Gonna be honest, me from a few years ago could've really used it. If I still had my old stories I would show y'all so y'all could have examples from actual writing instead of random sentences, but I reread them a couple months ago and they were so bad that I got rid of them. Just know that my old stories were bad. But that's a rant for another day. 

Today we're talking about dialogue! There might be a part two because I'm like 90% sure I'm forgetting some of the topics I want to discuss, but we'll worry about that later.

Before I start though, I had a few points on punctuation that I completely forgot to mention. Whoopsies.

Colons: <— those bad boys. Use these at the beginning of a header, like I just did. It's also used kind of as an announcement. I know that sounds weird hold on lemme get an example. It's kind of like you're presenting something. Ex:

Here's the deal: we've got two corpses in the backyard, and Mickey's been distracting the police for two hours.

Semicolons: starts sweating I've always hated these and you will not ever see me use them in writing. I vaguely know what they do but I'm always scared of messing them up so I just never use them. Not saying that's what y'all should do. Basically, these guys (;) are a combination of a colon and a comma, and they connect two sentences that relate to each other. E- examp-le...

I have a big test tomorrow; I can't go out tonight. 

Yes I googled that. But you see how the sentences relate? They can't go out tonight because of a test, but the writer phrased it as two sentences. 

Also: After using an exclamation point, question mark, colon, semicolon, period, comma, or any other form of punctuation, there should be a space. Fun little story: Young Pancake didn't know this, and when she figured it out she had to spend two hours fixing punctuation :DDDDDDDDD

I'd like to note that there is not a space after an apostrophe. Ex:

Yesterday, I went to the park. I didn't want to go alone, so I brought Bob with me.

There's a space after the comma, period, and second comma, but no space after the apostrophe in 'didn't'.

There is an exception to this rule, though. When ending a set of dialogue, you do not put a space between the punctuation and the quotes... I feel like I'm forgetting the word for it. " <— That thing. The thing you use when indicating someone is speaking. Aren't they called quotation- oh quotation marks. No commas between punctuation and quotation marks.

Ex: "Here's Johnny," Suzy said.

No space between the comma and the quotation mark.

Okay so dialogue! I actually just learned about this a few days ago after months of trying (and failing) to figure out the pattern. You see, sometimes you end a phrase in dialogue with a period, and other times a comma. (Note: Yes, the other types of punctuation are obviously used in dialogue. I'm just focusing on these two because a lot of people, like me, mess them up). 

A comma is used when the person is saying something. Ex: 

"Sally saw seashells at the sea shore," Timmy said. 

"Stay out of this," Jeremy hissed.

"Look who decided to show up," Chloe muttered.

A period is used when the phrase is followed by an action. Ex:

"Alright, I better go." Olivia stood up to leave.

"Ready or not, here I come." The seeker began scouting potential hiding places.

Wanna know when this gets fun? When you have dialogue, sentence, dialogue.

You use a comma when separating one sentence by an action. I believe the dialogue tag (said, muttered, whispered, etc) still has to be present, but I'm not entirely sure. Ex: 

"So," she said, giving him a blank stare, "you want us to run down the neighborhood and steal everyone's mail?"

You use a period when separating two sentences by an action. I believe the dialogue tag is omitted in this case. Ex: 

"You just kicked a puppy." He whipped around in a blaze of fury. "I'm not helping you."

Okay, so here's  another note. I do this a lot in my writing, especially once I learned about patterns and rhythm and stuff. Break up how you use dialogue. Like sentence structures, you don't want to be repetitive. So, what I do is sometimes I put the dialogue first and then the sentence, and sometimes I put the sentence first instead of the dialogue. Ex:

"Martin you really need to stop." Gregory leaned against a wall.

Gregory leaned against a wall. "Martin you really need to stop."

Same sentence, just switching the order.

Yet another note: A lot of English teachers teach kiddos that 'said is dead'. What do they mean by this? They mean don't use said in your writing, and want you to opt to muttered, murmured, exclaimed, etc. Ignore them. Said is very much alive.

You see, it takes away the power of the descriptive dialogue tags. By all means, still use murmured, muttered, or whatever you want to use, but don't forget about the original: said. That way when you do use the describing ones, they hit harder. The reader won't be expecting them. You just hit them with a curveball, and most of the time that's a good thing. However, this is a widely debated thing, so if you truly hate said, then use whatever you want. In my writing I try to use said more than I use the descriptive dialogue tags.

Huh... maybe I did hit all my points. We'll find out later if, at 3 am, I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about quotation marks.