Blah Blah Blah: A Guide to Writing

----Disaster #2: Dialogue Confusion?

Disaster #2: Dialogue Confusion

The second disaster that will be discussed in the grammar section of this guide is dialogue. Preferably, dialogue confusion. You see, when I was a young and foolish lad, I didn't know how to write dialogue. And a lot of people do, too, but they don't realize it until they find themselves reading Insurgent and notice that, well, that's not how they themselves write dialogue. But all the other books write it the same way. What's going on? 

Children, I have had many people argue with me on this lesson, but I guarantee that the rules you see in this disaster will be applied in every single novel you pick up off of your shelf. Don't believe me? See for yourself.

What's the confusion?

Well, I will explain it to you, but first, let's look at this lovely piece of dialogue. I see it everywhere and nobody points it out because it is everywhere on this website.

"Hey, Jennifer." Max, the vampire, growled. "What's up?"

"Nothing." Jennifer sighed. "but I love you!"

"I will tell you what's up." Max continued. "Since you're hot like my trousers."

"Oooh," Jennifer laughed.

Everyone who knows what's grammatically wrong with that dialogue is probably crying right now.

First of all, when speaking, and when there is a "[name] said" afterwards, there should be a comma. This would make sense because the quote and the [name] said are still in the same sentence, and there are no periods inside a sentence, right? Not even when you are ending a quote. The only exception to this would be if a question mark or an exclamation point is needed. Imagine the question and exclamation marks as curtains hanging in between the sentence. They give you a pause and a tone of voice, but they will not end the sentence. Whereas, a period would be like a brick wall. You absolutely have to stop.

You can use the comma for pretty  much any synonym to said (shouted, yelled, deadpanned, whispered, mumbled, muttered, etc.) but you cannot use it with words like laughed, gasped, giggled, jumped, etc. because, if you think about it, can you giggle "Hi"? Can you giggle "My uncle is a cat"? No, you cannot, because giggling is not talking, and while you may see this in published books, it's not a very common way to be expressing a person's way or tone of talking, and therefore it sounds and looks kind of weird. 

Here is what we have fixed so far. Can you point them out? If you would like, try to fix what you know so far in the example above, and then come back down to compare.

"Hey, Jennifer," Max, the vampire, growled. "What's up?" [NOTE: we are keeping "growled," even though it's on the same list as laughed and sighed.]

"Nothing." Jennifer sighed. "But I love you!" [We capitalized the "b" and didn't use a comma because Jennifer sighing is a separate sentence and does not express talking]

"I will tell you what's up," Max continued, "since you're hot like my trousers." [We added two commas here because the sentence does not end at "continued." it keeps going until "trousers"]

"Oooh." Jennifer laughed. [We added a period. Jennifer cannot laugh "Oooh" but she can say "Oooh."]

Another Little Note

This is a little irrelevant to dialogue, but I have seen this mistake around as well. When ending a sentence inside quotation marks, you put the period or the question mark or the exclamation mark inside the quotation marks as well. For example:

This slow cooker, as James would say, is "garbage"!

would actually be

This slow cooker, as James would say, is "garbage!"

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[If you have any questions, or just want to give some feedback, comment below, and vote if this helped you! In addition to the topics I have planned out, is there anything else you guys might like to know?]