draco scowled. "I have happy thoughts, thank you very much!"

Untagged dialogue is nice because it allows dialogue to flow more naturally, without the clumsy effect of having each line of dialogue tagged, especially when it's obvious which two characters are speaking. Untagged dialogue works between two characters. If three or more characters are speaking together, tags are typically necessary to keep straight which character is saying what. You have to gauge carefully how many lines of dialogue to leave untagged before it becomes confusing as to who is saying what, before adding tags again.

VARIOUS AND SUNDRY:

Dialogue should sound as natural as possible. People do not always speak in a grammatically correct way and they use vernaculars and slang. This is perfectly fine. Within the dialogue tags, it is important to keep the dialogue as grammatically correct as possible. Now, there are some characters — Hagrid, for example — whose speech is unusual, and that's fine to represent. A great trick is to read your dialogue outloud to yourself. If it's cumbersome to read, it's probably affected dialogue and not as natural-sounding as you might like. Again, some characters speak more formally than others. Dumbledore speaks far more formally than Ron.

Regarding dressing up your attributions with adverbs, Arthur Plotnik, author of Spunk and Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style, says, "allow yourself an occasional, juiced-up attribution for clarity, emphasis, or nuance — unless it

- repeats what's already clear;

- calls too much attention to itself;

- is one too many to bear;

- goes against your spare style; or

- makes you feel amateurish, and for good reason"

William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White in the classic writing book The Elements of Style offer a few tips on adverbs and qualifiers, among other things.

- Revise and rewrite. Revising is part of writing. Few writers are so expert that they can produce what they are after on the first try.

- Do not overwrite. Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating.

- Avoid the use of qualifiers: rather, very, little, pretty — these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words.

- Do not construct awkward adverbs. Nobody says tangledly and not many people say tiredly. Words that are not used orally are seldome the ones to put on paper.

RESOURCES:

The Elements of Style: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition — William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Spunk and Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style — Arthur Plotnick

The Chicago Manual of Style - Sixteenth Edition: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers

Disclaimer: Please feel free to correct any inadvertent errors on my part. I am a regular fandomer, like you, and am not an English teacher, a grammar expert, or a professional editor.

Comments

[magicallioness.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Bookmarked the page as a reference, because I keep confusing this. I'm a native Dutch speaker, and in Dutch quotation is - once again - different, so I mix stuff up. Now I have a check nearby at all times. Thankies!

[usakiwigirl.livejournal.com]

Very handy! I just bought a fabulous book today, actually - coincidentally all about writing and the correct use of grammar! Let's just say that it improves upon The Elements of Style (the author's words, not mine). The title is The Elements of F*cking Style, and I have never, ever laughed so hard at a grammar book in my life! I highly recommend it to anybody needing clarity and help with their writing.

Oh yeah - I'm not an English teacher, either!

The Elements of F*cking Style: A Helpful Parody - Chris Baker and Jacob Hansen

[altri-uccelli.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful: a great service to us all, with such clear and comprehensive examples. There's an enormous amount of wrongly-punctuated dialogue in fanfic, especially with pronouns in dialogue tags, so I hope that this post gets a lot of attention.

In keeping with my own view of the execrable editing in the HP books, I disagree with their use of the colon and the semicolon in the examples cited above. (Not a criticism of you!) Capitalization after a colon is not standard in British English, as far as I'm aware, nor is it in many American style guides. (And in the ones that do call for capitalization, it's usually only if the colon is followed by more than one sentence, which is not the case in that example from HBP). This one's arguable, I suppose, but the semicolon example following it is actually wrong.

In the Voldemort/trophies sentence, I would have used a colon instead of a semicolon. It's sort of an inverse syntactical-descriptive colon, with the list of items appearing first. His pride, his superiority, his determination: these do not constitute a complete sentence and should not be followed by a semicolon as if they do. These are quibbles against Scholastic, though, not this post, which I think was incredibly awesome and helpful. If there's one mistake that I could wave a wand and banish, it's capitalizing speech tag pronouns after ! or ? (like this: "Do you mean to tell me we're out of lube?" He said. So sadly wrong in so many ways.)

[vaysh]

Awesome resource.

Of course, now you need to add a whole post about only dialogue tags. ;)

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

I celebrate this post in every way. :D Great. Really clear and informative.

[misbehavingmom.livejournal.com]

Yay!!! I really need this!

[kitty_fic]

Great post!

[celestlyn.livejournal.com]

You mention right at the top that each new line of dialogue is it's own paragraph. That is true if the speaker changes. Otherwise, a new sentence spoken by the same speaker can remain in the same paragraph.