Unlock the Secret Tricks Behind Perfect Dialogue Punctuation That Every Fiction Writer Must Master!
Dialogue Tags are verbs that describe the act of speaking. Because they are part of the same sentence as the dialogue, the first word of the tag is lowercase (unless it is a proper noun).
- Correct: “It’s raining,” she sighed.
Action Beats are descriptions of a character’s movements. These are separate sentences. They do not describe how the words were spoken, but rather what the character was doing at the time.
- Correct: “It’s raining.” She stared out the window.
Mixing these up (e.g., “It’s raining,” she stared out the window) is a common grammatical error known as a “tagging comma splice.”
