Dialogue and its Punctuation

This seems to be a common issue for me as well. Grammarly tends to mess these rules up or, at the very least, can't identify some of these errors. It can be a toxic partner sometimes. Don't let Grammarly gaslight you, folks! You're not insane.

These basic grammatical rules will make your dialogue flow better when read and prevent confusion by making who is speaking and what is being said clear.

Dialogues are always enclosed in quotation marks (“”) when it is spoken.

Single quotation marks (‘’) are usually used to quote something.

E.g.: Mike muttered under his breath, "'Go to the ball,' she said. 'Have fun,' she said."

Thought dialogue is expressed in italics. (I’ve seen some authors use single quotation marks for it as well.)

E.g.: I’m going to the ball, she thought.

Commas separate dialogue tags from the dialogue they follow. Unless the speaker is asking a question or shouting, in which case a Question Mark (?) or Exclamation Mark (!) should be used respectively instead.

E.g.: “I'm going to the ball,” she said.

When the dialogue follows the dialogue tag, the comma is placed after the tag.

E.g.: She said, “I’m going to the ball.”

Periods are used instead of commas only when the dialogue isn’t followed by a dialogue tag to end the sentence.

E.g.: “I’m going to the ball.”

Dialogue tags should start with a capital when they start a sentence (see fourth example above), but not when they follow dialogue, unless they begin with a proper noun or “I”.

E.g.: “Go to the ball!” he yelled.

E.g.: “Are you going to the ball?” Mike asked.

If your character is monologuing across several paragraphs, the end quotation mark is omitted after every paragraph until they’re finished talking.

E.g.: “I’m going to the ball,” she said, excitedly. “Mike asked me to the ball! We’re going to have so much fun. Dancing and drinking!

“Holy Moly! What am I going to wear? I don’t have a dress!”