Lorna Izoma
When I was younger, I wrote my conversations like this:
Tunde: The sky is dark, and it seems it will rain.
Sadiat: Yes, I think it will.
I know right, so embarrassing😭
Writing a dialogue requires the use of quotation marks, and this can be quite challenging.
But, understanding them and how they work, make your stories look more professional.
Let’s learn together shall we:
Quotation marks come before and after a character starts and stops speaking.
Example 1:
Tolu stared at the river and said, "someone is calling me from the river."
If you notice, before I started with the quotation marks, I used a comma.
If the words are spoken after the sentence starts, there must be a comma before the quotation.
However, this differs when it is at the beginning of the sentence.
Example 2:
"Please, tell me he is lying," she begged with tears in her eyes.
Here, the quotation starts at the beginning of the sentence, but when the spoken words were finished, there was an end quotation mark, and a comma.
The comes comes before the end quotation.
This indicates the end of the spoken words.
Let's look into something else:
Quotation marks and other punctuations.
Apart from commas, quotation marks work with other punctuations as well.
Example 3:
“How dare you speak to me that way?”
Here, the question mark comes before the quotation, not after.
The question is part of the spoken word, so the quotation is after the question.
Same with exclamation marks.
Remember, quotation marks indicate that a words are being spoken.
Example 4:
Her voice rose with her anger, “shut up!”
See how pretty and arranged that looks?🥰
That’s how your stories should look when you write, not like what I wrote when I was younger abeg.
Please don't write like younger me o😭
Your storyline can be lovely, but if your punctuations are not punctuating, it becomes an eyesore.
Let us all learn together so we write better.
And follow me if you learnt something from this article, I will defintely follow back❤️
#creaitzxwazoplus #contentwritingprogram