All Comments on 'How To Make Characters Talk in Your Stories'

Thanks, fantastic tutorial, I am going to re-punctuate my rejected story, and see it I can get it accepted in one go.

Hi. Could you add a section explaining how to punctuate when one character is quoting another? Here's an example - Tony is telling Bonnie about a conversation he had earlier that day with Charley:

“Today she stopped and said, ‘You’re Tony, right? We’ve never met, I’m Charlene but everyone calls me Charley.’ Then she stuck out her hand and we shook before she said ‘Your session is 30 minutes, right?’

Thank you!

Nicely done, I haven't looked at this sort of thing since..... Christ knows, my memory doesn't go that far back any more lol

Extremely helpful, especially for non-native speakers! Thank you very much!

Very Useful. It explains everything clearly. Now I hope to be able to write a story that will be acceptable for publishing.

Very helpful guide, Thanks for your effort & time

Thanks for the great article. I admit I was a bit reluctant to do too much dialogue in the stories I'm working on. I've changed my mind. And it's all because of your article. Thanks tons.

Very, very helpful.

Thank you for this, I left Sshool unable to read much less write. I'm dyslexic, I've always said I was dyslexic before dyslexia was invented.

I was taught to read by a British Army education officer. He actually said to me when I met him again later in life he didn't teach me to read. He gave me the tools I needed to teach myself.

I have been writing the stories floating around in my strangely wired brain for years. But if I put them down for any time, when I picked them up again they made little or no sense at all. Even to me.

That was everything to do with a lack of punctuation. I didn't know how, I didn't know what, I just didn't know. You don't learn punctuation in the educational mill. But only if you can't read.

Thank you for this, I had to do the test 3 times to get 100% but I did.

Thank you.

Wow that was Not Only Fun But and Most Importantly that was Super Educational. I Actually Felt like I have Relearned Constricting Dialogs that I've Learned from Way Back in The First Grade but also I felt that I Not Only relearned all of that but also I also felt like I have Learned a bit more because I don't remember my Grade One Teacher ever going this Extensive, in teaching me all about Dialogs. I Fact I don't think I remember ever learning Dialog Construction to this Extent. And on another Note I Wished all Authors Doing 'How Tos' would be like this, It would be much help for me personally, and not only that it would also help in getting me to stick to their 'How Tos'

AWESOME - THANKS. Really great well laid out info. Obviously a professional educator.

Rule 8 review is wrong isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be double return, not double indent?

Like NS I had a story returned, but am Happy that the address for here was included by the mods. Thank for writing this post up, I have learned a lot !

Thank you so much for this. It has really helped me.

I have just spotted your others too so will be equally referring to them.

I just had a story returned to me for errors with paragraphs and use of quotations. I’m kinda glad I did now, learned lots (I hope) from this short little lesson. Thanks for helping out! 👍🏻

I learned more from this ONE PAGE, than I did in K-12.

Screw you public school system, and thank you to a teacher that understands and cares.

I thought I was quite good at spelling, grammar and punctuation, so was quite surprised to learn something new - omitting the quotation mark at the end of the dialogue in the first paragraph if the person continues speaking but adding it again at the beginning of the next paragraph. I'm a new writer so, although I've written a lot in other contexts, I've never written dialogue for stories.

But what I really want to say is thanks for the examples of expanding on the storyline with dialogue.

Question …

Rule 6: Lesson Paragraphing Dialogue

Generally, every time someone new speaks, you start a new paragraph. On the Web, that means a double return, not indenting.

But … then in the Review for Rule 8, you say:

Each time someone new speaks you start a new paragraph (double indent).

So, the question is … which is correct? No indent for the new paragraph each time a new person speaks or a “double indent” each time a new person speaks?

Perhaps you meant to call for a “double return”?

Thanks, Hanksville

“Wow, what an excellent article!” I said out loud to myself. “It answered every question I had!”

Thank you.

Thank you for the easy to understand instructions.

Thank you very much for this enlightening lesson!

I'm not a native speaker, but I prefer to write in English because of the limited choice of words in my own language. Seems I totally forgot about all my English lessons on written speech until now :)

A very easy to understand guide to dialogue punctuation that I will use as a reference tool.

Thank you for your time and effort.

Thank You for the rules of dialogue and punctuation.

I`m just wondering.

In sentence nr. 7 in `Answers` isn`t a quotation mark missing in the end?

…I want some time to enjoy it. You know what I mean?_ Missing quotation mark?

Kind regards

Been speaking and writing english for more than 10 years and I never realized english punctuation was different from the german one^^. Got sent this tutorial after my story got rejected and found it super helpful. Thank you so much!

Thank you.

After getting my story rejected, I now understand what I was doing wrong.

Much appreciated.

I now understand why my submission was rejected!

This a great recap of the rules on quotations. And I thought I was good at this sort of thing.

Thanks

Beautifully done, with, ummmmm, interesting examples! Damn. This approach could revolutionize college English 101: Grammar and Rhetoric! (There's a concept, right?)

This article is exactly what major corporations should put in their annual training programs. Sadly, as any of us know who have transitioned from the world of human-centric, personal corporate communication environment to the modern email, text and chat environment know that, (a.) educational institutions are graduating people who are essentially inept, often illiterate in their ability to communicate through the written word; and (b.) a number of these people are giving instruction, direction or dictates with impact ranging from department to regional or company-wide. In trying to "streamline" communication, we've created a traffic nightmare that makes rush hour traffic pale by comparison.

Anyway, thanks for the excellent reference work. Teaching is truly a calling, regardless of where you practice it.

Rgds,

TSF

At last, I have found a concise, objective, straightforward, non-patronising tutorial on the use of quotations. Thank you so much.

So helpful.

After my my first story didn't pass moderators the first two times, they kindly sent me this lesson of yours.

I read, applied what I learned to the best of my ability and then Literotica accepted my story on the third try. Now I need a lesson on proper choice of category. LW was so wrong for what I want from this site.

Thank you so much!

Your advice is pretty much spot-on. However, I noticed you did not mention a valuable convention that tells the reader who is speaking without using attribution (or as you call it, "a tag").

It is very simple. The last character who performs an action is the one who speaks next. For example:

He crushed his cigarette in the ash tray. "Stop with the bull shit!"

Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m telling the truth!”

Shrugging into his windbreaker, he turned to leave. “I’m outta here, bitch.”

You might add tags here if you want, but there is no doubt who says what in the dialogue above.

Especially in a long stretch of dialogue, too many “he said,” “she said,” “he replied,” “she asked,” attributions can clutter up otherwise effective writing.

Thank you for the article, it is very helpful!

"I am still learning to deal with criticism," the wannabe-author admitted, "and my first immediate reaction to my story being rejected was what the fuck?? What do they have to whine about THIS TIME?

"After taking the time to read the article they referred me to, though, I realized that there actually ARE rules and conventions for a few things I've done rather haphazardly in the past, like putting the commas in dialogue situations."

Thank you, Laurel & Manu, for taking a look at my story and pointing me in the right direction, and thank you, Whispersecret, for your entertaining round-up on an issue I still have to master!

Particularly as I haven't had occasion occasion to write dialogue since starting full time work on reaching age 15. That was a life time a go. Back then lessons were often interrupted by air raids.

Thank you for taking the time to write this.

I make two points

One: Presumably your target audience is writers for this web-page based site, so surely your rule 8 should state 'double return', not indent.

Two: I didn't know I had a ten inch cock, let alone it would be reduce to nine inches by adding punctuation!

Thank you again - Ven

Was referred to you from a rejection, almost didn't bother, glad I did. It was well worth the time it took to read. Shame every 'author' on the site doesn't.

Hope I've got it right this time.

Thank you and well done for posting this.

Very comprehensive tutorial. I just got my first rejection on my first story, and I knew I was rusty on writing dialog. You covered all my weak spots, so I’m about to do a rewrite, now that I’m up to speed😎

"I knew all that," he said, replying to Corjix. "But many people who post on this site need to learn these things."

"I had no idea," he said with a grimace, "that there were so many rules for the purpose of making reading more pleasurable!"

thank you for this...I really need it. I will have to go over my story once again to make it more readable. :)

I proofread part-time (it is a gift) and I must say that Whispersecret's tutorial on punctuation is spot on. Proper punctuation makes the description, dialogue and emotion flow together and draw the reader into the story.

The "other part" of proofreading is spelling and grammar. Misspelled words and incorrect homonyms (sounds the same, like "bear" and "bare") will quickly derail a "train of thought."

In conclusion I would say, "Find a spell-checker and if possible, one with a grammar-checker." There are a number of good ones out there, and some are free. Try looking on college English department's pages for recommendations. Use the spell-checker first and then the grammar-checker. BelleJ.

Just wanted to say thank you for this article. It was SUPER helpful!

Brilliant

Thanks for showing me this riverboy!!

This was really helpful

P.S. Your examples are really entertaining too! :)

much for giving this information. I will be using it very often and I could never succeed with a story if I didn't have this lesson (s) to refer back to.

Now , with that said .... none of the answers , A B or C were correct because the doctor said, "you cock cant possibly be ten inches long." All three answers contain (nine) heehe ..

Thanks, I succeeded where I had previously failed with submissions. Wanted to do it myself and not request a guest editor.

You tell us first of all that whatever is inside the quotation marks must be exactly what comes out of the character's mouth. You then give us a sentence without punctuation:

>>> Your cock can't possibly be ten inches long the doctor said.

You tell us that this is the correct answer:

A. "Your cock can't possibly be nine inches long," the doctor said.

However, you have added a comma inside the quotation marks that was never part of the words as said originally by the speaker, which were:

"Your cock can't possibly be ten inches long." No comma.

This breaks your own rule and is inconsistent. Please explain.

I guess technically that bit is grammatically correct, if the first section of speech is taken as stand-alone without a speech tag. But it's a very awkward construction, better avoided.

This bit:

***

If you attach the tag to the second quote, it should be this way:

"No, she's never been with another woman." Kyle said with a laugh, "As far as I know she's not bi-curious at all."

***

This is incorrect. Quoted speech should never finish with a period when its speech tag follows; if not a question or exclamation mark, it should be a comma.

Aside from that, great advice!

This was a superb review. I have worked as an editor, but editing "Service Manual for AN/USM-247" is not nearly as much fun as "Werewolf's Mate" for Literotica. Thank you so much.

Appreciated that. Thank-you.

I can't believe I forgot all this from my English classes! This refresher has really put me on the right track. Thank you!

"It was extremely helpful!" he said to Whispersecret. "Hopefully it will improve my writing."

No really. Thanks, it was helpful in explaining some areas I was having trouble understanding.

I found this guide most helpful. I now feel I have a good start for using quotations properly.

I'm currently writing a story that has a lot of dialogue in it, and this was very helpful. Thanks for writing this out.

Great how to guide, it really helped with all my questions.

As a non-native English speaker, this guide was (and I guess it will continue to be) extremely helpful. The rules of punctuation and dialoque markings are totally different for English. Thumbs up, Whispersecret.

This waa very helpful. I'm an avid roleplayer and have been thinking about writing stories. This will definitely help. Tyvm

I myself, wanna be a writer, never knew so many rules. Thank you very much.

Just recently one of my stories was rejected, for the second time. First time I know I had made some mistakes. Second time I had an editor on here look at it and make changes. Yet it was rejected once again. Thank you for all the information. Going to try once again, perhaps get it right this time.

Thank you for putting this out there for us! It helped immensely!

In response to a comment, I've expanded the first chapter of a story I've written. I now have chapters 2 - 4 posted, and chapter one has been rejected due to improper dialog punctuation. I don't think I've missed anything you pointed out, but at least I have a better idea of what to look for.

I was aware of the bit about dropping the closing quote at the end of a paragraph if the same person is speaking in the following paragraph, although it surprised me the first time I noticed it in a book I was reading. Since I haven't seen it on this site, I've added a couple superfluous tags in my submissions to ensure that every 'open quote' had a matching 'close quote.'

My story was rejected loads of times because of my grammar, I was never taught this properly when I was in school, Thank you!!

This was something that often gives me trouble. I tend to either go too simple or too complicated with dialogue, however I think I'm learning it's more about presentation than about content (if I'm getting that right). I know a bit about grammar rules too, but it mostly applied to essay or formal writing. Dialoguing is not something you get, even if college, unless you take a specific course. Outside of film studies, dialoguing isn't usually addressed,which often annoyed me. Thanks for giving me a refresher, especially about the long paragraph quotes,something I had mostly forgotten. I'm sure you make a great teacher in real life.

My very first story, was rejected for the reasons you explained above.

Now all that is left, is to improve my english to avoid my second rejection lol.

Thank you for sharing this information with us. I have had so much trouble writing in third person because of what you just taught right here. Not only will this help me with my adult stories, it will help me with my mainstream ones as well. Thanks again, and I am always open to anything more you'd like to teach us.

Without a doubt, 'How To' has become my favourite section on Lit tonight! Thank you for this!

If you ever wanted to expand this piece then questions 5 and 6 demonstrated the use of the comma in ways that you did not discuss.

Dear Whispersecret,

i found Your knowledge of successful writing skills, to be most helpful. Thank You for being so kind, as to share this with U/us.

Sincerely,

d

Very useful, thanks!

Couple of comments though. This example:

>Which of the following is correct?

>

>A. "Your cock can't possibly be nine inches long," the doctor said.

>B. "Your cock can't possibly be nine inches long" the doctor said.

>C. "Your cock can't possibly be nine inches long, the doctor said."

I think you need:

D. "Your cock can't possibly be nine inches long", the doctor said.

I was tempted to use that, until I slapped myself. Oh yes, and read some of the other threads about dialogue.

Also, thoughts. If you think something, is it still quoted? I am guessing 'yes' but am not totally confident.

'I wish he would fuck me right now,' Alice thought.

Or maybe:

I wish he would fuck me right now, Alice thought.

Or, fuck it:

Alice wished he would fuck her right now.

But that doesn't let you quote her exact inner thoughts.

And finally: single and double quotes. I started a thread on this, and got the feeling that in the UK people tend to use single quotes, and in the USA, double quotes.

Compare:

"If you don't fuck me, I'll go insane!" she screeched.

to:

'If you don't fuck me, I'll go insane!' she screeched.

I had some questions on dialogue. Thank you for this lesson.

Thanks for the great lesson

But if you ever feel like bringing this up to date for the new decade, can I request one addition? That you include tips on how to handle small bits of prose/narrative. between lines of dialogue. So for example, should it be:

<i>"Would you ever try anal?" Amy thought about this for a moment.

"Maybe one day, but it would have to be with a guy I really trusted."</i>

Or should it be:

<i>"Would you ever try anal?"

Amy thought about this for a moment. "Maybe one day, but it would have to be with a guy I really trusted."</i>

I still have one doubt left, how do you add the sounds the characters make, you know, like moans and groans of pleasure.

Very helpful!

"Well," I thought to myself while reading this page, "this is one of the more useful 'how-to's' I've read in a while.

"At least for me!"

Thank you.

Thanks! I hate long blocks of text so very, very much. Thanks for the quotation advice as well.

I thought it was clear and straightforward. If only my school lessons had included such examples!

Do you have any guidance on how to write dialog that occurs with characters text messaging, using IM, and email?

"I already knew about quotation marks and punctuation," Jezebel continued smugly. "But the paragraph thing has always had me stumped." She smiled and said, "Thank you so much!"

"By the way," she added, "I got 100%, except that I chose an exclamation point in one place where you had a period."

I really should have read this article before sending my editor my poorly punctuated story.

C- for me.

Must try harder! x

This was very helpful. I was able to get a good crash course in to freshen up on dialogue again.

...I would love to know how to write thoughts also.

And why do so many submissions get through with dialogue but - instead of " "? I've read a few recently.

I wont shy away from dialogue from now on as in my early stories.

I wish I'd found this months ago. I feel a big edit check coming on now. There were a couple of points that until now I wasn't so sure about.

Thank you!

I got a fifty percent. Damn exclamation points did me in.

I think I may have a small handle on it now.

"This is incredibly helpful!" Cella said with a grin.

Hello Whispersecret,

Well, I think its gonna take abit of time to get a story published with LIT.BUT I have been reading your essay and understanding it, So maybe it is dialogue, reading up on all the writers resources and going to keep trying.

Shoeslayer will NEVER give up, cuz if I do, THEY WIN.

Just' can't have that happen.

Thanx, gr8tly,

Shoeslayer

Hello Whispersecret,

Well, I think its gonna take abit of time to get a story published with LIT.BUT I have been reading your essay and understanding it, So maybe it is dialogue, reading up on all the writers resources and going to keep trying.

Shoeslayer will NEVER give up, cuz if I do, THEY WIN.

Just' can't have that happen.

Thanx, gr8tly,

Shoeslayer

Thanks for all that! I now know had badly I've been punctuating my dialogue! I will try to avoid these problems with future submissions. I do vaguely remember some of this from school, but that is a long time ago! I'll keep this for teaching my 4 year old daughter (but might change the content LOL)

I had a story rejected too. I re-subimitted it a few times because I though the filter they used must be wrong, then I sent them an Email lol

Turns out I'd made tons of mistakes, thanks a lot! This was a big help! (perfect "!" use) lol

This is a great help. This article is a "Blessing in disguise" for wanna be writers. I would definitely follow this when I'll write my next story. Thank you for sharing.

Probably not unlike most first-time authors, when I began writing erotica many years ago, I barely used any dialogue at all. I wish I had seen this article then. Even now, I probably do not use dialogue as much as I could/should.

I was advised to read this upon my first submission...sure glad I finally did

Thank you for putting this together. I had my first submission rejected due to how I had the dialog written. They refered me to this article and I was not disappointed in the least.

Thanks Whispersecret . . . I've just had my first submission rejected due to my use of punctuation, and while correcting it I had this open on another screen, and I'm hoping that my corrected submission will be published! I had no idea there were so many rules to punctuation, I always thought I was quite good in that respect but obviously not! thanks again!

After the first example you write: “It is not dialogue; it is poor writing.”, with all respect I have to disagree, to use indirect statement can’t possible mean its bad writing, Noble prize winners in literature use indirect statements. Ok, no big deal, I just thought it was a stupid sentence, especially since its in a section called “Writer's Resources”.

Great submission. Punctuation is my weakest point and this her has helped clear up a few "bad habits" that I have. Or is it "bad habits," lol.

I had a story that was rejected due to misplaced quotation marks etc. Your story was suggested. I read it twice, and am now ready to make the changes that are neccesary to get my story published. Thanks so much for the information, you did a fabulous job!

I had some long-standing punctuation queries cleared up with this. It was a good article, and well written.

Thank you Whispersecret. I had a story rejected because of poor punctuation and use of quotation marks and was recommended to read this piece by you. I has been of immense help and I will now endeavour to re-do it. It all makes sense.I did know all of this a long time ago but has slipped away from me over the years. Hopefully Neighbors Ch.1 will be published and hopefully you will be able to read it and see what you have done for me.

I appreciate the time it took you to write this, it must have been grueling to do so, as a new writer, and not very good with my grammer, this is going to come in handy for my writings, I hope you don't mind but I printed it out for myself to make reference to later. Thanks sincerely yours the character of Michael CoVido.

Thank you so much for your essay! It was exactly what I needed polish off my story.

Very well done. Taught like a true teacher!

I have a further question: How would one handle "thoughts" in script? What if the person were thinking something rather than speaking it? Ex: He thought, "I should wite a note." (Is that correct?)

Thanks again for your teaching. I'm glad I read it. I needed the review.