 Hello everyone, this is Mr. P. On today's lesson, we're going to learn how to write a dialogue. Yes, step-by-step guideline. So let's get started. First off, let's answer this question. Why is dialogue important in a story? To develop your characters. To move your story plot forward. To establish the backstory. To reveal important details in your story. To create relationships with characters. To establish the mood. And finally to set an atmosphere for each scene. All dialogue should pass the following criteria. It must move the story forward. It should reveal relevant information about the character. It must help the reader understand the relationship between the characters. If your dialogue doesn't accomplish all of the above, it is a waste of words. One of the best ways to learn if your dialogue sounds realistic is by asking yourself the following questions. Would someone actually say this in real life? Does it move the plot forward or develop a character? Do you pause in certain areas where you haven't written comments? Now we're going to look at the rules to format dialogues. Rule number one. Enclose the spoken words with double quotation marks. Like in these examples. I love it when that happens. He is so unprofessional. Mary makes a lot of money in her job. Tom is always looking after his daughter. Notice how the period goes before the quotation marks. The quotation marks are highlighted in yellow. Rule number two. Capitalize the first word in a sentence, as it's the first thing they spoke. She finally demanded, give me my pen back, will you? She huffed. Well, that's just great, isn't it? So you may notice the first word is in capital letter. So rule number three. Dialogue tags. The he, asked, she, asked portions. Stay outside the quotes and get separated by a comma. Jeff said, comma, I'll never go there ever again. Another example. Stop that noise, comma, demand the Steve. You're making me nervous. When dialogue ends, in a question or exclamation mark, tags that follow start in a lower case. What's your problem? He asked. Notice there is no comma here. Some examples of dialogue tags are he said, they responded, she whispered, he snipped, they bellowed, she huffed, she argued, they demanded, he could, he hallowed, etc. Notice the comma right after the main verb, and the verbs are all in the past simple tense. Rule number four. Actions that occur before or after the dialogue go in a separate sentence. For example, if Mary screamed and then spoke, you must write it this way. Mary screamed, period, oh no. On the other hand, if Mary screamed out the words, use a comma instead of a period. So that is all part of the same sentence. Mary screamed, comma, oh no. Rule number five. Pantuation goes inside the quotes. Like in this example, Mary covered her mouth, oh no. She looked like she has seen a ghost. Did you see that? On the first example, we have an exclamation mark and it's inside the quotation marks. On the second example, we have a question mark and it goes before the quotation mark. If the dialogue ends with an ellipsis, do not add a comma or any other pantuation. Like in this example, she stared at the horizon. I guess you'll go back home and I will. Ellipsis? Her voice drifted off. So you can see the ellipsis is inside the quotation marks. Let's talk about rule number six. If you have to quote something within the dialogue, use single quotation marks. Like in this example, John laughed and pointed at him. When that ghost jumped out and said boo, you screamed like a little girl. So you have boo right here is one single quotation mark, boo, right? So quotation mark, boo, exclamation mark, quotation mark. Rule number seven. Start a new paragraph every time you change speakers. If the speaker performs actions linked to the dialogue, keep everything in the same paragraph. It is easy to lose track of the character that's speaking. A new paragraph helps readers by signaling a change. Like in this example. Did he hit you? Sue asked, looking at the cut on Sophia's arm. No, I hurt myself. She made up the story. I fell. So here you may notice that we changed speaker twice. So we have to indent every line. By this, we help the reader understand who's speaking. Rule number eight. If an action interrupts a sentence in a dialogue, use lower case in the first letter of the second fragment, like in this example. I know he lowered his voice to a whisper. What do you said? So you can see the break in two fragments and the second fragment is in lower case. What? Rule number nine. If the same speaker talks long enough to require a new paragraph, place opening quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph. However, closing quotation marks are placed only at the end of the final paragraph. Tom explained the details, quotation marks. Then there is a break, another paragraph with quotation marks. So we didn't close the quotation marks. And at the end of that paragraph, we closed his dialogue with a quotation mark. So that's it for today. If you have any questions about dialogues, please post your question below this video. If you haven't subscribed to my channel, I suggest you do. If you like the lesson, please hit on the like button. And then if you want to share the lesson, you may. Until next time, take care. Bye bye.