Okay, here's a question about dialouge. Is this correct: "Your not writing your dialouge correctly," he said flatly. Is that right, to put a comma in the quotations, or should that be "Your not writing your dialouge correctly." He said flatly. I always get this confused, and I was going to do some editing on what i've gotten completed thus far, so it's not too many errors to correct later. And I may be spelling dialouge incorrectly, I have been spoiled by my spell checker.
Dialog is the correct spelling of the word. Spell check spoils us all I think. As for the the bit of dialog you provided. What I usually do when it is a full sentence is this. "Please, park the car over there." She said, pointing across the street. If it is a continued sentence like: "Just park," she pointed across the street, "over there." Now, technically, both of your sentences could be correct. I have seen it both ways, either putting the tag line in small letters with a comma at the end of the sentence inside the quotes, or a period, question mark, or exclimation mark, then capitalizing the tag line. It works both ways. Jenn
Dialogue or dialog are the correct spellings. "Your not writing your dialouge correctly," he said flatly. The comma has to be there. I know of no country that has a different rule for this. Also, it should be you're. However if the tag was not saying who said it or how the person said it, but a different action not related to the dialog, then it must be a period. "You're not writing your dialog correctly." He slapped the table. He slapped the table. "You're not writing your dialog correctly." "You're not writing," he said, slapping the table, "your dialog correctly." He said, "You're not writing dialog correctly." "Please park the car over there," she said, pointing across the street.
Architectus is right. Don't listen to me, I didn't take my grammar medication this morning! lol I think this article:http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/dialoguebasics.html gives a pretty good rundown of the grammatical correctness of dialog--or dialogue...silly strange spellings...like monologue. Really, do we need the 'ue'?
"Your not writing your dialouge correctly," he said flatly. Aside from the incorrect use of "Your" ("You're" is the contraction for you are) and the incorrect spelling of "dialogue," this example is correctly punctuated. "Your not writing your dialouge correctly." He said flatly. This is incorrect. "He said flatly" is not a complete sentence. It is a dialogue tag, plain and simple, and ought to follow the quoted material by placing a comma inside the quotation marks. Same issue as above with "Your" versus "You're." In your example the quotation itself is the object of the sentence: "He said 'You're not writing your dialogue correctly.'" It simply tells us what "he said." You only would capitalize the sentence that follows the quoted passge if you're writing a complete, self-contained thought, rather than simply identifying the speaker. e.g.: "You're not writing your dialogue correctly." He spoke calmly and slowly.
Thank you! I am trying to learn as I go. Also, thanks for correcting you're/your. I do my best with grammar as I am writing, but it is definatly not my strong suit. If I had the means, I would take classes, but for now, it's a bit of self education, and I'm not going to let it stop me from writing!! Really, thank you guys, I'll go through and start correcting. I think I've been using correct punctuation now that it's been explained, most of the time. I'll go look.
To add to Cogito's link, I'll add my own favorite: Dialogue Basics. It covers punctuation, capitalization and different methods of employing action and dialogue tags to attrbute speech. Terry
