Guide
How to Format Dialogue in a Novel
The ten rules publishers follow, each with a right and a wrong example, one scene that shows them all, the US and UK differences, and how to set text messages in a book. Every rule is cited to the Chicago Manual of Style, Purdue’s writing lab, the MLA, or a university grammar guide.
By Corey Jackson, developer of Lacuna
Reviewed by Melissa Erin Jackson, author of 15 self-published books
Updated October 5, 2026 · Read about us
The short answer
Put the spoken words in quotation marks, the punctuation inside them, and start a new paragraph for each new speaker.
- A comma before a tag, a period when there is none: “Come in,” she said.
- After a question mark or exclamation point, the tag stays lowercase
- An action beat is its own sentence: She smiled. “Come in.”
- One style of quotation marks for the whole book
The rules, with examples
US style in the examples unless marked; the UK differences are in rule ten. Numbers point to the sources at the foot of the page.
Comma before a tag, period when there is none12
A tag continues the sentence, so the line ends with a comma inside the quotes and the tag stays lowercase. With no tag, the line ends with a period inside the quotes.
Right
“That’s the attic done,” she said. “Not everything.” Nora lifted out a shoebox.
Wrong
“That’s the attic done.” She said. “That’s the attic done”, she said.
Question marks and exclamation points replace the comma, and the tag stays lowercase12
The mark belongs to the spoken words, so it goes inside the quotes, and the tag is still part of the same sentence.
Right
“Is it even locked?” Nora asked. “Open it!” Nora said.
Wrong
“Is it even locked?” She asked. “Open it!,” Nora said.
Action beats are sentences5
A beat is an action in place of a tag. It takes a period and a capital letter, and the speech on either side of it is a separate sentence. Smiling, shrugging, and laughing are actions, not ways of speaking.
Right
June turned the box over. “I guess we wait.”
Wrong
June turned the box over, “I guess we wait.” “I guess we wait,” she shrugged.
An em dash for an interruption, an ellipsis for trailing off81
Cut off: an em dash inside the closing quote, nothing else. Trailing off: an ellipsis, with no punctuation after it. An action that breaks into the speech goes between dashes outside the quotes. Use all of them sparingly.
Right
“She kept your letters—” “Don’t.” “I guess we wait . . .”
Wrong
“She kept your letters—,” Nora said. “I guess we wait . . .,” she said.
A long speech opens quotes on every paragraph and closes only at the end95
When one speaker runs over several paragraphs, each paragraph begins with an opening quotation mark; the closing mark comes only after the last word of the last paragraph. The missing closing mark tells the reader the same person is still talking.
Right
“The letters are all from the year you left. “She never opened one.”
Wrong
“The letters are all from the year you left.” “She never opened one.”
Thoughts: quotation marks, plain text, or italics, one way for the whole book105
Chicago allows thoughts in quotation marks or without them, and italics are the other common choice. Punctuate a thought tag the way you would a speech tag, and keep one treatment from the first chapter to the last.
Right
That’s four years from now, she thought. “That’s four years from now,” she thought.
Wrong
Italics for her thoughts in chapter one, quotation marks in chapter nine.
US and UK punctuation differ on one point24
In US style commas and periods always go inside the closing quote. In UK style they go inside only when they belong to the quoted words, and outside when they belong to the sentence around them. Colons and semicolons go outside in both.
Right
US: Dad wrote “open in 2030,” and he meant it. UK: Dad wrote ‘open in 2030’, and he meant it.
Wrong
US: Dad wrote “open in 2030”, and he meant it.
One scene, every rule
The rules above, all at work in eight short paragraphs. Each number marks a line and the rule it follows.
Nora set the last box on the kitchen table. “That’s the attic done,”1 she said.
“Already?”2 June looked up from the drawer of recipe cards. “Mom kept everything up there.”
“Not everything.” Nora lifted out a shoebox tied with string. “She kept your letters—”3
“Don’t.”4
Nora slid the box across anyway. “Dad wrote ‘open in 2030’5 on the lid.”
June turned it over in her hands. That’s four years from now,6 she thought. “I guess we wait . . .”7
“Is it even locked?” Nora asked.8
“I was never good at waiting”—June lifted the lid an inch—“and neither was she.”9
- 1A comma inside the closing quote, then the tag, outside and lowercase. Rule 2
- 2An action beat after the line: a new sentence, with a capital. Rule 5
- 3Cut off: an em dash inside the quote, and nothing after it. Rule 6
- 4A new speaker gets a new paragraph, even for one word. Rule 4
- 5A quotation inside speech takes single marks. Rule 9
- 6A thought in italics, punctuated like speech. Rule 8
- 7Trailing off: an ellipsis, and no period after it. Rule 6
- 8A question mark replaces the comma, and the tag stays lowercase. Rule 3
- 9An action breaking into the speech: dashes outside the quotes. Rule 6
Common dialogue mistakes
Each one breaks a rule above. The number points to the source that says so.
A blank line between paragraphs of dialogue. Speech takes the same first-line indent as narrative, with no space between.13
Capitalizing the tag after a question mark: “Is it locked?” She asked. The tag is still part of the sentence.1
A comma before an action beat: She sighed, “Fine.” A beat is a sentence of its own.5
Tags that are not speech: “Here it is,” he smiled. You cannot smile a word. He smiled. “Here it is.”5
Switching between double and single quotation marks part way through.1
A new paragraph every time the same speaker starts a new line, which looks like a change of speaker.1
Writing dialogue that reads well
Formatting makes dialogue correct. These five habits make it worth formatting.
Said is enough
Readers skip “said”. They trip over “exclaimed”, “opined”, and “queried”. Use said and asked, and drop the tag whenever the paragraph break already tells us who is speaking.
Cut the small talk
Greetings, goodbyes, and “how are you” are real speech but dead on the page. Start a scene of dialogue in its second minute and leave before the last.
Let people not answer
Characters who answer the question they were asked sound like a transcript. A reply that dodges, misunderstands, or changes the subject is where a scene gets its life.
Beats show, tags tell
A character turning the cup in her hands says more than “she said nervously”. One beat per exchange is plenty; one on every line is a tic.
Read it aloud
If you run out of breath, the line is too long. If you cannot tell who is speaking, the paragraphing or the tags are wrong. Nothing finds dialogue problems faster.
Text messages, emails, and letters in a novel
Nobody is speaking aloud, so the quotation-mark rules only half apply. Here is what Chicago says, and how it looks on the page.
The conventions11
Treat a text, an email, or a letter as a quotation: run it in with quotation marks, or set it off as a block.
Fiction often sets it in italics, bold, or a different font, so the reader sees at a glance that nobody is speaking aloud.
For a text exchange, stagger the indents or use left and right bubbles for incoming and outgoing messages.
Whichever you choose, it has to survive the ebook, where the reader picks the type size and the lines reflow. Spaces and tabs that line up on your screen will not line up on a Kindle.
June left the box with Nora after all. A week later, on a Sunday night, Nora’s phone lit up.
Read 9:41 PM
Text conversations in Lacuna
- 1Select the paragraphs and press Ctrl+Shift+T (Cmd+Shift+T on a Mac). Each paragraph becomes a bubble.
- 2Paste a script such as “June: Did you open it?” and Lacuna offers to turn the names into name bubbles.
- 3Receiver bubbles sit on the left, sender bubbles on the right. Click a message to switch its side, reorder it, or remove it.
- 4Add a delivery status (Sending, Delivered, Read, or Failed) or a timestamp in 12- or 24-hour time.
- 5Set each side’s colors, the corner radius, and where the names sit, then save the look as a preset for each character.
- 6The bubbles come out in both the print PDF and the EPUB.
What formatting software does with dialogue
The punctuation is yours. The look of the page is the software’s.
Curly quotes
Lacuna turns straight quotes curly as you type. Its Convert Straight Quotes to Smart Quotes command fixes a whole imported manuscript at once, and points the apostrophe in ’tis and ’90s the right way.
Indents and spacing from the style
Every paragraph, dialogue included, gets the same first-line indent and no blank line between, because the chosen style sets it for the whole book. Chapter-opening paragraphs lose the indent on their own.
Click either screenshot to see it full size.
Lacuna is book formatting software for Windows, Mac, and Linux that you can also write in. Import the manuscript or draft in it, pick one of 32 pre-made styles, and export the print PDF, the EPUB, and a DOCX from one project. The trial is free with no time limit and every feature on; the one thing payment unlocks is generating the final files, so you can see every page of dialogue typeset before you spend $149, one time.
What authors are saying
Real authors. Real books. Formatted with Lacuna.
I’m a cover designer and interior formatter by profession and run my own small publishing press, so trust me when I say I’m picky and my standards are high. InDesign has always been the only program that formats for print with the level of customization I need. For years, I’ve used it for print and another program entirely for ebooks to get the results I wanted. When I saw Lacuna, I immediately went to check it out and within an hour from having downloaded the trial, I was hooked.
This gives me so much more freedom with print options than other formatting programs like Atticus or Vellum while still making ebooks a breeze. The ability to work from one file and have separate print and ebook settings is a complete gamechanger. I’m still learning my way around the program and loving every second.
JJ Carpenter
The Haunting of Kenmore Asylum
I originally checked out Lacuna because somebody in a KDP publishing group I belong to asked if anyone had tried Lacuna out yet. I published nine other books using a different formatter, but I wasn’t happy with it. I ended up taking a look at Lacuna even though I was pretty much sold on Atticus or Vellum. Once I started diving into Lacuna and saw the ease of use and flexibility, I was absolutely floored. It was a no-brainer, and I purchased Lacuna. Since then the program has only improved. Corey is amazing at fixing things and streamlining processes.
If you take a look at the book that I formatted with Lacuna you will see, it would be pretty difficult to do something like that with one of those other formatting programs. Plus they cost more. In my opinion Lacuna is already the best formatter on the market and only getting better. Thanks, Corey and Melissa, for making this available.
NextGen Victory Press
3-Minute Wrestling Devotionals for Rising Athletes
I tried numerous formatting methods and followed endless instructions from publishing websites, but nothing ever turned out right. Since finding Lacuna, everything has changed. I’ve been able to update all my manuscripts effortlessly and give them the professional look they deserve.
Lacuna helped me perfect one of my most cherished stories, The Magic Globe, and finally present it exactly as I envisioned. It’s truly been a game changer for my author journey.
Samuel Graham Astley
The Magic Globe
Dialogue formatting questions
What writers ask once the conversation is written and the punctuation starts to matter.
Sources
- Formatting dialogue: basic rules, University of Hull library: quotation marks, a new paragraph per speaker, commas with tags, lowercase tags after ? and !, ellipses. Checked 2026-10-05.
- More quotation mark rules, Purdue OWL: commas and periods inside, colons and semicolons outside, question marks and exclamation points by sense. Checked 2026-10-05.
- Extended rules for using quotation marks, Purdue OWL: single quotation marks for a quotation within a quotation. Checked 2026-10-05.
- Quotation marks: American vs. British, The Editor’s Manual: single versus double, punctuation placement in each. Checked 2026-10-05.
- How to punctuate dialogue in fiction, The Editor’s Manual: action tags take a period, smiling is not speaking, thoughts in quotation marks or not, running quotations. Checked 2026-10-05.
- Quotations and dialogue, The Chicago Manual of Style Q&A: “it’s traditional to start a new paragraph with each new speaker”. Checked 2026-10-05.
- When characters speak: formatting dialogue, CMOS Shop Talk: a new paragraph per speaker helps readers keep track without repeating tags. Checked 2026-10-05.
- Prose, interrupted: signaling breaks in dialogue, CMOS Shop Talk: an em dash for an interruption, an ellipsis for trailing off, dashes outside the quotes for an interrupting action. Checked 2026-10-05.
- Speech over more than one paragraph, MLA Style Center: an opening quotation mark on each paragraph, a closing one only at the end. Checked 2026-10-05.
- Formatting thoughts in fiction, CMOS Shop Talk: thoughts in quotation marks or not, italics as the other convention. Checked 2026-10-05.
- Formatting text messages in fiction, CMOS Shop Talk: run in or set off as a block, italics or another font, staggered indents or bubbles. Checked 2026-10-05.
- MLA formatting quotations, Purdue OWL: block quotations over four lines, indented 1/2 inch, no quotation marks. Checked 2026-10-05.
- Format front matter, body matter, and back matter, KDP: “Sequential paragraphs are always indented with no spaces between paragraphs”. Checked 2026-10-05.
See your dialogue on a typeset page
Download Lacuna free, import your manuscript, and read every conversation with book indents, curly quotes, and running heads. Pay $149 only when you are ready to export.
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