How to Write Dialogue
A lot of a story is told through narration: action, description, exposition, and so on. But a big part of characters interacting tends to be speech. In prose, we call this "dialogue."
The key to what happens in the scene for this is...
People communicate in their own way.
To a new customer entering their store, a gruff character might say "What do you want?" Whereas a more personable character might say "Welcome in! Can I help you?"
Maybe the character would use body language, with a wave as they speak. Or only use body language to communicate in this moment, with a polite nod and smile to the customer with no dialogue.
If they share some knowledge with character they are communicating with, they may speak differently, with an unspoken shared context for their conversation. Compared to speaking to a character who doesn't have that knowledge.
If both characters have the shared context of knowing Frank is coming for tea at 6, it would be odd if one said "Frank is coming for tea at 6." Because the person they are speaking to already knows that. (Unless they have some reason to believe they've forgotten.)
But it would be natural for one to say, "When was he coming, again?" or "I hope he doesn't start smoking like he did last time," without even declaring who they're talking about, or what the situation is. Just the new stuff. Just like people do in real life.
Think about why the character chooses to speak at this time, not before, not waiting until later? What do they want to communicate? How do they want to communicate it, how do they phrase it, what other things go along with it like tone, volume, body language as I mentioned earlier?
And of course, all of those things are affected by the character's personality, their mood and emotions in that moment, their relationship to the people they are communicating with, and the subject they are talking about.
A lot of times all of that just comes naturally from our understanding of the character, and we don't have to think through each of these one at a time. But if you're stuck, making it more of a "process" can help you get rolling.
And now, onto the mechanics of dialogue in the prose itself...
To mark text as being spoken instead of narration, it should start and end with double-quotes, "like this." There are novels that use single-quotes, but this is a rare exception and tends to be more common in older books. But if that's your thing, you do you.
Apparently, the UK flips this and starts with 'single-quotes'. I've lived in the UK all my life, and was taught to use double-quotes. So... I guess your mileage may vary, I don't know what that's all about... 😅
If a line of dialogue ends with a complete sentence, it will normally put the punctuation before the last quote. There are exceptions, and stylistic choices, but that's the general rule for dialogue.
"The sky isn't blue."
You can have quotations within the dialogue, marked with single-quotes. And, in theory, the further down the rabbit hole you go, it switches back and forth between single and double quotes.
So, a quote within dialogue has single-quotes. A quote within a quote within dialogue has single quotes again. And so on...
"And he said to me, 'Go over there and tell them, "Frank said, 'The sky is blue, darn it!'"'"
Yes this does look weird, and yes it can be confusing keeping track of the layers of quotation. Which is why it's very rare, in fiction at least. Instead of making a direct quote, a speaker normally paraphrased, or rewritten in other ways to simplify the structure of the dialogue.
"Frank said to tell you the sky is blue."
If the dialogue ends its own sentence, but the sentence as a whole continues with a dialogue tag, the full-stop/period at the end of the dialogue becomes a comma.
"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine said.
This is because a dialogue tag is actually part of the same sentence.
A dialogue tag is like a luggage tag tied to the end of the dialogue to tell us more about how it was said.
In the example above, there is a dialogue tag to tell us the character who said it: Geraldine.
You could write the dialogue tag in a couple of other ways:
"The sky isn't blue," said Geraldine. Geraldine said, "The sky isn't blue."
But this is uncommon in modern novels, and makes it have a different old-timey vibe that may be confusing or distracting for readers. So bear that in mind if you want to try it out.
Now, if it's part of a longer piece of dialogue, you could leave it to the end of the spoken words to have the dialogue tag as normal. But the reader will be wondering through the whole thing... "Yeah, but who's even saying all this?"
To avoid this, try to have the indication of the speaker sooner rather than later. You can use any of the methods from this article to do so. But one example would be:
"Fourscore and seven years ago," Lincoln said, "our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..." (and so on)
For longer text like this, you can actually have paragraphs within the dialogue. The paragraph doesn't end in a quotation mark because the dialogue isn't ending. But then the new paragraph does have a quotation mark to remind the reader it's still dialogue.
"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
Again, confusing to read, and rarely needed or used in modern fiction. But something to know about. A better way would be to break up the dialogue with some "Blocking"--a stage term for people moving around the scene.
This would be a new paragraph, as it focuses on something else, and then another new paragraph continuing the dialogue. If we focus on a different character with the in-between paragraph, you might want to remind them who is speaking when they continue.
Lincoln stood for a moment, taking in the crowd. Then drew in a breath. "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." The crowd looked uneasy, a low murmur floating across them. Lincoln shook his head. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
Going back to dialogue tags... Other verbs can be used instead of "said," to better describe how it was said.
"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine muttered.
There is a general tip that the same word shouldn't be used over and over in quick succession, because it draws attention to itself. But this doesn't apply to all words. Structural words like "a" and "the" shouldn't (and often couldn't) be replaced with a new synonym every time they're used.
This is because they simply fade into the background; the reader knows that they are common words and don't matter to the meaning of the sentence so much. So they just sort of brush over it. "Said" is one such word.
Don't be afraid of "said."
Some writers still try to not use "said" much, and instead use "thesaurus words"--synonyms with the same meaning--throughout their writing. However this actually draws more attention to it that using the simple "said," which people brush over anyway.
Take a look at the following examples:
"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine said. "The sky isn't blue," Geraldine stated. "The sky isn't blue," Geraldine explained.
Is "stated" describing how the line was said better than "said"? Not really. And is "explained" adding anything to the story that isn't from the dialogue? Nope.
If there is a line of dialogue, then it was said/stated/explained/said in reply/asked, depending on what was said and the context. We know what was said. So when a character asks something, the verb "asked" doesn't do anything that reading the question didn't do. So you may as well put "said."
"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine smirked. "The sky isn't blue," Geraldine yawned.
And if you go too far with it, trying to incorporate an action into it, you can get yourself into a real mess. Smirking is not saying anything. You can smirk while saying something. But if the action you are performing is a smirk, or yawn, or laugh... you, my friend, have uttered no words!
These are known as "said-bookisms": words used to avoid writing "said." And named after a book that was written listing such words for writers to use (you may have seen similar posters/graphics on the internet). But as we don't need to avoid writing "said," we can safely throw out the book!
Earlier we used "muttered" instead of "said." Was that okay? Well, did that add to story? Does it tell the reader more about what was said? Yes! Now they know the words weren't simply spoken; they were said quietly, muttered under the breath.
Anything that tells us more about how the dialogue was said is fine. If the character shouted or screamed, or they muttered or mumbled, or slurred... they aren't necessarily obvious from the dialogue. So if they fit, and they describe the utterance of words, then go for it!
Sometimes writers have entire actions as a dialogue tag.
"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine moved over to the window, peering out.
That action isn't describing the act of saying that dialogue. So it doesn't make sense for it to be part of the same sentence. Just split it into its own sentence, and you should be good.
"The sky isn't blue." Geraldine moved over to the window, peering out.
However, these things may be indicated earlier in the paragraph, before the dialogue begins.
Geraldine looked up. "The sky isn't blue."
Because Geraldine has been established as the focus of this paragraph, any dialogue will be assumed to come from Geraldine.
Here, the first sentence describes an action the character took. But it could be a narrated thought. Or an expression. You can indicate the focus of the paragraph in many different ways, but however you do it, that can be used by the reader to infer who the speaker is.
You can of course add a dialogue tag anyway, using the pronoun of the character.
Geraldine looked up. "The sky isn't blue," she said.
The tone of the dialogue--the way it is said by the character--can also be implied by the context in the paragraph up to that point.
Geraldine laughed. "The sky isn't blue." Geraldine gasped. "The sky isn't blue."
Whatever context the reader has before the dialogue will colour how they "hear" it in their minds as they read.
Geraldine whispered, staring up in awe. "The sky isn't blue." Geraldine screamed. "The sky isn't blue!" Geraldine staggered through the door, drunkenly. "The sky isn't blue."
In the last example, the character's general state or attitude is shown. So as you read what she says, you'll naturally imagine it being said differently. That's the beauty of writing...
The final story in the reader's mind is made from the teamwork between writer and reader.
You can actually get away with having no indication of the speaker at all, in particular circumstances.
Geraldine smiled, her nose wrinkling. "The sky isn't blue." "I think you'll find it is, Gerry dear," Frank muttered, packing. "No, no, you don't understand... the sky is not blue!" "Poppycock." "Look!"
Did you have any trouble knowing who was saying what? If not, why not? Because we had other context clues.
The first couple of lines had the speakers clearly declared. And, as they're the only two characters that are in the scene, it's natural that they'd each take turns--going back and forth in their conversation. Also, if this is in the middle of a book and you're used to how the characters talk differently, that can help too.
Just be careful to not rely on this back-and-forth effect for too long, because it will get confusing after a bit. Just pepper in something to remind the reader of whose turn it is--the character does something as they speak, or a simple dialogue tag is added. And the reader will keep up better.