THIS CLEARED UP EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW - Blog Posts

HI since you're a fellow writer [from what i've read, hah, WRITER PUN- anyways], HOW DO YOU PROPERLY WRITE DIALOGUE TAGS. like the. "Hello," she picked up a coffee mug and took a sip, "my name is Kaley." or the "BACK OFF!" They screamed in unison. like... am i doing it right or 😭 this is something that always pesters me whenever i write cause i have no idea to ask google about it

HI THERE YES HELLO THSNK YOU FOR ACLNOWLEDGING ME!!!!!

i LOVE dialogue tags because you can do so much with them and they inherently have so much variety—but they can be difficult to get the hang of, especially cause there are a ton of TINY annoying grammatical rules that go with them

as the CEO of tiny annoying grammatical rules i am HERE to HELP

SO!

“Hello,” she picked up a coffee mug and took a sip, “my name is Kaley.”

this would be totally correct IF the “picked up a coffee mug and took a sip” was replaced with said or mumbled or barked or whatever, BUT you’ve replaced those possible dialogue tags with an action

a big mistake i see a LOT is writers treating actions like they’re interchangeable with dialogue tags, and, in turn, giving them the same punctuation when they’re used with a pause in dialogue, but they are NOT!!!!!!!!! the same thing

the action is separate from the speech—she didn’t say hello by picking up a mug that emitted the sound for her, she said hello AND picked up a mug, then continued with her sentence.

since closing the dialogue with a comma denotes that the following text is supposed to be a dialogue tag, you’d use em-dashes for actions interrupting the speech instead!

“Hello—” she picked up a coffee mug and took a sip, “—my name is Kaley.”

alternatively, you could include a dialogue tag and connect it to the action with a conjunction if you wanted!

“Hello,” she said as she picked up the coffee mug, “my name is Kaley.”

(i omitted the “took a sip” part from this example because she presumably can’t speak while taking a sip from her cup</3)

AND!

“BACK OFF!” They screamed in unison.

this one’s almost perfectly fine, but remember not to capitalize any words that come after dialogue unless the end of the dialogue ends the ENTIRE sentence. since “they screamed” is the tag for “BACK OFF!”, and thus continues the sentence, you would leave “they” lowercase.

this used to trip me up for a while because often times, you’ll have a piece of dialogue where the speaker’s sentence is over, but the actual entire sentence isn’t—and that’s what you have here, for example! in this scenario, you wouldn’t capitalize the dialogue tag.

“BACK OFF!” they screamed in unison.

you WOULD keep it capitalized if it was an action after the speech (in a new sentence)!

In unison, they screamed, “BACK OFF!” Then they both punched you in the face at the same time and you died. Or something.

and—side note—if this weren’t an exclamation mark, it would be a comma, not a period, even though it’s still the end of the speaker’s sentence! a period at the end of the dialogue ALWAYS ends the entire sentence, so if a dialogue tag is coming after it, the period must be replaced with a comma.

assuming “back off” is the entire statement said by the speakers, “Back off.” They said in unison. would be incorrect, while “Back off,” they said in unison. would be correct!

(exclamation marks, question marks, and other punctuation marks can basically function as both a period and a comma)

THATS ALL I GOT !!

trying to google punctuation rules is So Annoying BUT i hope i helped at least a bit!!!

i know i tend to talk in circles because i love talking about writing rules to an excruciating degree but i hope i got my points across and everything 😎

also i love your art💔