The things your characters do are what make up your storyline. But it is often what your characters say that allows your reader to understand and sympathize with them. The conversations your characters have are called dialogue. The word dialogue comes from the Greek word meaning "to converse."
When writing dialogue, be sure to set it apart from the narrative part of your story, which is written in paragraph form. To show readers that a dialogue is beginning, start each new conversation as a separate paragraph, and also start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes. Set each character's words inside quotation marks, and use a dialogue tag to identify the speaker. A dialogue tag can be as simple as "she said," or as complex as a sentence that gives an indication of what the speaker is doing.
Can you find the dialogue tag in each of the examples below? Click on the example to check your answer.
| Character's Complete Dialogue Sentence | Dialogue Tag | Comments |
| "I thought you were going to the movies tonight," Zadi said. | Zadi said | Notice that a comma is used to separate the dialogue from the tag. |
| "I changed my mind," Keri replied. "Is that a problem?" | Keri replied | Here the tag is placed within the line of dialogue, separating the speaker's two complete thoughts. The first part of the speaker's line is separated from the tag with a comma. |
| Zadi looked surprised. "Not at all, but I thought you were looking forward to it." | Zadi looked surprised. | The introductory sentence is not connected to the dialogue, but it still lets us know who is talking. |
| "I was." Keri dug her fork into her piece of pie. "Things changed." | Keri dug her fork into her piece of pie. | Here the dialogue tag appears between two lines of dialogue and is not connected to either, but the action tells us who is talking--and how. |
Question
Why are dialogue tags necessary?
