The Grammar of Dialogue

(Original authors unknown, amalgamated from multiple memes and social media posts.)

“This is dialogue,” he said.

She whispered, “This is also dialogue.”

“Here is dialogue that got interrup–”

“This,” she added, “is a bit of dialogue split by a dialogue tag.”

“Here’s a complete sentence,” he said. “And this is a new sentence.”

“Here is some dialogue followed by an action.” She shrugged. “Now it’s a new sentence because the action separates the two parts of speech.”

“This is your daily, friendly reminder to use commas instead of periods during the dialogue of your story,” she said with a smile.

“Unless you’re following the dialogue with an action and not a dialogue tag.” He took a deep breath & sat back down after making the clarifying statement.

“However,” she added, shifting in her seat, “it’s appropriate to use a comma if there’s action in the middle of a sentence.”

“True.” She glanced at the others. “You can also end with a period if you include an action between two separate statements.”

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