I've actually seen it done a verity of ways, and am never sure if one is correct and the others not. No one seems to have an answer for me. Also I wondered if the rules might differ based on country. In England some of the rules for spelling and grammar are different, I wondered if this was one of those cases.

If you want to do convincing dialogue, you just have to eavesdrop a lot and listen to how people communicate with each other -- how to do they try to impress, how they try to brag or downplay, how they try to connect, etc.

It's a process...

No no no. lol. I meant grammatically. What's the proper format?

Originally Posted by sarofset

No no no. lol. I meant grammatically. What's the proper format?

There are grammar books out there like the Gregg Reference Manual, and there are online sites for that...

Yes. They tend to have varying formats. I was wondering if there was one which was considered more correct than the others.

Originally Posted by sarofset

Yes. They tend to have varying formats. I was wondering if there was one which was considered more correct than the others.

If you were writing non-fiction for a news outlet, you would just go to the stylebook the publication adheres to like AP or the Chicago Manual of Style...

Even as often as I read, I've only seen one way for punctuating dialogue:

"This is a line of dialogue," he said. "If my action is to be described after the dialogue, there is a comma instead of a period." He clasped his hands behind his back and paced the room. "Also, the word 'he' is in lowercase. Is this example clear enough?" he asked.

The only thing I've seen people argue about in regards to dialogue is when to start a new line. You always want to start a new line when someone new begins speaking, but some people would say that you always start a new line when you start a new line of dialogue. Such as:

She sat in the chair quietly, contemplating this new information.

"What do you think, sir?" she asked.

Personally, I would leave that line of dialogue in the same line as the action (She sat in the chair quietly, contemplating this new information. "What do you think, sir?" she asked.) but some people would disagree with me.

This looks like a page with some good basic information. Fiction Factor - Basics: Dialogue As for style varying by country, the only difference I've seen is North America uses double quotes for dialogue (") and the UK uses single quotes (').

Stormrose Dewleaf: I love you for writing that example. For some reason, it made my day xD.

Starting a new paragraph when the same person is speaking is purely up to the writer. Both ways are grammatically correct.
However, if you want the speaker to start a new paragraph, you would punctuate like this:

"This is my first paragraph. This paragraph begins normally and opens with quotation marks. You should pretend I'm saying a lot more than I actually am, because I really don't know what to type. I am going to begin the second paragraph now.
"This is my second paragraph. What do you think? I did not end the first paragraph with quotation marks, but this paragraph starts and will end with quotation marks. If I wanted to add a third paragraph, this paragraph would be written the same way as the first paragraph."

@attoliasthief xD Thanks. I do that any time I have to explain dialogue to people because it just seems to make it easier.

I completely forgot about multiple paragraphs with the same speaker! It's great for long dialogue, like when the speaker is telling a story to someone.

Thank you guys that was actually very helpful. :)