Dialogue

[Matt9537]

Okay, I'm new here But I've been writing and reviewing stories for some time and one Thing that I always see when reading someone's work is this:

"Hello," he said, "how are you?"

I always say they are wrong and it should in fact be:

"Hello," he said. "How are you?"

But due to the fact that lots of people do the first rather than the later...even many experienced writers...I am curious....which is right?

[ellanovella]

When a dialogue tag (i.e. the "he said" part of the sentence) appears in the middle of a person's speech and the two parts of dialogue would be part of the same sentence without the dialogue tag, the first word of the second section of dialogue shouldn’t be capitalized, and it should always follow a comma.

For Example:
“A dialogue tag,” he said, “can appear within a line of dialogue.”


However, if the two sections of dialogue would be separate sentences without the dialogue tag, the first word of the second section of dialogue should always be capitalized.

For Example:
"Dialogue tags can be anywhere in a sentence,” he noted. “Some come before dialogue, some can be in the middle, and what's left follows.”
"Dialogue tags can be anywhere in a sentence,” he noted, elaborating by saying, “Some come before dialogue, some can be in the middle, and what's left follows.”

[Slayer]

Originally Posted by Matt9537

Okay, I'm new here But I've been writing and reviewing stories for some time and one Thing that I always see when reading someone's work is this:

"Hello," he said, "how are you?"

I always say they are wrong and it should in fact be:

"Hello," he said. "How are you?"

But due to the fact that lots of people do the first rather than the later...even many experienced writers...I am curious....which is right?

MS Word drives me crazy because it screws those rules up automatically.