—PAGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION—

Here we have an area with more pitfalls than a Monday morning parade. There are commas, and full stops. There are also ‘single quotation marks’, “double quotation marks”, exclamation marks! question marks? and on it goes. I prefer to use “double quotation”, but a lot of people now use ‘single’.

It’s up to you, and many people find single quotes easier to use.

The important thing in the early stages of your writing is not to be too concerned about getting it all right first time. That’s why you have a stage later called editing, where you revise and change.

I found that the easiest way to get my head around dialogue was to remember the basic rules.

1. Dialogue means speech, so you must use quotes (‘single’ or “double” is up to you).

2. Dialogue should be started as a new paragraph.

3. Only one person can speak at a time, therefore, each person joining the conversation will have a new paragraph. You’ll also see that the paragraphs are indented, so they start in a little from the margin.

Here is an example of dialogue in a short passage:

Our instructor was Cpl Flanagan, who looked around, grinning. “If it’s a loose fit, the respirator will allow gas to get in.”

A glance at my peers assured me I wasn’t the only one in the room trying to stop the blood flowing through their face. I had the straps so tight it hurt my entire head.

“If the respirator is too tight,” Cpl Flanagan continued. “It can also allow gas to get in.”

“Jesus Christ, how do you judge it?” A muffled response from one of our number.

A wide grin was our instructor’s response.

Bastard. I fucking hated him.

“You’ll all get a chance to check the fitting,” Cpl Flanagan said. “We’ll be doing a training session in which I’ll introduce chlorobenzylidene malononitrile.” He paused and smiled as he looked at our baffled expressions. “It’s sometimes referred to as ‘tear-gas’, but the proper abbreviation is CS-gas.”

Yes, I thought, that makes it all sound much better—I don’t fucking think.

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