GetUnderlined: Your Grammar Guide!

Dialogue Structure (Requested by aye_its_alana3!)

Aye_its_alana3, I hope this chapter is helpful!

So, dialogue. It’s a pretty useful thing. It shows who’s talking to whom, and it can make a story a whole lot better. The hard part is knowing how to write it.

Here’s Alana’s question:

This is what it is supposed to look like right?

“I don’t want to go to the park,” Leah whined.

“Well, we are going anyway because your sister wants to,” Leah’s mom responded.

Sometimes, I’ll see some people write it like this:

(I see authors do this sometimes too…)

“I don’t want to go to the park,” Leah whined.

“Well, we are going anyway because your sister wants to.”

Or even like this:

“I don’t want to go to the park.”

“Well, we are going anyway because your sister wants to.”

They don’t always put the thing after the quotes and I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to, but maybe there isn’t a rule on that. It’s okay if you don’t know or if you’re not sure, but I was just curious what your take on it was. Also, is this allowed…

“I hate spiders!” Leah yelled.

Or are you always supposed to do this…

“I hate spiders,” Leah yelled.

Wow, this is going to be a long answer, so bear with me! Thanks it advance!!

Okay, so first off, all of those sentence examples are actually correct- depending on how you’re using them. In your first example, you use both of the characters’ names at the end. This is the right way to go if there are more characters currently in the scene and you want to make sure that the reader knows who is talking. However, your second example also makes sense if it is just those two characters having a conversation and one of them has just spoken. I’ll give some examples to make this easier to explain.

Exp. #1:

“I don’t want to go to the park,” Leah whined.

“Well, we are going anyway because your sister wants to,” Leah’s mom responded.

Now, if there’s another character in the room, this would be good because it provides that necessary clarity.

“I don’t want to go to the park,” Leah whined.

“Well, we are going anyway because your sister wants to,” Leah’s mom responded.

“Come on, Leah! Please?” Leah’s sister begged, clutching a ball to her chest.

Exp. #2:

“I don’t want to go to the park,” Leah whined.

“Well, we are going anyway because your sister wants to.”

This works nicely if Leah and her mom are the only ones in the room. If the conversation is darting from person to person, it will flow more smoothly without the extra name at the end.

For example, here’s how it would turn out if you kept using ‘they said,’ ‘they said,’ etc.:

“I don’t want to go to the park,” Leah whined.

“Well, we are going anyway because your sister wants to,” Leah’s mom responded.

“But I have homework and stuff…” Leah said.

“Leah, you know I can’t leave you home alone. Now please, get in the car. Allison’s waiting,” Leah’s mom said.

Eventually, this gets very repetitive. You can shorten by using sentences like this:

“I don’t want to go to the park,” Leah whined.

“Well, we are going anyway because your sister wants to,” Leah’s mom responded.

“But I have homework and stuff…”

“Leah, you know I can’t leave you home alone. Now please, get in the car. Allison’s waiting.”

Leah sighed and climbed in.

In answer to the third example you gave, which didn’t include the characters’ names at all, it really depends on whether or not the characters have already been introduced. The most important thing with dialogue is getting your point across and keeping it real without making it too wordy or excessive. If you wanted to, you could use the same format of the sentences above and cut out their names entirely- but you would have to make sure that the reader knows who you’re talking about.

As for your final question with the spider dialogue example, it’s really up to you. Whether you use a comma, period, exclamation mark, or question mark is your decision- it really just depends on where you want the emphasis.

I hope this is helpful!! If you have more questions, I’d be more than willing to answer them!

-*Alanna*