Writing Dialogue Format Like a Pro
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
Dialogue format is crucial to writing compelling fiction and creative nonfiction dialogue like a pro. Dialogue can convey emotion, provide insight into characters’ thoughts, and propel the plot forward in scene. But in order to do these things effectively, you need to know how to write dialogue format, or all of your best efforts will fall flat. In this article I’ll discuss how to execute dialogue format correctly, so that your writing can speak for itself.
Dialogue Format: Quotation Marks
The most basic element of dialogue formatting is using quotation marks correctly. In American English (not British or Commonwealth), when two characters are speaking back and forth, each line should be enclosed in quotation marks. Here’s an example:
“Hi there! How are you?” asked John.
”I’m doing well, thanks for asking!” replied Cindy. “How about you?”
“Oh, you know,” John said, “living the dream.”
There, I’ve also split one sentence with a speech tag in the middle. The only thing I haven’t demonstrated here is using a period before an action tag.
Dialogue Format: Action Tags, Interrupted Dialogue, and Trailing Off
There are a few ways to inject narration or action in dialogue and scene, and you can use dialogue format to do so. Here’s a basic example of an action or narrative tag that uses a period, as well as a comma lead-in:
Cindy shook her head and said, “You know, I’m actually not fine. I don’t know why I said that.”
“Me neither.” John shrugged. “It’s crazy that we’re supposed to lie—”
“I’m not lying.”
“I know, but just …”
Cindy and John are now in a much more interesting conversation, in part due to dialogue format and what it can say … and leave unsaid. (All of the puns here are fully intended, by the way.)
You can also interrupt dialogue with a speech tag or action, like this:
“Never accuse me of lying again”—Cindy stopped herself and frowned—”I’m sorry. See? I’m just not having a great day. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
Dialogue Format: Best Practices
There are a bunch of other dialogue format considerations to know as you get deeper into this topic. If one character has a long speech that’s broken into multiple paragraphs, then each separate paragraph should have opening quotes, but no end quotes. The only end quotes come at the end of the speech.
Make sure that your characters sound distinct from one another. This is more of a function of writing voice than dialogue format, though. You can read your work aloud to make sure and train your ear to character voice and speech patterns.
Avoid giving too much exposition or obvious telling in dialogue. While it might be necessary to explain something from time to time, you can also slow your pacing with info-dumping, and jeopardize your dialogue. (In dialogue format, you also have to watch out for how people actually talk to one another. Two characters who know one another wouldn’t necessarily explain obvious things to one another.)
Dialogue shouldn’t be perfect, but it also shouldn’t be littered with artifacts of actual human speech (like “um” and “uh”). Every writer will find their own balance here, and it might vary from character to character.
Proper dialogue format is essential for creating believable conversations between your characters. But improper dialogue format can tank this all-important part of your creative writing, so learn these guidelines and use them whenever you write. It might take some practice at first, but soon, correct dialogue format will become second nature in your work.
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