How to punctuate dialogue in memoir – part one

Including dialogue in your memoir is a great way to bring those pages to life and add authenticity to your account. While the topic of memory and conversations in memoir is important to consider, this post focuses solely on the mechanics of punctuation in the dialogue, covering the basics to get you started.

Where does the comma go? When do you use capital letters? What’s a dialogue tag? You’ll have the answer to these very questions by the end of this post! Certainly one to save when you’re self-editing your memoir.

Part two will follow next month with more advanced dialogue and quotation conventions. Sign up to my newsletter to be sure not to miss out on it!

In this post, we’ll start with some dialogue principles:

-       Speech marks

-       New speaker, new line

Then cover the basics of dialogue punctuation:

-       A full sentence in one line of dialogue

-       A sentence in dialogue that in ends in an exclamation mark or question mark

And finally move on to some slightly more complicated, but very common sentences in dialogue:

-       A sentence in dialogue split by a dialogue tag

-       A speaker needing more than one sentence, split by a dialogue tag

-       A sentence in dialogue that uses an action beat instead of a dialogue tag

-       A sentence in dialogue with simultaneous action

Dialogue principles

A little trick for punctuating dialogue in memoir

Let me share a shortcut with you on how to punctuate dialogue in memoir. It’s the same as punctuating dialogue in fiction! Of course, if you don’t know how to punctuate dialogue in fiction, then you’re back to square one, but the point is for you to search for and use resources for fiction, especially The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction by Amy J. Schneider, which rarely leaves my side when I’m editing memoir.

'The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction' by Amy J. Schneider.

What’s a dialogue tag?

Since I’ll be referring to these a fair bit, you need to know what a dialogue tag is.

A dialogue tag identifies who is speaking and what they said. The most common one being ‘said’: he said, she said, they said.

This is different to an action beat, which identifies an action of the speaker, but doesn’t describe the dialogue: ‘It’s not your fault.’ He squeezed her shoulder.

Dialogue and speech marks

First things first, put dialogue in speech marks.* In British publishing, these are usually single speech marks: ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said. In American publishing, it’s double speech marks: “I don’t know what to say,” she said.

*Some advanced and creative writers choose not to use speech marks (like Sally Rooney), but it’s best to stick with these if you’re a new writer.

New paragraph for each new speaker

Generally speaking, you use a new paragraph (or line) for each new speaker. This is particularly handy for dialogue that goes back and forth, so you can avoid lots of he saids, she saids:

Mum came towards me, tray of drinks in hand.

‘Thought you could do with a drink,’ she said.

‘Oh, awesome. Thanks, Mum!’

‘You still like lemonade, right?’

‘Absolutely, this is great.’

Punctuating dialogue – the basics

Commas and dialogue tags

The conundrum of when to use a comma is often because the dialogue tag confuses things. A general rule is to think of the comma replacing a full stop if a dialogue tag immediately follows what’s being said, because the full stop comes after a dialogue tag.

The comma also goes inside the speech mark, not after, and the first sentence in speech always starts with a capital letter.

A full sentence in one line of dialogue

‘I don’t want to go in there,’ she said.

‘We should get some food first,’ she said.

‘Your breath really stinks,’ she said.

If you switch the dialogue tag to come before the speech, then the comma comes after the dialogue tag, and the full stop goes inside the speech mark.

She said, ‘I don’t want to go in there.’

She said, ‘We should get some food first.’

She said, ‘Your breath really stinks.’

Questions and exclamations with dialogue tags

Using question marks and exclamation marks in dialogue is a little easier: no commas needed at all, capital letters to start the dialogue, and you use a full stop after the dialogue tag. Although it looks like a full sentence has happened in the speech, capital letters are used as part of the dialogue tag only for proper nouns (names of characters, titles, etc.)

A sentence in dialogue that in ends in an exclamation mark or question mark

‘I’m so excited!’ she said.

‘I’m so excited!’ Nancy said.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘Where are you going?’ Nancy asked.

Summary of punctuating dialogue – the very basics

-       ‘I’m using a full sentence in this line of dialogue,’ she said.

-       ‘Using exclamation marks makes everything much easier!’ she said.

-       ‘I suppose you’d say the same about question marks?’ she asked.

Hopefully you can use this post to nail the basics, rather than leafing through lots of resource books.

Punctuating broken-up dialogue

Aka when the dialogue tag goes slap-bang in the middle of the dialogue. Often used when you want to introduce a speaker who then goes on to say a few sentences, or to create a bit of tension.

If it’s all part of the same sentence, use a comma before the closing speech mark and lowercase letters until you get to the end of the sentence.

A sentence in dialogue split by a dialogue tag

‘I don’t know about you,’ she said, ‘but I could eat five burgers right about now.’

If the dialogue tag breaks up full sentences, punctuate as you would for a regular dialogue tag (comma and lowercase for the dialogue tag) and start the next sentence with a capital letter.

A speaker needing more than one sentence, split by a dialogue tag

‘It’s time for lunch,’ she said. ‘I could eat five burgers right about now.’

A sentence in dialogue that uses an action beat instead of a dialogue tag

The basic principle here is to use separate sentences are the words that are spoken and the action taken.

‘I can’t find my keys.’ She reached into her bag. ‘I swear I had them a moment ago!’

A sentence in dialogue with simultaneous action

Most editors and writers would agree this next one is one of the trickiest examples of dialogue to edit. When a character is speaking as they also do something, you use the same punctuation that you use for interrupted dialogue (we’ll visit this in part 2), but the dash goes outside the speech mark. That’s because the speech isn’t actually being interrupted, the speech and action are happening at the same time.

‘This’—she pursed her lips—‘is just not good enough.’

Same speaker, multiple paragraphs

If your character has a lot to say and is speaking in paragraphs, end the paragraph without a speech mark and use a new speech mark for the next paragraph.

‘The thing about running is,’ he said, ‘it’s one of the easiest sports to take up. It doesn’t need to cost much money. The most important bit of kit is the trainers, sure. But unless you’re running multiple marathons a year, one pair should last a few months, so you could get away with asking for a pair for your birthday and Christmas.

            ‘It’s just all gone a bit nuts out there, with the tech, don’t you think? Whatever happened to just going for a run?’

It's pretty hard summarising everything, when there are so many exceptions!

A handy summary of how to punctuate dialogue

-       ‘I’m using a full sentence in this line of dialogue,’ she said.

-       ‘Using exclamation marks makes everything much easier!’ she said.

-       ‘I suppose you’d say the same about question marks?’ she asked.

-       ‘Look,’ she said, ‘this sentence was split by a dialogue tag.’

-       ‘I’m using a full sentence here,’ she said. ‘Now I feel like using another sentence, but it’s still me talking, so we stay on the same line.’

-       ‘Action beats are the trickiest of all.’ He shrugged. ‘You’ll get the hang of them when you remember you need separate sentences for the speech and the action.’

-       ‘This’—I looked at him with my eyebrows raised—‘is also pretty tricky, when you want to write a sentence in dialogue with simultaneous action.’

There we are then! Those are your basics of the most common scenarios for punctuating dialogue. There are more nuances, caveats, and rules you can break, but nail these first before you go on to becoming a dialogue punctuation aficionado.

And finally, if punctuating dialogue makes you want to punch a wall, then don’t worry about it too much. Focus on what you want your characters or speakers to say before you worry about the punctuation. That’s exactly what editors and proofreaders are for!