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Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

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➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”

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thinking about creatures.

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Because we have to talk in code about this on tiktok, I'm here to help spread some helpful tips to all my American anti-fascists out here who may need it. If you see police car that looks like this, (predominant blue stripe),

This is an ICE car. They are out and about right now hunting down immigrants, legal and illegal.

If you see them- or really, any police car- lurking, scream at the top of your lungs.

"La Migra"

Help save a family.

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One underappreciated thing about visiting somewhere completely different where you've got local hosts to hang out with is when you've gotten used to seeing wild shit that would absolutely not fly at home, and going "wow, this would be illegal where I'm from", but you're chill because when in rome you do as romans do.

And then at some point you're all in the middle of doing stuff and you make that remark again, and your host just goes "yeah it's illegal here too, we're just straight-up breaking the law rn."

And you just go aye, fair enough.