How to write dialogue: formatting rules, craft and examples

To write dialogue, give each speaker a new paragraph, put the spoken words in quotation marks with their end punctuation inside the marks, and attribute a line with a plain “said” or an action only when the reader would otherwise lose track. That is the formatting. The craft is in what goes between the marks: people who want something, say less than they mean, and never explain what both of them already know.

Dialogue formatting rules

These are the conventions most US book publishers follow, taken from The Chicago Manual of Style. Each rule has a short original example, and a note on British style comes after the cheat sheet.

Start a new paragraph for each speaker

Every time the speaker changes, start a new paragraph, even for a one-word reply. A character’s actions sit in the same paragraph as their speech, which is how readers track who is talking without a tag on every line.

Punctuation goes inside the quotation marks

In American style, commas and periods always go inside the closing quotation mark. A line that would end in a period swaps it for a comma when a tag follows. Question marks and exclamation points stay, also inside, and the tag after them starts lowercase because it is still the same sentence. When the tag comes first, it takes a comma and the speech starts with a capital.

Choose between a tag and an action beat

A dialogue tag attributes a line with a speech verb and joins it with a comma. An action beat is a separate sentence that shows the speaker doing something, with its own capital and period. Both identify the speaker. The beat also shows something, so use it when the gesture means something and skip it when it would be filler.

Most editors steer writers toward “said” and “asked” because readers skim them. Showier verbs (hissed, chortled, retorted) pull the eye off the line, and an adverb on a tag (“she said angrily”) usually means the line itself is not angry enough. Whispered and shouted are fine when volume matters. Beats should come from what the point-of-view character can see or hear. A beat that reports another character’s private feeling breaks a close third-person narration.

Split a line with a tag

When a tag interrupts a single sentence, the second half picks up after a comma, in lowercase. When the tag sits between two complete sentences, the tag ends with a period and the next sentence starts with a capital.

Jane Austen opens the first exchange of her most famous novel this way. The “have” stays lowercase because her sentence is not over:

Show interruptions and trailing off

An em dash marks speech that is cut off, by someone else or by the speaker changing course. It goes inside the quotation marks, with no comma or period after it. When the narrator breaks into the middle of a line with an action, the dashes go outside the quotation marks, because they belong to the narration. An ellipsis marks speech that falters or trails away.

An ellipsis can be three spaced periods (. . .), the form Chicago prints, or the single ellipsis character (…). Either works if the manuscript uses one consistently.

Put quotes within quotes in single marks

When a character repeats someone else’s words, use single quotation marks inside the double ones. If both quotations end together, the period goes inside both.

Run one speaker over several paragraphs

When one character talks for more than a paragraph, leave off the closing quotation mark at the end of every paragraph except the last, and open each new paragraph with a quotation mark. The missing closing mark tells the reader the same person is still talking.

Dialogue punctuation cheat sheet

British publishing usually reverses the marks: single quotation marks for speech and double ones for a quote inside it. Most of the rest carries over, including the comma before a tag sitting inside the closing mark, though house styles vary. Follow the publisher’s style if you have one. For submissions, our guide to manuscript formatting covers the rest of the page.

How to write good dialogue

Correct punctuation makes dialogue readable. It does not make it worth reading. Real speech is full of filler, repetition and pleasantries. Written dialogue keeps the rhythm of speech and drops almost everything else. It is also one of the best tools you have for show, don’t tell: how a person talks reveals what a narrator’s summary would flatten.

Give someone a want and someone resistance

An exchange comes alive when one character wants something the other won’t hand over: information, a favor, an apology, a way out. Resistance doesn’t mean shouting. A polite no, a change of subject or a joke that dodges the question all count. If both characters agree on everything, the scene probably belongs in summary. A scene outline with a line for each character’s goal lets you check this before you draft.

Leave the real subject unsaid

People rarely say what they mean when it matters most. Subtext is the meaning under the line, and readers enjoy finding it. Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927) is the classic case: a couple waiting for a train in Spain argue about an “operation” whose nature is never stated, and the story lives in what they avoid. A practical method: draft the argument your characters would have if they were honest, then have them argue about something smaller.

Nobody mentions the illness, the years of care or who stayed away. The dish carries all of it.

Give each character a voice

If you can swap two characters’ lines without anyone noticing, neither has a voice yet. Voice comes from sentence length, vocabulary, what a person notices, what they avoid and how they handle a question. Austen does it in her first chapter. Mrs. Bennet is desperate to be asked who has taken Netherfield. Her husband won’t ask, and his whole temperament is in the one dry line he gives her instead:

The same piece of news, said by three different people:

A site foreman, a teenager, a lawyer. Write down how each person talks in a character profile, and wrong notes get easier to hear in revision.

Cut the small talk

Greetings, goodbyes and “how are you” are real but rarely useful. Enter the conversation late, at the first line that matters, and leave as soon as the point lands. If a scene needs to show that two people are awkward together, one round of small talk does it. Four rounds bore the reader the way they bored the characters.

Avoid “as you know” exposition

A common way for dialogue to fail is one character telling another character something they both know, purely so the reader learns it. Writers call it the “As you know, Bob” line, and it is an info dump in quotation marks. Give the fact to someone who doesn’t know it, turn it into an accusation or a complaint, or cut it and let the reader infer.

Use dialect with restraint

Heavy phonetic spelling slows reading and can tip into caricature, especially for accents tied to class, region or race. Carry dialect in word choice, grammar and rhythm, and respell a word only when its sound matters. One or two markers, used consistently, will carry a voice through a whole book.

Revise dialogue in six passes

First drafts of dialogue are usually too long, too polite and too clear. Revise one scene at a time, and do one job per pass.

1. Read it aloud

   Mark every line you stumble over or would never say. Reading the parts with a friend, or listening to your computer read them, catches stiffness the eye skips.

2. Cover the tags

   Hide every tag and read the exchange. If you can still tell who is speaking, delete the tags you don’t need. If you can’t, the voices need work before the tags do.

3. Name each want

   Write one word for what each character wants in each exchange. If you can’t name it, cut the exchange or merge it with another.

4. Trim the edges

   Delete the greetings, the goodbyes, and the first and last line of each exchange, then reread. The scene usually still works, and starts faster.

5. Hunt the exposition

   Flag every line where someone tells a listener what the listener already knows. Move it, turn it into conflict, or cut it.

6. Fix the punctuation last

   Check the cheat sheet: commas before tags, lowercase after question marks, dashes and ellipses in the right places.

Dialogue example: before and after

Here is a first draft with most of the problems above, then the same scene after the six passes.

What changed:

• The greetings and “how was work” are gone. The scene starts at the news.
• Six tags became one “said.” Beats (the coat, the burner, the bowls) place the speakers and show what the first draft named.
• “As you know, I’ve worked at the firm for eleven years” became Claire’s “Eleven years,” said in anger rather than for the reader’s benefit.
• Nobody says “I’m scared” or “I’m angry.” Dan keeps his coat on. Claire repeats herself.
• Neither of them says the other’s name. Two people alone in a kitchen rarely do.

If you write in Strokes, the six passes map onto features it already has. With each chapter as a document in a project, select an exchange and press ⌘K to ask for one specific change, such as “replace the adverb tags with beats,” and read the rewrite in place. Add your character profile to an AI Assistant chat and ask whether each person’s lines sound like them. Save a version before each pass: version history shows any earlier draft with the changes marked and restores it in one click.

Common dialogue mistakes

• Non-speech verbs as tags. “That’s fine,” she smiled. You can’t smile words. Make it a beat: “That’s fine.” She smiled.
• A beat on every line. Sips, nods and sighs on every line read like stage directions. Keep the gestures that mean something.
• Talking heads. A page of lines with no setting or movement, so the reader loses the room. One beat every so often puts the people back in it.
• Everyone sounds the same. Usually like the author: articulate, in complete sentences, with the same sense of humor.
• Answers that are too complete. Real people dodge, answer a different question or answer with a question. Let them.
• Speeches nobody asked for. A monologue needs a listener who wants to hear it, or one who is trying to leave.
• Punctuation drift. A capital after a split tag, a period before “she said,” a comma after a dash. Fix these last, all at once.