Surround your dialogue with quotation marks and end it with a comma before the last quotation mark. End with the dialogue tag to identify the speaker.

“This is my favorite dress,” said Sally.

“I put your keys on top of the dresser,” Mark insisted.

When you have a new speaker, you should create a new paragraph line.

“This is my favorite dress,” said Sally.

“It looks terrible on you,” said Mark.

When your sentence ends with a dialogue tag, use a comma inside the quotation marks. When you are not using dialogue tags, you’ll want to put the period inside the quotation marks as well.

Mark walked across the room to the corner dresser. “I swear I put your keys here.”

“I love this dress,” said Sally. “I’m going to wear it everywhere. I’m not just going to wear it to the wedding; I’m going to wear it to the grocery store, the library, and the pancake dinner.”

“I love this dress,” said Sally, carefully taking it out of the closet.

“I think it’s hideous,” said Mark, wondering why on earth she would want to wear something that reminded him of pea soup. “You do realize it’s the same color as pea soup, don’t you?”

In this instance, we DO use a comma, because it separates the dialogue tag from the action. In this case, Sally is doing a physical action as she takes the dress from the closet. Mark’s action is not a physical action, as we use the word wondering – however it still counts as an action all the same.

Both the dialogue tag and the action can come before the dialogue. In this case, you simply end the dialogue with a period, and use a comma after the dialogue tag.

Mark whispered, “I love you even if you are wearing an ugly dress.”

Looking into his eyes, Sally said, “Thank you for understanding.”

When you have a character who is speaking a lot, it is okay if you need to use multiple paragraphs. Simply omit the end quotation mark at the end of the first paragraph and begin the second paragraph with a quotation mark.

This can sometimes be confusing to readers, but there are times when it is appropriate.

“Listen, I have a lot to say about why I love this dress.” Sally straightened her posture. “This dress was my grandmother’s dress. She wore it when she first came to this country in 1936. She had nothing – no money, no food – but she had this dress.

“That’s where I am today. I have nothing. Nothing! No job, no money, no car. I have this dress. It worked for my grandmother, maybe it will work for me, too.

“I’m wearing this dress, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Again, sometimes it is better to break up your dialogue with different speakers or to add action – but it’s not always necessary. Largely a lot of this will depend on your own unique type of writing style and what your goals are as a writer.

Sally cried, “Why can’t you understand my love for this dress?”