Quotation marks are used to indicate direct quotations and dialogue. Multiple paragraphs of dialogue Dialogue may stretch across paragraphs without pause. See the three most common considerations below. Multiple Paragraphs in a Single Instance of Dialogue I was reading a short story at an online literary magazine, here ... anyway. When quoting several paragraphs of dialogue that aren't interrupted by the author or another speaker, put an opening quotation mark at the beginning of each paragraph and just one closing quotation mark at the end of the last paragraph. Page contents: direct speech and reproduced text titles of short works definitions irony, scorn and jargon Punctuate dialogue that carries over into multiple paragraphs. … Commas go in particular places, as do terminal marks such as periods and question marks. Only what is spoken is within the quotation marks. Single marks are generally preferred in British English, while double marks are obligatory in American English. If the dialogue continues at the start of the next paragraph, that next paragraph should commence with opening quotation marks. Maci explained what happened. Dialogue should end with a paragraph via closing quotation marks. To punctuate, put a terminal punctuation—period, question mark, or exclamation point— at the end of the first paragraph. Multi-Paragraph Dialogue. And that’s really just fine. Inserting an opening quote mark at the beginning of paragraphs 19, 20, 21, and 22 fixed this, but it reminded me of just how much and how often this point of punctuation gives fiction writers grief, including those who get published a lot. How you punctuate quoted dialogue from a novel will depend on what you are quoting and how you are quoting it. Begin the next paragraph with an opening quotation mark. Before I go to far I’ll agree up front that the usage of dropping the closing quotation mark in a multi-paragraph quotation that is a common things. Quotation marks, also known as quotes, quote marks, speech marks, inverted commas, or talking marks, are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase.The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the same character. Grammar: Quotation Marks [‘ ’] or [“ ”] Quotation marks (or inverted commas) may be used singly or doubly. Sometimes, a character may speak for multiple paragraphs without stopping. Dialogue h as its own rules for punctuation. To indicate this through correct punctuation, you should open the quote for the first paragraph, write down what the character says, and end the paragraph with either a period, a question, or an exclamation mark. I’m currently involved in a very heated discussion on a forum for writers about an odd US use of quotation marks in story telling dialogues. Note that I am referring to paragraphs, not “lines.” The proper way to punctuate your example would be as follows: “None of them had a patient of my husband’s description. There is no closing quotation mark at the end of this paragraph. I have read many, MANY books in which dialogue is presented without quotation marks (double or single), properly placed commas, paragraph breaks, or even dialogue tags. It would follow, then, that they are not used to punctuate indirect quotations (including the recounting of dialogue). To indicate that we are still dealing with quoted material rather than the narrator’s prose, quotation marks are placed at the beginning of the second paragraph. The PDF Punctuation in Dialogue ($0.99) and The Magic of Fiction (available in paperback and PDF) both contain expanded and updated versions of this material..