How to Format Dialogue and Tips for Better Dialogue
Writing dialogue can be complicated. From knowing where to put a comma or a period to knowing when to use single quotes, there are a lot of rules to keep in mind, not to mention you have to make sure the dialogue sounds authentic.
This guide will help you keep all the rules straight and share some tips for writing dialogue that feels realistic, flows naturally, and moves the story along.
How to Format Dialogue (with examples)
When you’re writing dialogue, there are a lot of rules about punctuation and formatting to keep in mind. Here are the rules on formatting dialogue for you to refer to while you write.
1. Put spoken words in double quotes.
“I hate pickles.”
2. Use commas with dialogue tags (he/she said) and keep dialogue tags outside of the quotes.
She said, “I hate pickles.”
“I love them,” he said.
3. Keep action tags in separate sentences from the dialogue but in the same paragraph.
She sat at the table. “I hate pickles.”
“I love them.” He picked up a menu.
4. Start a new paragraph every time someone new speaks.
Sarah sat at the table. “I hate pickles.”
“I love them,” Jerry said, picking up a menu.
“I agree with Sarah,” Tim said. “Pickles are an abomination.”
5. Keep all dialogue from one speaker in the same paragraph, unless they are speaking for multiple paragraphs (see rule 6).
“I hate pickles now,” Sarah said. “I loved them when I was a kid, but ever since I had my tonsils removed, I haven’t liked them.” She sat down at the table. “My sister had the same thing with peanut butter. Isn’t that weird?”
“How could anyone not like peanut butter?” Tim asked. “When I was a kid, I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day for like three years.”
6. Leave off the closing quotation mark on long speeches until the end of the speech.
The rules for long speeches are a little different. If someone’s dialogue is long enough to warrant more than one paragraph, begin their dialogue with quotation marks but omit the quotes at the end of the paragraph. Begin the next paragraph with quotation marks, and repeat until the end of the speech where you finally use closing quotations.
“I hate pickles now,” Sarah said. “I loved them when I was a kid, but ever since I had my tonsils removed, I haven’t liked them. My sister had the same thing with peanut butter. Isn’t that weird?
“Both of us almost died when we had our tonsils removed too. I was bleeding too much. They had to get a blood transfusion for me. But my sister had a reaction to the anesthesia.”
7. Use single quotes to quote someone within the dialogue.
“When my sister woke up and found out she almost died, she said, ‘Ten out of ten do not recommend,’ before she fell asleep again.”
8. Put punctuation like exclamation marks and question marks inside the quotes.
“I hate pickles!” Sarah pulled them off her burger with disgust.
“Why?” Jerry asked, popping one of her discarded pickles into his mouth.
9. Use lowercase letters when an action interrupts the dialogue.
“I hate,” Sarah gagged, looking at her burger, “pickles.”
10. Use em dashes to interrupt the dialogue.
“Pickles are my least favorite thing in this world. I hate—”
“Stop!” Jerry said. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. How can you hate pickles?”
11. Use ellipses for trailing off without any other punctuation.
“I hate pickles,” Sarah said. “I have ever since…”
“Ever since what?” Jerry asked.
Note: If you want to be extra correct with ellipses add spaces in between the periods—adhering to the rules of the Chicago Manual of Style. Put the quotation mark directly after the third period when the ellipsis is at the end of the dialogue. For ellipses within dialogue, use spaces on both sides.
“I hate pickles,” Sarah said. “I have ever since . . .”
“I . . . hate pickles.”
Other Tips for Writing Dialogue
While we’re on the subject, let’s go over some ways to improve dialogue to ensure that it reads well and sounds realistic.
Not every piece of dialogue needs a tag.
“How’d the interview go?” Kat asked.
“It uh . . .” Lily trailed off.
“What?” Kat asked.
“They didn’t accept me,” Lily said.
Kat said, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Lily. Did they say why?”
“They said,” Lily started. She tried again. “They said I didn’t know who I was, that my art doesn’t have passion.”
“That’s BS,” Kat said. “College is where you go to find yourself.”
That was unpleasant, right? Having a dialogue tag with every line makes the dialogue feel clunky and unnatural.
Instead use a mixture of dialogue tags, action tags, and internal dialogue, and don’t be afraid to leave some lines without any kind of tag.
“How’d the interview go?” Kat asked.
“It uh . . .” Lily didn’t want to say the words. She wished Kat just knew without her saying it out loud.
“What?”
“They didn’t accept me.” The syllables tasted bitter in her mouth.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Lily. Did they say why?”
“They said—” Lily took a deep breath. “They said I didn’t know who I was, that my art doesn’t have passion.”
Kat scoffed. “That’s BS. College is where you go to find yourself.”
Speech is more informal than typical writing.
In school, we’re taught that we should be formal in our writing. We’re trained to write essays and professional emails, but this training can hinder dialogue in novels and stories.
“Hello, Lily. How was your interview?” Kat asked.
“It went poorly. They did not accept me.”
“Oh no. I apologize, Lily. Did the interviewer give you a reason for the rejection?”
“They told me that they think I am unsure of my own identity and that my art lacks passion.”
“That seems unwarranted,” Kat said. “Higher education is a wonderful tool for discovering your identity.”
Do you speak like this to your friends and family? Chances are the answer is no, and the same is true for your characters.
There are some exceptions, of course, depending on the context of your story. For example, I would write the dialogue in the interview Lily is discussing to be a bit more formal since it is a professional setting.
But in many cases—if not most—it’s perfectly acceptable to use slang, incorrect grammar, fragments, and all the other things we avoid in formal writing. Just make sure the dialogue fits with your characters and the story.
No two people speak exactly the same way.
How you speak is determined by many factors: where you were raised, who your parents are, who your friends are, what your personality is like, etc. The combination of all these factors creates a way of speaking that is uniquely your own.
Likewise, when you’re writing dialogue for your characters, you should consider all of these factors. Where was the character raised? Were their parents raised there too? Or is one of their parents from another place where they speak differently? What kinds of people does the character interact with on a daily basis? How does the character’s personality shape how they speak?
A character raised in a palace will speak quite differently from a character raised on the streets. And a character who is shy will speak differently from someone who doesn’t mind being the center of attention.
Leave out small talk or other dialogue that doesn’t contribute to the plot or help us get to know a character.
“Hello, Lily. How are you?” Kat asked.
“I’m good. How are you?”
“Good. How was the drive over?”
“It was fine,” Lily said. “Not too much traffic.”
“Oh good.”
Boring, right? And did we learn anything about the characters? No. Did the plot move forward? No.
There’s a reason books, movies, and TV shows skip dialogue like this. The audience would lose interest in the story very quickly if they didn’t.
Don’t let characters state things the other characters already know.
Especially at the beginning of the story, it is easy to use dialogue to do the work of worldbuilding or other explanations such as character backstories. But it just isn’t realistic.
“Kat, I only had one shot to get into U of A. They won’t let me apply again next year.”
“I know. But maybe you can contact them again and ask them to reconsider. Or you can talk to your mom. She’s a professor there. She has to have some privileges.”
A good way to spot this is by looking for phrases like “As you know”. If this phrase isn’t in your dialogue but would make sense in the conversation, then you’re probably info dumping through the dialogue.
Instead of stating things other characters already know, your characters can allude to those things instead. Let the readers put it together for themselves.
“Now what am I going to do? That was my only chance to get into U of A.”
“Maybe you can talk to them again and ask them to reconsider.” Kat paused. “Have you talked to your mom?”
“She can’t help with this. Plus, I wanted to get in on my own. Not because I’m her daughter.”
Don’t let characters say what they’re thinking.
While some people don’t have a filter, most of us keep a lot of thoughts to ourselves, and we don’t outright say what we want from other people. Naturally, your characters would do the same. Having characters dance around what they’re really thinking is a great way to add conflict to a conversation.
“Did you do the dishes?” Jess asked, stepping into the kitchen to see they were not done.
“No,” Jake confirmed.
“You said you would do them earlier. It makes me feel frustrated when you say you’ll do them, but you don’t. It makes me wonder what other promises you won’t keep.”
Jake turned away from the TV, meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry. I got called into work before I had a chance to do them. It was a stressful day, and when I got home, I felt exhausted. I needed a break, but I will do them. I want to keep my promises to you.”
While it may be nice to see a conversation like this where people are honest with each other and try to communicate their real feelings, most of us aren’t good at communicating like this. And your characters probably aren’t either.
Jess stepped into the kitchen to see a pile of dishes still in the sink, just where it was when she left this morning. She looked at the couch where Jake lay with the TV on. “You didn’t do the dishes.”
Jake didn’t answer for a moment. “I had a busy day.”
Jess held in a scoff. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“I’ll do them later.”
“When is later? You said later this morning.”
“Later is . . . later. I don’t know. Can we not do this right now?”
“Right because watching TV is clearly a top priority.”
You can feel the tension a lot more in this second example. And it makes sense given the situation. It can be assumed that both Jess and Jake had stressful days, so they wouldn’t be at their best. When we’re stressed and exhausted, we often take it out on the people around us.
You can use dialogue to show how characters are feeling or what they want without the characters stating those things outright, and it will lead to dialogue filled with conflict that drives the plot forward.
Said is not dead.
Some people will disagree with me here, but I believe said is not dead. What I mean by this is that it is perfectly acceptable to use said for most dialogue tags instead of other words like murmured, shouted, declared,etc.
While it’s fine to use other dialogue tags sometimes, they draw too much attention to themselves. I think the focus should be on the dialogue itself instead of the tag. If the dialogue is well written, readers will know how it is meant to be said most of the time.
Jess stepped into the kitchen to see a pile of dishes still in the sink, just where it was when she left this morning. She looked at the couch where Jake lay with the TV on. “You didn’t do the dishes,” she stated.
Jake didn’t answer for a moment. “I had a busy day.”
Jess held in a scoff. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“I’ll do them later,” Jake promised.
“When is later?” Jess inquired. “You said later this morning.”
“Later is . . . later. I don’t know. Can we not do this right now?”
“Right because watching TV is clearly a top priority,” Jess retorted.
Stated, promised, inquired, retorted—the dialogue implies all of these already, so these words feel unnecessary. Readers can put together that “You didn’t do the dishes” is a statement, that “I’ll do them later” is a promise, and so on. They don’t need to be told.
Said on the other hand fades into the background. You can point out who is speaking while allowing the dialogue to speak for itself. Most of the time I either use said or asked unless I’d like to indicate volume with something like whispered.
I hope this guide will help you when you’re formatting or writing dialogue. Share a book recommendation in the comments that has great, realistic dialogue.
Happy writing!
