Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

It seems that the more current fiction I read these days the more dialogue I am seeing in the text.  As a matter of fact, most novels written today are heavy on the dialogue and lighter on the long paragraphs of detailed description.

Dialogue is a tool used to further the action, to give us a sense of characterization and to ultimately drive the story along.

The problem is that some indie writers either do not understand the rules for writing dialogue or want to make up their own.  The only writer ever to change the conventions of dialogue in prose was James Joyce (indicating dialogue with dashes) and even he followed the following rules.

Do’s:

1. Proper Quotation Marks – Dialogue is set off with quotation marks (“), not single marks, unless the character speaking is quoting someone else.
2. Punctuation – If the sentence of dialogue is divided by a descriptor…