Knowing where to put quotation marks is essential to writing. Correctly writing dialogue is also essential.
(1) Do NOT write your dialogue with no quotation marks.
-Example
Wrong:-Hey, I said.
-How are you? he replied.
Right: "Hey," I said.
"How are you?" he replied.
Writing your dialogue the first way can easily confuse your audience. It turns away a lot of readers, regardless of how good the plot is. You MUST use quotation marks when writing dialogue.
(2) Know where to put the quotation marks.
-Example
Wrong: "Wait up! he said."
Wrong (2): How "are you?"
Right: "Wait up!" he said.
Right (2): "How are you?"
Don't put your speaker tag inside quotation marks. Stop the dialogue first by closing the quotation marks and then tag the speaker.
(3) Don't put a character's thoughts in quotation marks.
There are several ways to correctly write a character's inner thoughts. (') is used. Or, putting the thoughts into italics. However, using quotation marks is not how to write it correctly. (Side note: ['] is different than ["])
-Example
Wrong: "I wish she would stop talking."
Wrong (2): "She's stunning," I thought.
Right: 'I wish she would stop talking.'
Right (2): She's stunning, I thought.
Personally, I prefer using italics for a character's inner thoughts because it's easy to distinguish between the inner thoughts and dialogue. I've seen people use both ways, though, so either is fine. Quotation marks ("), however, is strictly for dialogue.
(4) Air quotes when talking!
If you've watched Friends, you know that using air quotes correctly is hard, but it can be extremely confusing in writing.
-Example
Wrong: "I guess I could "sleep" over."
Right: "I guess I could 'sleep' over."
Here's where we see the (') at play again. You don't want to put the air quotes in actual quotation marks because that could make it seem like you're ending the dialogue in the middle of the sentence.
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THIS IS NOT MEANT TO OFFEND ANYONE OR SINGLE AN AUTHOR OUT. THIS BOOK IS MEANT TO BE HELPFUL AND I AM REALLY SORRY IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY IT. I AM NOT AN ENGLISH TEACHER, I JUST HAVE HAD REALLY GOOD ONES IN THE PAST WHO HAVE TAUGHT ME THESE THINGS. IF YOU SEE ANYTHING WRONG, PLEASE POINT IT OUT AND I WILL DO SOME RESEARCH ON IT/CORRECT IT IF NEED BE.
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How to Improve Your Writing
Non-FictionSome things that will be in this book: Grammar, dialogue, character, plot and how to avoid being too cliché advice. This is a book to help improve your writing. Some mistakes can turn readers away from reading your book, which means that your book...
