You are too kind, Jerold, and I am thrilled that you are happy to share this article.

You sound like me in that a lot of my grammar and punctuation must have been learned through reading osmosis (or maybe back in the dark ages that taught that kind of thing in school and I actually remembered some of it).

My clients often struggle with dialogue formatting because there are so many different situations to consider, so hopefully having the information in one place will help many.

Happy writing.

I’m glad to say I already do the many things you explain here, although I’m not sure when and where I actually learned them. Much like my vocabulary, I don’t know how many of the rarely spoken words I recall just pop into my head when needed.

However, within critique groups I attend, one or two have questioned me on my placement of punctuation in my dialogue, and I’ve always assured them these were the accepted proper practices. Now, I’m saving a link to your article on my cellphone, so I can email it to them. However, I feel it’s a good read even for those like myself who may get it right, but appreciate the sound affirmation.

Thank you!

Hi Jean,
You're not alone in dialogue tags giving you grief. The most common issue is knowing whether to join them to tags with a comma or full stop.

You are most welcome to link back to this article, and drop me a line if you ever get stuck with a tricky dialogue dilemma, on social media or my website @Fearlessprose

Thanks for reading.

I love lots of dialogue in stories, Eamon.

I'm glad this article was helpful. Keep it bookmarked and you can always refer back to it, and if you ever get stuck with anything, I'm always happy to help via a message on social media or my website @FearlessProse.

Do you mind if I link to this article from my blog?

Glad you found this information useful, Kris.

I love to bookmark handy articles too. It's easy to think we have something down pat ... until we go to apply it in our stories, and need a refresher.

You are lucky, Denise. I'm not sure if they still teach them or if people forget over time, but they don't come easy to many writers.