Writing Tagging in dialogue

[Ohohoho]

I'll be brief.

Correct:

"This is good," said Dumbledore. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

Incorrect:

"This is good." said Dumbledore. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

"This is good." He said. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

"This is good," Said Dumbledore. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

OR if periods/full stops turn you on so much you can't write anything without them, use action tags instead.

Correct:

"This is good." Dumbledore smiled/danced/picked his nose/twerked. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

Incorrect:

"This is good," he smiled/danced/picked his nose/twerked. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

"This is good," He smiled/danced/picked his nose/twerked. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

Said tags (said, shouted, whispered, thought, and others) should go with a comma. Unless your sentence ends with "!" or "?" of course.

Action tags (laughed, punched, he bought time as he gathered his mana) should go with a period/full stop.

There's no explanation for it, this is just how it is (or there is! I don't know. Someone teach me, please).

 

[LilRora]

I'm not an expert so maybe I'm mistaken, but I'm pretty sure it comes from the fact that an action tag interrupts the speech.

So for example this:

"This is good." Dumbledore smiled/danced/picked his nose/twerked. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

Means that he said the first part of the sentence, then did something, then said the next thing. It does NOT mean he was smiling when he said it.

This:

"This is good," said Dumbledore. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

Meanwhile means that there was no interruption in the speech; the narrative insert is there to inform the reader who is speaking, but if you were making a movie or something based on that fragment, it would just be one sentence without any noticeable interruption.

There is also the third option, which I'm fairly sure would look like this:

"This is good," said Dumbledore, smiling/said Dumbledore with a smile. "Ten points for Gryffindor!"

You have the same word there, but it's not an action (more like a state, I think) and it does not interrupt his words, instead giving additional detail about his speech.

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

Dumbledore said.
This is a sentence fragment. What did Dumbledore say?
Dumbledore smiled.
This is a complete thought. Dumbledore (the noun) completed an action (smiling).
I made a thread about tags that I'm to lazy to link.

 

[greyblob]

looks solid.

 

[Corty]

Dumbledore said.
This is a sentence fragment. What did Dumbledore say?
Dumbledore smiled.
This is a complete thought. Dumbledore (the noun) completed an action (smiling).
I made a thread about tags that I'm to lazy to link.

https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/dialogue-tags.14261/