Prose checks › Dialogue quotes Pro

Prose check: dialogue quotes“Double” or ‘single’? Pick one.

US books mostly use double quotation marks for dialogue, UK books often single. Either is fine. Falcontext finds the lines that use the other kind.

In Falcontext’s Edit tab, Dialogue quotes is one part of Punctuation consistency, with curly or straight quotes, dashes and ellipses. Each part has its own light, and the worst sets the check’s.

Which quotation marks are right for dialogue?

Both are right. A book with both isn’t.

Mixed“We leave at dawn,” Mara said.
‘Sold,’ she said. ‘All of them.’

One kind“We leave at dawn,” Mara said.
“Sold,” she said. “All of them.”

Usually it’s a scene written somewhere else and pasted in.

Guidelines, not rules. Single or double is your call. Mixing them is the only thing it minds.

Finds

Lines of dialogue in the other kind of quotation marks from the rest of the book.

Traffic light

Fix

Fix turns a line’s quotation marks into the book’s kind. Not in the desktop app, where you change them by hand.

Single or double is a style-sheet choice, checked in pass 5 of the self-editing guide along with names, spelling and dashes.

Single or double, in your books?

Either: double is usual in the US, single is common in the UK. Use one kind throughout; Falcontext flags lines that use the other.

Those use the other kind on purpose (“She said ‘no’”). This check looks at which marks your dialogue opens and closes with.

Set a goal, open your draft and let the checks look over your shoulder.

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