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The Editing Blog: for Editors, Proofreaders and Writers

FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

How to punctuate dialogue in a novel

20/8/2018

26 Comments

 
If the thought of punctuating your novel’s dialogue brings you out in a sweat, let me mop your brow with these 7 tips.
How to punctuate the dialogue in your novel
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In this article, we'll look at the following:
​
  1. How to indicate speech
  2. Creating pauses and trail-offs
  3. Showing interruptions
  4. How to punctuate tagged speech
  5. Working with broken-up dialogue
  6. Handling vocative expressions
  7. Dealing with faltering speech​
If it's more convenient, watch this complementary webinar or download a free booklet covering each of the 7 topics.
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Video series

​1. Indicating speech

Quotation marks – or speech marks – are how authors usually indicate the spoken word. There are two choices – singles or doubles. Either are acceptable.
 
In US fiction publishing it’s more common to use doubles; in British fiction singles dominate. That doesn’t mean you must use doubles if you’re an American author or singles if you’re a British author. It’s not about right or wrong but about style, preference and convention.
 
Think about what your reader will expect to see and what’s standard where you live. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) recommends doubles, but acknowledges that the convention is for singles in the UK and elsewhere.
 
The most important thing is to be consistent and never use two single quotation marks instead of a double.
 
The following passages from published works illustrate each style:
SINGLE QUOTATION MARKS
DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKS
Sleeping in the Ground by Peter Robinson (p. 209)
The Fix by David Baldacci (p. 133)
     ​‘Mother of the bride.’
     ‘Dead?’
     ‘Unharmed.’
     ‘Then why make the connection?’
     ​‘I don’t know,’ said Banks.
​     “I bet she’s never even been down here,” noted Milligan.
     “No, she has.”
     “How do you know that?”
     “Point your light at the steps coming down.”
Nested quotation marks
Sometimes you’ll need to place speech within speech (or quotes within quotes). To differentiate the speaker, use the alternate style for your internal or nested quotation marks:
SINGLE QUOTATION MARKS WITH NESTED DOUBLES
DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKS WITH NESTED SINGLES
Sleeping in the Ground by Peter Robinson (p. 261)
The Fix by David Baldacci (p. 428)
     Ray studied his drink and narrowed his eyes. ‘You can be cruel sometimes, you know. I don’t know where you got it from. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth …” Your mother didn’t have a cruel bone in her body.’
     “I had no idea why he was bringing that up now. So when I asked him he said, ‘Remember when the going got tough, who was there for you. Remember your old man was right there holding your hand. Always think of me trying to do the right thing, honey. Always. No matter what.’”
Smart vs unidirectional marks
It’s conventional in mainstream publishing to use smart or curly quotation marks, not unidirectional ones. (The same applies to apostrophes, by the way.)
Smart vs unidirectional marks
Some online fonts (like the one I use for the body text on my website) don’t do a good job of differentiating smart and unidirectional quotation marks, but word-processing software like Microsoft Word does – even with sans serif fonts.
 
To prevent the problem occurring from the minute you begin typing:
 
  • Go to FILE and select OPTIONS
  • Select PROOFING, then click on the AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS button
  • Choose the AUTOFORMAT AS YOU TYPE tab
  • Make sure there’s a tick in the "STRAIGHT QUOTES" WITH “SMART QUOTES” box
  • Click on OK
 
If you’ve pasted material into your book from elsewhere, or you didn’t check autocorrect options before you began typing, there might be some rogue unidirectional marks in your file. To change them quickly, do a global find/replace:
 
  • Select CTRL+H on your keyboard to open FIND AND REPLACE
  • Type a quotation mark into the FIND WHAT box
  • Type the same quotation mark into the REPLACE WITH box
  • Click on the REPLACE ALL button
Find and replace
Alternative speech-indicator marks
An alternative way of displaying speech is via the em dash. This method can get messy if you have more than two speakers in a conversation, so use it with care.

The em is the longest in the dash suite. In the image below (1) is a hyphen, (2) is an en dash and (3) is the em dash.
Dashes
Sylvain Neuvel uses this technique in Sleeping Giants, the first book in the hugely enjoyable Themis Files series.
 
While some chapters in the novel use standard quotation marks, most are case-file chapters that are entirely composed of dialogue between a known character and an agent who plays a key part in the story but remains anonymous and elusive to us throughout.
 
Each speaker’s turn is indicated with an em dash. The agent’s speech is rendered in bold.
 
If Neuvel had chosen the standard route, he’d have been forced to use clunky speech tags such as ‘the agent said’, and even reveal the agent’s gender to mix things up a little. Instead, the chapters are compelling, mysterious, but cleanly and tightly delivered.
 
Here’s an excerpt from p. 104:
Sleeping Giants
File No. 047
Interview with Vincent Couture, Graduate Student
Location: Underground Complex, Denver, CO

 
—Dr Franklin said you had a breakthrough.
—I did. It’s not language.
—Already you lost me.
—I couldn’t figure out the meaning of the symbols. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn’t supposed to.
—Now you have really lost me. Please say something, anything, that will make sense to me.

​Same speaker; new paragraph
One final word on quotation marks. If you want your dialogue to take a new paragraph while retaining the current speaker, use a quotation mark at start of the new line but omit the closing one at the end of the previous paragraph.
 
This example from Jo Nesbo’s The Bat (p. 251) illustrates the convention:
The Bat
     ‘[…] My father described the regular pom-pom-pom of the cannons and the increasingly high-pitched wails of the planes as they dived. He said he’d heard them every night since.
     ‘The last day of the battle he was standing on the bridge when they saw a plane emerging. […] Then he jumped overboard and was gone.’​

2. Trailing-off and pauses in speech
The ellipsis is used to indicate a pause or speech trailing-off at the end of a sentence.
Here’s an excerpt from At Risk (p. 434) by Stella Rimington:
At Risk


​     She shook her head, her eyes unfocused. Then, draining her pint glass, she nudged it towards him. ‘Could you …?’
     ‘Yeah, sure.’

Notice how Rimington doesn’t also tell us that the character’s voice has trailed off, which would be unnecessary clutter. Here’s how it might have gone if she hadn’t trusted the ellipsis to do its job and her readers to understand that:
 
     She shook her head, her eyes unfocused. Then, draining her pint glass, she nudged it towards him. ‘Could you …?’ Jean said, her voice trailing off.
     ‘Yeah, sure.’

 
Here are examples from Sleeping Giants (p. 204) and At Risk (p. 434) where an ellipsis is used to indicate a mid-sentence pause:
SLEEPING GIANTS
     ‘We discovered it can also be used as a weapon. It took another hole – in the wall, this time – to figure that one out, but the edge of the shield is very sharp … if you can say that about light.’
 
AT RISK
     ‘Well … He walked out on us years ago, when I was a boy, so he can’t ever have really cared for us.’

The spacing of ellipses
CMOS asks for three full stops (or periods) separated by non-breaking spaces (1). Non-breaking spaces stop the elements they’re positioned between from becoming separated because of a line break.

​You can create one using your keyboard with the keys CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE. However, once again that’s a style choice. It’s perfectly acceptable to use the tighter single ellipsis character in Word (2).
Ellipses
The Unicode character for the ellipsis is 2026. To access it, go to the INSERT tab in Word’s ribbon, select SYMBOL, then MORE SYMBOLS.
Word ribbon
Make sure the font is set to normal text (3) before you type the code into the character-code box (4).
Symbols
From here on in, when you click on SYMBOL the ellipsis will show up in the list of recently used symbols. If you’re using a professional editor, you can ask them to ensure that your ellipses are rendered correctly, though it’s something most pros would check as a matter of course.
 
CMOS also recommends the following:
 
  • Ellipsis occurring mid-sentence: space either side
  • Ellipsis occurring at the beginning of a sentence: space after
  • Ellipsis occurring at the end of a sentence: space before
 
Professional publishers use this style, and I recommend that self-publishers follow suit.

3. End-of-line interruptions in speech
To indicate that a speaking character has been interrupted, use an em dash. No matter whether you’re publishing in US or UK style, this is the tool of choice.
 
It’s a harder piece of punctuation and does a superb job of indicating emotions like impatience, curtness, disbelief, rudeness, frustration and anger on the part of the interrupting speaker.
 
Here’s a fast-paced conversation between Louisa and Min in Mick Herron’s Dead Lions (p. 115):
Dead Lions

     ‘I got the guys at the Troc to pick it up on Clerkenwell Road. They tracked—’
     ‘You got the guys—’
     ‘Yeah yeah. Catherine got the guys at the Troc to pick them up.’​

This use of the em dash keeps the dialogue moving at a fast pace.
 
Like Rimington, Herron doesn’t tell it twice. There are no cluttering speech tags or repetitive explanations that tell us how each speaker interrupted the other. The pace cracks like a whip and we’re offered an authentic back-and-forth.
 
Here’s one more example from Linwood Barclay’s Parting Shot (p. 380). It shows how the em dash evokes a sense of impatience from the speaker who cuts in:
Parting Shot

     “Ms. Plimpton,” Duckworth said. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Detective Barry—”
     “I know exactly who you are,” she said, and reached out and took his hand in hers.

4. Punctuating tagged speech
Your character’s just spoken a complete sentence, and you want to follow through with a tag that tells the reader who said what (e.g. he said, she said). How does the punctuation work before the closing quotation mark at the end of the sentence?
 
The comma does the job, even when the sentence is complete, unless you’re finishing with an exclamation mark or a question mark. If there’s no tag following the dialogue, you can use a full stop.

Here are some examples from Parting Shot (p. 80) to show you how it works:
Speech tag following complete sentence: comma before closing quotation mark
     “Give that back,” he said, putting down the burger and holding out his hand.
Speech tag following question: question mark before closing quotation mark
     “You don’t like him?” I asked, keeping the phone out of his reach.
Speech tag following exclamation: exclamation mark before closing quotation mark
     “Hey!” he said, spewing a shred of lettuce.
No speech tag following a complete sentence: full stop before closing quotation mark
     Jeremy, looking uncomfortable as he took his burger in both hands, said, “It’s okay, Charlene.”
Note that when you follow up with second- or third-person speech tags (you said/he said/she said/they said) they always take lower case, whether the punctuation before the closing quotation mark is a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation mark.

5. Punctuating broken-up dialogue
If you want to break up your dialogue with speech tags or other stage direction, but your character hasn’t finished speaking, commas or dashes will help you keep your dialogue in order. The key is to get the punctuation right in the text between the dialogue too.
 
Let’s look at two more examples, both from The Chosen Ones by Howard Linskey (pp. 295, 306):
The Chosen Ones

     ‘I assume,’ said Tom, ‘that this is not the place.’
 
     ‘Then he gets nothing,’ Tom assured him, ‘and he won’t be able to use it, will he?’

The unbroken speech would appear as ‘I assume that this is not the place.’ and ‘Then he gets nothing and he won’t be able to use it, will he?’

Nevertheless, it is conventional within most mainstream publishing companies to add a comma before the first closing quotation mark and after the speech tag. These commas act as parentheses.

If your dialogue is broken with description rather than speech tags, dashes can offer more clarity than commas. If you’re sticking to CMOS style, closed-up em dashes will be your choice. If you prefer the shorter en dash, place spaces around either side of it.
​
Here’s an example from CMOS (6.87) using closed-up em dashes:
     “Someday he’s going to hit one of those long shots, and”—his voice turned huffy—“I won’t be there to see it."

And here’s how it would look using spaced en dashes and single quotation marks if you were following UK publishing convention:
     ‘Someday he’s going to hit one of those long shots, and’ – his voice turned huffy – ‘I won’t be there to see it.’

6. Punctuating vocative expressions in dialogue
A vocative expression is one where the person being addressed is directly referred to in a sentence. It needn’t be someone’s name; it could be a form of address that relates to their job or position, one that’s a term of respect (or disrespect).

​Commas are required for clarity.
 
  • If the vocative expression comes at the beginning of the sentence, place a comma after it.
  • If the vocative expression comes at the end of the sentence, place a comma before it.
  • If the vocative expression interrupts a sentence, place a comma before and after it.
 
Here are some examples:
  • ‘Dave, is that your new car over there?’ Mal said.
  • ‘Do you know who I am, you oaf?’ asked Lord Stuffy.
  • ‘Well, Dina, I’ve never heard such a load of old rubbish in all my life,’ said John.
  • ‘Did you know, Gabriel, that your wings are wonky?’ Peter said, leaning casually against the pearly gates.
  • “Sir, the helicopter pilot’s ready for the debrief.”
  • “Tea is served, Your Grace,” said the bored butler.
  • “I’m not done with you yet, Detective.”

Punctuating vocative expressions incorrectly can lead to ambiguity. Compare the following examples of dialogue. Notice how the missing comma changes the meaning from expressions of address to instructions to carry out acts of violence!
With vocative comma
Without comma
     “Let’s eat, children,” said a salivating Jenny.
     “Let’s eat children,” said a salivating Jenny.
     “Shoot, Sergeant Fowler!” ordered the captain.
     “Shoot Sergeant Fowler!” ordered the captain.
7. Indicating faltering speech
If your character is out of breath, taken aback, caught off guard, frightened, or nervous, you might want to indicate faltering speech with punctuation.
 
There are no absolute rules about how you do this because it depends on the effect you want to achieve.
 
  • For softer faltering where full words are repeated, try ellipses. They moderate the rhythm.
  • For sharper faltering where the character stumbles over syllables, try hyphens. They provide a more staccato rhythm.
  • For elongated faltering where the speaker is struggling to start a word and then takes a breath to compose themselves, a combination of repeated letters followed by ellipses could work.
 
Here’s how Sophie Hannah does it in one of her Hercule Poirot continuation novels, Closed Casket (p. 165):
Closed Casket


     ‘I wanted to believe he could love me the way I loved him. And then I heard him ask Sophie to marry him, and … and …’ She dissolved into weeping.

And here’s a made-up example showing a more staccato faltering:
     ‘No. I-I-I mean not really. It was an accident. I just s-s-saw him standing there and I kinda flipped,’ Jack said.

And here’s how Sylvain Neuvel handles scientist Marina Antoniou in Waking Gods (p. 103). This character consistently struggles with her speech so Neuvel uses a combo of repeated letters to elongate the starting consonants, followed by ellipses to show her process of forcing out the remainder of her words.
 
His approach is unconventional but it imparts an authentic sense of Antoniou fighting with her voice:
Waking Gods


—I only did what needed to be done. Someone had to, even if you didn’t have the sss … stomach for it.​
​
Use common sense with your speech tags. If you’ve made it obvious from the punctuation that the character’s speech is faltering, you needn’t tell the reader twice:
 
     ‘No. I-I-I mean not really. It was an accident. I just s-s-saw him standing there and I kinda flipped,’ Jack stammered.
 
If your character has a stammer, by all means use these tools to indicate it here and there but don’t feel compelled to litter the dialogue with it. Readers have good memories; nudges are enough. Overdo it and you risk dulling the writing and making your reader frustrated.
 
That’s it! Happy dialogue punctuating!

Cited sources
  • At Risk by Stella Rimington. Arrow, 2015
  • Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah. Harper, 2017
  • Dead Lions by Mick Herron. John Murray, 2017
  • Parting Shot by Linwood Barclay. Orion, 2017
  • Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel. Penguin, 2016
  • Sleeping in the Ground by Peter Robinson. Hodder & Stoughton, 2018
  • The Bat by Jo Nesbo. Vintage, 2013
  • The Chicago Manual of Style (Online)
  • The Chosen Ones by Howard Linskey. Penguin, 2018
  • The Fix by David Baldacci. Pan Books, 2017
  • Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel. Penguin, 2017
Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.

She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), a member of ACES, a Partner Member of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

Visit her business website at Louise Harnby | Fiction Editor & Proofreader, say hello on Twitter at @LouiseHarnby, connect via Facebook and LinkedIn, and check out her books and courses.
26 Comments
Allemand Traducteur link
22/8/2018 09:01:43 am

Ohh, well explained Louise, I enjoyed reading it. Shared

Reply
Louise Harnby
22/8/2018 02:29:13 pm

Thank you, Allemand!

Reply
acflory link
31/8/2018 05:28:35 am

Excellent article. Bookmarked for easy reference. :)

Reply
Louise Harnby
31/8/2018 12:40:51 pm

Glad you liked it!

Reply
Belle
11/9/2018 01:21:14 pm

Fantastic article. I'm new to fiction writing, I am mainly a business writer. So dialogue construction and punctuation has completely confounded me! This answered all of my questions, I love the examples of each so I can see real-world uses.

Reply
Louise Harnby
11/9/2018 04:41:20 pm

That's fantastic, Belle! Thanks for letting me know you found it so useful. You were exactly the kind of writer I had in mind when I wrote it. Cheers!

Reply
Susan Walton link
23/5/2019 04:37:43 pm

I'd be interested on your take on this, Louise:
“Oh!” Joseph remembered how common the animal was in India, “Memory like an elephant, haven't you, Emily?”

There are two questions here: is Joseph speaking one sentence, split by remembering how common elephants are in India, i.e. is it like your example, but without the 'said ,', so it would read
Jeremy, looking uncomfortable as he took his burger in both hands, “It’s okay, Charlene.”?
Or should that comma be replaced by a full stop, so it's two sentences (or even three, if you count "Oh!" as a sentence on its own)?

Reply
Susan Walton link
23/5/2019 04:46:54 pm

I'd be interested on your take on this, Louise:
“Oh!” Joseph remembered how common the animal was in India, “Memory like an elephant, haven't you, Emily?”

There are two questions here: is Joseph speaking one sentence, split by remembering how common elephants are in India, i.e. is it like your example, but without the 'said ,', so it would read
Jeremy, looking uncomfortable as he took his burger in both hands, “It’s okay, Charlene.”?
Or should that comma be replaced by a full stop, so it's two sentences (or even three, if you count "Oh!" as a sentence on its own)?

Reply
Louise Harnby
23/5/2019 04:58:24 pm

I'd do it like this:

“Oh!” Joseph remembered how common the animal was in India. “Memory like an elephant, haven't you, Emily?”

There's a full stop after India. The middle sentence is a thought-based action beat that separates two bits of dialogue. It leaves the Oh! on its own, which I like because it emphasizes the surprise.

Reply
Marcel
12/2/2020 02:48:11 pm

I'm familiar with starting a new paragraph to introduce a new speaker, but what about a new thinker? For example:
"You're not punctual, " John opined about her character, "and you're really quite lazy." Says the hypocrite thought Chrissy.
Or:
"You're not punctual, " John opined about her character, "and you're really quite lazy."
Says the hypocrite thought Chrissy.
And I have another question. Do I use quotes around thoughts?

Reply
Louise Harnby
12/2/2020 02:57:45 pm

Hi, Marcel.

Unless you're writing in omniscient viewpoint, which is a tricky beast to master, I recommend you only allow the reader to access the viewpoint character's thoughts. Otherwise you'll be head-hopping. Read this for more guidance: https://harnby.co/pov

As for how to render thoughts: read this: https://harnby.co/writing-thoughts

And for some guidance on speech tags, try this: https://harnby.co/dialogue-tags

Hope that helps!

Reply
Marcel
28/2/2020 12:48:46 am

Thanks. I'll look into those.

Robert Harrison
26/2/2020 02:38:59 pm

Um. So basic I should wear a dunces cap. I changed formatting in Word as suggested and read the piece on dealing with thoughts. Trying to format my chapter and Word wants me to place the full stop or question mark outside the single dialogue quotation mark. Clearly that's not right according to all the examples I see. Word 'tells me' to place a space after the full stop, then the raised quotation if I insist on doing it that way. But that doesn't look right either!

Reply
Louise Harnby
26/2/2020 03:30:30 pm

Word doesn't know the difference between dialogue and narrative so it will pull up false-positive suggestions on formatting. If you want to email me a wee example, I'll confirm or edit accordingly so that you're confident about proceeding. My email address is available via the Contact page on this site. Just click on the blue AUTHORS box and you'll find everything you need in there.

HTH

Reply
Cordelia link
7/7/2020 03:58:28 pm

Can you help me, please with starts of dialogue? Beginning with interjections such as, "Oh" - For example:
'Oh! Yes, but you have nothing to fear,' she said, I was only trying to help!' or should it be
'Oh, yes! But, you have nothing to fear', she said, 'I was only trying to help.' ???

Reply
Louise Harnby
7/7/2020 04:16:45 pm

I would suggest this:

'Oh, yes! But you have nothing to fear,' she said. 'I was only trying to help.'

Note how I've placed the the commas within the quote marks, and changed the comma after *said* to a full point.

Reply
Cordelia link
7/7/2020 05:02:28 pm

Thank you for your prompt reply, Louse. That.is helpful.
I am trying to edit the punctuation only - not the text - of a friend's work which has a number of "Ohs" and "Ahs" at the beginning some dialogue. I seem to be too often putting an exclamation mark after the "Oh!" (for example) and then continuing with the dialogue. It made me pause for thought and wonder if this is correct?
Another example - instead of 'Oh my goodness,' said the little girl. 'There is ...etc.' I have changed it to,read:
‘Oh! My goodness!’ said the little girl, ‘There is ... '
I am now starting to doubt myself so any feedback would be much appreciated.

Louise Harnby
7/7/2020 09:50:09 pm

I would err on the side of caution when using exclamation marks. If the words themselves are enough to give the flavour of the mood, the mark could be overkill. It depends on the rhythm of each sentence in relation to the scene too. Fiction doesn’t bend well to prescriptivism in my opinion. So the following are all grammatically sound but convey a slightly different mood and have a different flow.
‘Oh! My Goodness!’ the girl said.
‘Oh. My Goodness,’ the girl said.
‘Oh my goodness!’ the girl said.
‘Oh my goodness,’ the girl said.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ the girl said.

The first is more staccato and excitable. The second is also staccato and holds a sense of surprise, perhaps even a little contemplation. Certainly, the tone is a tad more contemplative. The third is more fluid; no pauses. The fourth is also fluid but flatter; perhaps she’s a little in awe or shock. The fifth has pause but it’s not as heavy as the in the second example.
The choice of punctuation moderates tone and the helps the reader pause (or not). So I wouldn’t recommend excluding exclamation marks but if I were editing this I wouldn’t automatically include them. Fiction’s always a judgement call. There are no rules that can be applied universally. A professional editor should amend with this in mind.

Tara
8/7/2020 01:13:38 pm

I have a style question regarding the paragraph following character dialogue. It doesn’t look “right” to me to indent the new paragraph following the indentions of alternating dialogue, but i can’t find a rule on this either. In example (and for clarity, I’ve written out the formatting in “<>”):

<indent> “How is it that you got here today?”
<double space>
<indent> “Well, I rode that new bicycle.”
<double space>
<indent> “Even after all that fuss?”
<double space>
<indent> “Yes’m.”
<double space>
Joe and Mama shrugged off the previous days disagreements, like they never happened. They always did that.

** note the lack of indentation on the paragraph following the dialogue. That looks right to me, because when I read over it indented, even I mistake it for more dialogue for a moment. But what is correct??

Reply
Louise Harnby
8/7/2020 01:59:11 pm

It's conventional to indent all narrative and dialogue unless either is the first line in a new section or chapter. So in the case you've given, Tara, the Joe and Mama sentence should be indented. Pick up any mainstream published novel and you'll see that my suggested layout is standard. I'll do a blog post for you next week that addresses layout. I'll aim to get it out this Monday coming (13 July 2020).

Reply
Cordelia link
8/7/2020 05:23:23 pm

You had me at "overkill"!
Thank you so much, Louise for taking the time and trouble to answer my query so clearly. You highlighted the problem I was having beautifully. My corrective punctuation, especially the usage of that pesky (!) exclamation mark, made the story read staccato and strident which felt wrong to me as at odds with its general flavour. For sure, I shall be investing in your books as I can see I have much to learn from you.
Thank you again, Kind regards, Cordelia

Reply
Christine
22/7/2020 10:12:01 am

I love your articles Louise, thank you - they're so informative. Your site is bookmarked as my go-to site for queries.
I'm just learning the ropes and am trying to find information on spacing punctuation at the start of dialogue when there's a contraction apostrophe:

" 'Bout time too!" she complained.

"'Bout time too!" she complained.

Word asks me to leave a space between the speech marks and apostrophe, but in a 'normal' dialogue that would be wrong. I haven't been able to find any answers anywhere and there is a lot of dialogue in the book that starts in this manner. Please could you advise whether one way is incorrect or whether one is more acceptable than the other? Many thanks.

Reply
Louise Harnby
22/7/2020 12:51:48 pm

Hi, Christine! No space is standard. And make sure the apostrophe is the right way around. So the quote-mark tail should be pointing to the right, and the apostrophe tail should be pointing to the left (like a closing single quote mark).

Hope that helps!

Reply
Christine
22/7/2020 12:58:14 pm

Thank you so much, Louise! That really helps me a lot.
Christine

Maren Child link
22/9/2020 08:56:23 am

Thanks Louise! I knew there was a rule about same speaker, new paragraph and was trawling through novels looking for an example - then I thought, 'I bet Louise has it in one of her resources!'

Reply
Louise Harnby
22/9/2020 09:03:46 am

Ha! So glad I lived up to your expectations. If there are other things you want me to address that I haven't covered, do let me know!

Reply



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