![]() ![]() Therefore, the dialogue tag needs to reflect exactly what the character is saying and doing. Example:Ī character can’t say something at the exact same time as smiling or sighing or yawning or coughing. Similarly, verbs should not be used as dialogue tags. “Would you recognise the man again?” DCI Smith looked up from her notepad. “Would you recognise the man again?” DCI Smith asked, looking up from her notepad and waiting for a response. ![]() ‘shouted’ / ‘shouts’ or ‘whispered’ / ‘whispers’.Ī dialogue tag is not necessarily needed if a character performs an action as well as/just after speaking. ‘Said’ / ‘asked’ or ‘says’ / ‘asks’ (depending on the tense you are writing in) is clear enough, unless you are describing how a character is speaking e.g. It’s just not necessary to use ‘uttered’, ‘verbalised’ or ‘commented’ instead. Including a wide variety of synonyms for ‘said’.Using ‘they’ if you’ve only used ‘he’ or ‘she’ previously, unless your characters are speaking (or perhaps singing) in unison.Using ‘said’ or ‘asked’ (or sometimes ‘replied’) with a character’s name (or a pronoun e.g. “I think it’s time we had a chat,” she said. Use a dialogue tag when a character has spoken. In which case, a full stop would be added at the end as it’s a full sentence. Without a dialogue tag, the sentence would simply be: Therefore, a full stop is not used within the character’s speech when a dialogue tag is added, but a comma is needed. Here, the character’s speech plus the dialogue tag creates one full sentence altogether, so the full stop goes at the end. Without the question the sentence would be: ![]() Where is everyone? I need them here,” Jones said. In that case, a dialogue tag would be needed: If a character’s speech is more than one sentence and their following words don’t need a question mark or an exclamation mark, a comma should always be used directly before the closing speech mark(s). However, a full stop would then be needed at the end:
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