On Formatting Dialogue
More so this reading period than in the past, I’ve been seeing more submissions in the After Happy Hour slush pile that make use of alternate approaches to formatting dialogue. This tracks with what I’ve read in other literary journals in recent months. It seems like ditching the quotation marks is on-trend right now—and there’s nothing wrong with doing that, in a general sense, but I’m not sure everyone who’s making this shift is doing so with a reason. I like it when it works, but a lot of the stories I’ve read, it feels like more of a distraction.
When a reader sees quotation marks they know exactly what this means, even if the writer hasn’t attached a dialogue tag to it: someone is speaking aloud. It’s an easy shorthand. Readers don’t have that same implicit understanding of other formatting approaches. You can teach the reader the conventions of your story quickly, but it’s still going to stand out for them as different from the norm. This means it takes a bit more mental effort to read the story—and, even if just at a subconscious level, the reader wants to feel like there’s a payoff for that extra effort, and a clear reason why the author made that formatting choice.
There are stories in which the traditional quotation mark approach to dialogue just doesn’t feel like a good fit for reasons of voice, tone, or POV. Different dialogue formatting styles also read differently on the page, and writers might choose a non-standard one to change how the reader engages with the text. The important thing is to have a reason for varying from the norm—beyond just “I thought it looked cooler this way.”
Aside from lines in quotation marks (“Hi!” they said.) there are 3 main ways I’ve seen dialogue treated in modern fiction:
In italics (Hi! they said.)
Marked by dashes (– Hi! – they said) or a single dash (– Hi! they said)
No visual cues (Hi! they said)
The dash approach is common in Spanish, and I’ve seen it more in English-language texts from outside the US. The other two approaches are less geographically bound and more genre-aligned. I would say in general italics or unmarked dialogue are most common in literary fiction and relatively rare in genres like sci-fi and fantasy. When I have scene it in a speculative story, it’s usually one that would be described as “literary speculative”.
This still leaves the question: how should a writer decide which dialogue formatting style to use when? Here are my thoughts on the matter.
Advantages of non-standard dialogue formatting
Quotation marks are a visually disruptive piece of punctuation. They stand out and make it immediately clear that what comes in between them is separate from what’s around it. That isn’t always what you want as a writer. Sometimes, it’s better for the voice if direct quotes blend in a bit more with what’s around them. For instance, if you’re going for a more oral storytelling, tall tale kind of vibe, then having the dialogue flow more seamlessly into the narration can reinforce that.
There are other voices where this may be more appropriate, as well. Writers utilizing stream-of-consciousness may find quotation marks clunky and disruptive, while a less intrusive formatting option lets thoughts and speech blur together. The same goes for those writing in non-traditional forms, like epistolary fiction, or those using a voice that’s more lyrical or poetic. Omitting the quotation marks opens up more opportunities for ambiguity and can reinforce a dream-like atmosphere, or one that is very tightly bound to a first-person perspective, putting less division between the things the character thinks and what they say.
Disadvantages of ditching quotation marks for dialogue
There’s one big downside to using other formatting approaches, and it’ll sound real familiar: it’s not as immediately clear which lines are narration and which are speech. Of the three alternatives listed above, dashes give the most clarity in this regard—but even there, an em-dash can be used to punctuate other things, too, so it’s not immediately obvious what the writer means just from the punctuation.
Italics can be confusing, too, because they’re not only used for dialogue. Some writers use italics for internal thoughts, or to add emphasis to specific words, or for things that are written in-world, for instance if there are conversations in text or email. Even if you don’t employ italics for these other uses within your story, readers will often have works that do as a frame of reference, so you can’t expect them to assume italics mean speech without other clues.
Granted, it is still very possible to fully clarify when someone is speaking in other ways. There’s never confusion about what is dialogue in Cormac McCarthy books, for instance, because he’s on-point with dialogue tags and gives characters a distinctive voice. His books also aren’t dialogue-heavy, and have a lyrical quality that makes the unmarked dialogue feel natural.
Even so, one thing you won’t find often in Cormac McCarthy books are fast-paced, back-and-forth conversations—the kind where other writers will have just the lines of dialogue in quotation marks, without a “they said” or equivalent paired to each one. The “they said” becomes more necessary without the quotation marks, and this can slow the pace of quick conversations.
My verdict: Default to quotation marks
My general feeling on formatting dialogue is that writers should stick with quotation marks unless they have a good reason not to. I think a lot of writers try alternate dialogue approaches because they feel it makes their work look more “serious” or “literary” (or because they just read James Joyce and are having feels about it). To me, that’s not a good enough reason, especially if you don’t alter other things about the story.
Changing from quotation marks to other approaches isn’t as simple as just deleting punctuation—you also need to make sure it’s clear who is saying what when you need it to be. Ambiguity can be productive but confusion isn’t, and it’s critical for writers to understand the difference between the two.
I do want to say—I’ve read a lot of stories that use other approaches to formatting dialogue, and I’ve used all four of the styles I talk about here at various points in my own work. There are definitely stories where italics or unmarked dialogue are the best choice. These are most likely to be works that fit into those categories mentioned earlier—those in an oral storytelling style, a very tight 1st-person POV, stream-of-consciousness narratives, lyrical and poetic voices, or stories where blurring the boundaries between internal thoughts and external dialogue reinforces the atmosphere.
My point here isn’t to deter writers from using these approaches. When you do, though, you need to remember that it will stand out to readers, and it could prove a distraction if that choice doesn’t feel like it otherwise fits the story and voice.
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