Dialogue is one of the things I'm still struggling with despite having looked at five different guides explaining its rules. My SPaG is generally alright, but I still get complaints about dialogue, specially when it comes to punctuation marks at the end. The more I look into dialogue rules, the more confused I get. So, I was hoping someone could help clear up some things to me. From what I understand, dialogue has its own punctuation, so it generally doesn't affect the sentence it's part of. There are some exceptions because of the rules but that's generally how it goes. Natalie looked over her shoulder and said, "I think it's possible." as she drew a smile. This should be correct, I think. "as" isn't capitalized because the sentence doesn't end at the said tag. And the period only marks the end of the sentence within the dialogue, rather than the words that come after. Like, okay, I can wrap my head around that. The rule comes from somewhere. But what about examples when the dialogue is the beginning of the sentence? Like so? "Do you want to go there?" asked Natalie. This should also be correct, I think...? I'm a bit more uncertain here. I think the reason it's not capitalized is because it begins with the dialogue, so the sentence that comes after isn't capitalized. It's just a rule. Am I correct? But what about sentences that begin with dialogue that ends with a terminal punctuation mark, like this? "I don't want to go there." answered George. Given what I said so far, this should still be correct. But I am a 100% sure that I've seen it capitalized, like so: "I don't want to go there." Answered George. Is this incorrect? Or are both versions of the example correct? Now, about commas. From what I understand, they should be used when the dialogue sentence is incomplete... like an independent clause. The above examples have an independent clause in the dialogue, so I used a full stop. In the case where it is incomplete, that's when a comma is used. Like this: "Alright," said Natalie. Or ... "This Christmas," said Natalie as she pointed at the corner, "the tree will go there." So, given my understanding of dialogue, this looks wrong to me: "I really like chocolate," Natalie said. And that's purely because the sentence is complete. But given my history in the workshop pieces I post, I'm likely wrong about all of this somehow. If anyone can point any issues in my examples above and explain them, I would really appreciate it. Dialogue constantly boggles me when I write stories and I constantly feel like I mess up the text. I need to somehow raise my confidence on dialogue to get rid of this feeling. I need to understand dialogue better, but reading about it isn't helping, it just confuses me more because I can't ask questions. So, I thought, maybe you guys can lend me a hand...
"All declaratory sentences are ended with a comma if a dialogue tag follows," Homer said. "All sentences get a period if a dialogue beat follows." Homer scratched his nose. "Like this." "All interrogatory sentences get a question mark regardless of the existence of a tag, right?" Homer said. "Yes." No. Whether the sentence is complete or incomplete is irrelevant. Because you're only reporting about what is being said, the inherent grammar of the statement doesn't matter. No. It would be: Natalie looked over her shoulder and said, "I think it's possible," as she drew a smile. Remember tags get commas. Beats get periods. "as she drew a smile" is a tag, though it looks like a beat. It's actually nonsensical because you don't really draw smiles when speaking unless you're physically doodling on a piece of paper. If you converted it to a beat, it would look like this: Natalie looked over her shoulder and said, "I think it's possible." She drew a smile. This is correct. You have a tag and a beat (which is just a continuation of the tag) inside of a single sentence.
It might help if you understand that the part inside the quotation marks is only part of the full sentence. It took me a while to get this. In fact it happened only recently. Probably because a certain person named Louanne kept harping on commas going inside quotation marks. Like this: "I think it's possible," said Natalie, smiling over her shoulder. There's a comma at the end of what she said, because it's only part of the full sentence, which ends where I put the period. Said Natalie, smiling over her shoulder is not a full sentence, it's a fragment. It might help if you imagine it with no quotation marks, like this: I think it's possible, said Natalie, smiling over her shoulder. See, the sentence itself doesn't end where the quote does. It goes on and includes the dialogue tag. Now insert quotation marks and it works.
And to help understand tags and action beats, it's a tag if it's part of the same sentence— "Yep, you got it," said Natalie. It's an action beat if they're two separate sentences— "Yep, you got it!" Natalie smiled.
An aside: If the phrase "Natalie smiled" strikes you as odd, please refer to Benjamin Dreyer's essay "Hello,' He Smiled: The Richard Russo Story." It's on pages 120-123 of Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. What? You don't have this book? Go out and buy a copy immediately.
@Homer Potvin THANK YOU! This makes a lot more sense than what I was reading online. I don't believe any resource I was looking into had those kinds of terms. It was more condensed down than that. Tags get commas, action beats get periods. That's such a good way to remember it. I wish I could thank you twice. Why did nothing explain it like this??? It would seem that I need to get better resources... Also, good catch on the weird expression. These are my plague it seems, and @Xoic already made me aware of it last time. I need to be more careful... Oh, what a coincidence, the same person brought it to my attention! Last time, she mainly commented on that (and the weird phrases that I tend to make up) so I guess both of those things are what I need to work on at the minute.
As @Homer Potvin knows, I tend to use a period only about every twenty-eight days, but I'm working on it.
Wow, thanks for the clarification, everyone. I better check my queries and my stories to make sure I don't have any of those problems. Agents might not reject a query for grammatical errors, but it sure would make them think well of the author if it was free of mistakes like the ones you all mentioned.
Of course it wasn't a phrase the way I used it, it's a sentence. An action beat rather than a dialogue tag.
