Edit dialogue with confidence
This self-paced short course teaches editors, proofreaders and writers how to punctuate dialogue in a novel according to publishing-industry conventions.
The learning includes a suite of downloadable practice questions and model answers so that you can test what you’ve learned.
After completing this course, you'll understand:
- the relevance of style
- the concept of the dialogue recipe.
You'll also know how to use punctuation to:
- indicate speech
- express interruptions and cut-offs
- show pauses and trailing-off speech
- convey that characters are talking over each other
- punctuate tagged speech
- punctuate ‘said’ and other tags
- punctuate broken-into dialogue
- work with direct address
- indicate faltering speech
- fix comma splices, early stops and false tags
- assess the suitability of semi-colons in dialogue.
Course curriculum
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1Learning outcomes
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2Webinar: How to punctuate dialogue
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3Test yourself
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4More information and support
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5Coupons and discounts
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6Music credits