Writing dialogue in fiction or fanfiction is fun. Crafting realistic, engaging dialogue can bring characters and stories to life, but if you’re like me, you might forget to format it correctly while you’re on a writing roll. Oops. But if you want to edit your dialogue with confidence, there’s a solution!
tl;dr: I'm also a software developer and I created a dialogue editing tool that flags all mistakes for me. But we'll talk about it at the end!
First of all, what the f*** is a dialogue tag? A dialogue tag is a verb that signals speech. Like "said", "yelled", "cried" etc. There are different schools of thought about using dialogue tags. Some recommend sticking to “said” for clarity, but - I'll be honest - it's kinda boring to me. I tried it for a while, but I feel like I can never convey what I want. It makes my fanfiction feel bland, like I forgot to add the salt to my pasta.
Let me give you a real example from my fic:
(disclaimer: I am a much better web developer than I am a writer... please bear with me lol)
“What are we doing here?” Said Emily. Crowley looked at her as she looked around. “Is this New Mexico?”
“I need your help with something, Sheep.” Crowley said.
“Stop calling me that,” Emily said.
“I have a business matter to attend to, and I need you to stand guard.”
“S- What business? And why-” Emily looked around, a car pulling into a driveway. “What the hell is going on?”
You’ll notice it gets repetitive using only “said” and doesn’t provide much context about what’s happening. That’s why mixing in other dialogue tags and action beats can elevate your story and make dialogue editing more seasoned. Like you actually did remember the salt.
But one step at the time. I'll highlight all the dialogue tags here.
“What are we doing here?” Said Emily. Crowley looked at her as she looked around. “Is this New Mexico?”
“I need your help with something, Sheep.” Crowley said.
“Stop calling me that,” Emily said.
“I have a business matter to attend to, and I need you to stand guard.”
“S- What business? And why-” Emily looked around, a car pulling into a driveway. “What the hell is going on?”
Now. I don't know about you - and maybe I'm just a terrible writer, idk - but it sounds repetitve. And boring. Also, it says nothing about what's going on.
This is where all the other dialogue tags come in place. This kind of dialogue editing makes your fanfiction or novel easier to follow and more enjoyable for your audience.
“What are we doing here?” Asked Emily. Crowley looked at her as she looked around. “Is this New Mexico?”
“I need your help with something, Sheep.” Crowley answered.
“Stop calling me that,” Emily complained.
“I have a business matter to attend to, and I need you to stand guard.”
“S- What business? And why-” Emily looked around, a car pulling into a driveway. “What the hell is going on?”
Now, there's a lot more than should be fixed: the scene is currently playing in a big empty white box until New Mexico in mentioned; some formatting is also wrong, but that is for another part of the article. However, without doing much and without losing too many words in describing expressions, tone and other things, we've now made the text:
- less repetitive
- more conveying of what's going on
Now that we know what a dialogue tag is, let's talk formatting.
There are a few important rules to follow when formatting dialogue tags for fiction or fanfiction, but one is the main one.
If you're going to use a dialogue tag, that dialogue tag is a continuation of the direct speech. In other words: the "Emily said" part is in the same phrase as the direct speech. By this logic,
“What are we doing here?” Asked Emily.
...is wrong. "Asked" should not be capitalized, as it is still part of the same phrase as the direct speech. It should be:
“What are we doing here?” asked Emily.
This works if the phrase ends in an exclamation mark, question mark, ellipses, comma, but not a full stop. Why?
Direct speech, if followed by a dialogue tag, never ends in a full stop.
By this rule, this is wrong:
“I need your help with something, Sheep.” Crowley answered.
and should be:
“I need your help with something, Sheep,” Crowley answered.
However, things change if the direct speech is NOT followed by a dialogue tag, but by something like an action tag.
Okay... what is an action tag?
Everything else that is not a dialogue tag. What characters do, how they react, where they go...
Here...
“S- What business?” She looked around, a car pulling into a driveway. “What the hell is going on?”
"looked around" is an action tag, so it is fine for the "She" to be capitalized. The direct speech ends with the question mark.
So, here is a...
Quick Editing Checklist for Dialogue (Fanfiction & Novels)
- Comma with No Dialogue Tag
✅ "Hello,"; Sam said
❌ "Hello," Sam walked away - Capital After Comma
✅ 'Hello,' she said
❌ 'Hello,' She said - Lowercase After Full Stop
✅ 'Hello.' She turned away
❌ 'Hello.' she turned away - No Dialogue Tag After Punctuation
✅ 'Are you okay?' he asked
❌ 'Are you okay?' he ran - Capital After Punctuation
✅ 'Really?' said Kevin
❌ 'Really?' Said Kevin
That is way, way to much stuff...
Don't worry, it's all in the practice. But also, as I said in the beginning, I'm here to help you edit your fanfiction!
I'm a developer, and I built a thing that helps me to follow all these rules.
It's called the dialogue thing and it's completely free! (yep, for real)
It helps you find all these mistakes around your text, but doesn't fix them for you.
It also finds adverbs, but that's a convo for another article.
It does all this with...
- No AI (we don't like AI putting its nose in creative stuff around here)
- No tracking (I do not collect ANY data, in NO way)
- No word limit (but it might be a bit slow if you try to edit, say, 100k words. Works fine until 30k)
If you arrived here you might be wondering... how do you make money from this? There has to be a sort of gimmick. The answer is:
I don't.
I didn't make this to make money. I made this because I NEEDED IT!
For this reason, you can choose (I repeat, choose) to donate on my kofi page that you will find on the tool itself.
Conclusion
Mastering dialogue editing is crucial for any writer who wants to create nice looking fiction or fanfiction. By following this essential dialogue tag rules, and harnessing other tools like The Dialogue Thing, you can make your dialogue more dynamic and your fanfic stand out.