Dialogue tags are a world of their own. When do you use a comma, and when a period? And why the heck is the question mark in the middle of the sentence, instead of at the end? And when don’t you use tags at all? And when are they just an adverbial abuse? The best way I can think of to demonstrate tags is to give examples.

Good: The Captain said: “We depart in an hour.”

“We depart in an hour,” said the Captain.

“We depart in an hour,” said the Captain, his eyes narrowing in the bright sun.

The Captain narrowed his eyes. “We depart in an hour.”

“When do we depart?” asked the Captain.

“When do we depart,” asked the Captain.

(that’s right, this is not a mistake, there is no question mark because we have the word asked in the sentence. This used to be a mistake, but the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition, has declared this now acceptable. Good luck finding an editor that will allow it, though.)

Bad:

“We depart in an hour,” said the Captain, slowly.

(bad because there is an adverb in the tag, it’s sloppy, lazy, and yucky)

Good:

The Captain spoke slow and deliberate. “We depart in an hour.”

“We depart in an hour,” said the Captain, speaking slow and deliberate.

Horrible:

“The ice is frozen,” said the Captain, icily.

Good.

“I finished the book,” he said.

“We drove to town,” she said.

He said: “We drove to town.”

“Did you drive to town?” she asked.

“Did you drive to town?” he asked, tapping his fingers on the table.

He replied: “Yes, we drove to town.”

These are all basic examples. Notice I use the word said. It’s okay to use the word said. You don’t need to abuse adverbs by tossing in all kinds of crazy things.

Not only BAD, but ABSURD:

“We leave in an hour,” growled the Captain.

“We leave in an hour,” hissed the Captain.

“We leave in an hour,” laughed the Captain.

Feel free to expand on this.

Great post, although I don't entirely agree. I would never use a colon like this example - He replied: “Yes, we drove to town.”

If it's a question, it always gets a question mark, regardless of what comes next. - “When do we depart?” asked the Captain.

Lastly, the Captain can say it how he wishes. I don't think they are absurd, just could be better.

TheBryster posted at 9:40PM Sat, 30 January 2016 - #4252252

Great post, although I don't entirely agree. I would never use a colon like this example - He replied: “Yes, we drove to town.”

If it's a question, it always gets a question mark, regardless of what comes next. - “When do we depart?” asked the Captain.

Lastly, the Captain can say it how he wishes. I don't think they are absurd, just could be better.

Using the colon is British English, check out Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, for an example of the usage.

Like I said, the question mark was made optional in the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition. (which is the standard editors use, however, many editors are fighting this particular point. I personally agree with the CMS, as the question mark becomes redundant when the word 'asked' is used, but I won't use it in my books. I'll wait until the dust settles and we see where the language shift settles)

The reason the last three are absurd is because, you can't growl a sentence, you can't hiss a sentence, you can't laugh a sentence, you can't bark a sentence, and so on. And most important, by using those words, you are telling, not showing.

Some excellent markers from Wolfenshire... A couple of pointers I would like to add:

In conversation, when changing from one speaker to another, always begin a new paragraph. Following this rule allows the author to omit many of the dialogue tags in a conversation between two characters with just the occasional one to keep the reader on track.

Following on from this and something I struggled to find a rule for. During a long length of monologue, how to split the speech into paragraphs without the reader assuming the new paragraph indicated a change of character. The accepted standard: Begin the speech with the quotation marks as normal. At the end of the paragraph, no closing quote mark. At the start of the new paragraph, opening quote to show dialogue continues and the same for any additional paragraphs. Final paragraph to end with quote as normal. Example:

Character A said, "I start with Yakkity yakkity yakkity yakkity yak.

"Rhubarb rhubarb hubarb prunes and custard.

"And this is where I end my speech." Note placing of quotes " and " )

Finally, in the abused dialogue tag section of your post, you missed out everyone's favourite. "What the hell!" he ejaculated.

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you have a sample in literature of this usage? If you want to have hard line breaks for something like a quoted poem, it would look like this:

"Roses are red

Violates are blue

I know I'm meant

To be with you."

wolfenshire posted at 9:55AM Mon, 08 February 2016 - #4253778

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you have a sample in literature of this usage? If you want to have hard line breaks for something like a quoted poem, it would look like this:

"Roses are red

Violates are blue

I know I'm meant

To be with you."

I've never had cause to consider poetry in this situation. I think, if I had a character quoting poetry, I would write:

Clasping her hand, he gazed into her eyes and whispered, " Roses are red, violets are blue. I know I'm meant to be with you."

Perhaps this link will explain better than I am able. http://thewritepractice.com/how-you-break-up-long-dialogue-like-agatha-christie/

Ah, I see where you are coming from now. Agatha Christie and her special punctuation. She isn't the first to re-write the grammar book. I think she made up those quote rules because she broke the rule about dialogue and needed a way to punctuate it. Or maybe some clever editor taught her to do that. As long as everyone understands that it is not standard grammar. But, I won't say it's wrong, I've seen plenty of made up grammar. Just read any literature from the Victorian age. Every single author made up their own grammar usage.

My personal pet peeve about altering grammar is Stephen King declaring a ban on all adverbs in literature. And the crazy part is everyone followed along just because he said so.

I think the one rule to stick with when you do it is: Stay consistent with the usage through the entire book.

Thanks for bringing this up. Good stuff.

I want to show this thread to my wife... She speaks without commas and periods.

She will literally be talking to three different people about three different things and I'll never know who she is talking to or when I'm being included or asked something... I once went out in the yard and peed on a tree because she didn't pause while interjecting a comment to our dog in the middle of "stuff we need to do latter".

But I'm terrible at proper sentence structure, punctuation and grammar... I blame it all on a tragic misinterpretation of an explanation of Mark Twain's methods... That and none of my English teachers ever appreciated anything I ever wrote and would write all sorts of unkind comments in red ink, all over my papers. It caused me to reject conventional methods of writing in favor of bewildering the reader with hyperbolic sentences, pseudo-gramma and anti-punctuation.

Please do not judge me harshly. I do not do it to antagonize real writers, nor to make a statement... I do it to make people appreciate real writing. That, and I'm lazy.

I suppose you could judge me harshly for that part.

I never fully understood Steven King's ban on adverbs... Mainly, because I always confuse him with Dean Koontz or the toe fungus monster from the Lamisil commercials... But I did make a few bucks smuggling adverbs down from Canada when the commotion first started.

The problem with adverbs is you have to get them neutered before you start out on your journey, or they will breed like crazy and overrun your stolen taco vending van in just a matter of hours... Let me tell you, trying to get past the Candian border guards with adverbs spilling out of every gap and rust hole, is no easy task.

It's not hard, but not easy... I'd say it's more or less "sorta hard" and a bit "sorta easy".

My adverb smuggling days are behind me now... Mostly because they eventually overbred and turned to cannibalism and nobody really wanted to buy ragged, scarred up, parasite infested cannibalistic adverbs. I kept a few for myself and neutered them with a copy of "Proper Grammar for Morons". They now live happily in a deep pit in the back of my yard, where I occasionally throw a goat or small pig into to keep them fed.

@McGyver

You know, you can shear those adverbs once a year and make a beautiful dangling participle coat and matching splint infinitive gloves.