Speech marks Punctuation is used in direct speech to separate spoken words, or dialogue, from the rest of a story. The words spoken by a character sit inside speech marks: “Did you hear that noise?” whispered Sam. Speech marks are sometimes known as inverted commas or quotation marks.

In indirect speech, no inverted commas (speech marks) are used. The actual words of the speaker are often changed. The spoken words need to be in the correct tense, extra words may need to be added and pronouns may need to be changed (e.g. I  Iggy).

Learn

1. Start with ‘Dear Diary’.
2. Describe the places where the events happened.
3. Write in the past tense.
4. Use pronouns like I, my and me to show that the events happened to you.
5. Talk about how you were feeling or what you were thinking when each event happened.

Open quotation marks are used at the beginning of each paragraph to indicate to the reader that the character is still speaking. The closing quotation mark is only used at the end of the spoken dialogue. Things get a little tricky when quoted material is used within quoted material.

The general rules of direct speech are:

• Each new character’s speech starts on a new line.
• Speech is opened with speech marks.
• Each line of speech starts with a capital.
• The line of speech ends with a comma, exclamation mark or question mark.
• A reporting clause is used at the end (said Jane, shouted Paul, replied Mum).

In American English (AmE), commas and full stops (periods) go inside the quotation marks even when the quoted material is part of a larger sentence.

The full stop should be placed before the closing quotation mark when the sentence quoted is a full grammatical sentence, i.e a sentence that can stand on its own and is complete.

We use quotation marks to show (or mark) the beginning and end of a word or phrase that is somehow special or comes from outside the text that we are writing. Quotation marks can be double (“…”) or single (‘…’) – that is really a matter of style (but see below for more about this).

When there is a new speaker, the speech starts on a new line. Speech is always started with a capital letter, even when it comes after the reporting clause (see example 4). Indirect speech is used when we tell someone the gist of what was said, without writing out the comment in full.

Consider the three main ways you can start a new paragraph and add interest to your content.

1. Starting With Adverbs. Too many adverbs in a sentence leads to hyperbole problems.
2. Using Words That Aren’t ‘However’ ‘However’ is a very useful word.
3. Relying On Dependent Clauses.

If you’re writing fiction, you may style a character’s thoughts in italics or quotation marks. Using italics has the advantage of distinguishing thoughts from speech.

The definition of thought is the act of thinking, or the outcome of mental activity. An example of thought is to be deeply concentrating on how to figure out a problem. An example of thought is an idea on how to solve a problem.

In the first-person narrative, everything you write is straight out of the main character’s brain. You don’t need to clarify the character’s thoughts by placing them in italics or qualifying them with an “I thought” tag.

You must have a reason for writing in the second person — and it must involve the reader’s experience.

1. Avoid too much repetition where possible.
2. Set it in the present tense.
3. Consider using it sparingly.
4. Choose a form that makes sense.
5. Test the waters with a short story.

In third-person point of view, the author is narrating a story about the characters, referring to them by name, or using the third-person pronouns “he,” “she,” and “they.” The other points of view in writing are first person and second person.

A rare form of the first person is the first person omniscient, in which the narrator is a character in the story, but also knows the thoughts and feelings of all the other characters. It can seem like third person omniscient at times.

Sometimes, third-person omniscient point of view will include the narrator telling the story from multiple characters’ perspectives. Popular examples of third-person omniscient point of view are Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, and The Scarlet Letter.