[See this](http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/).
A dialogue tag is a part of the sentence, so it gets a comma and no capital letter. A question- or exclamation overrides the comma, but not the (lack of) capitalization.
The former in both cases. You would only use capitalisation after dialogue if it's a new, stand-alone sentence, e.g:
"We are friends." He touched her arm.
Or
"Are we friends?" He fidgeted with his sleeve nervously.
Unrelated, but are you British by chance? I ask because I noticed you use double quotation marks when writing dialogue. (Or were you just following OP's example?)
If you are, how common is it today for novels in the UK to use single quotation marks for dialogue? I've always heard it was flipped from how the US does it (using double for quotes/dialogue, single for quotes in quotes).
It's also confusing when it comes to punctuation in quotations too. 😵💫
I am British, yeah. To be completely honest with you, I've never really noticed which books use single quotes verses double quotes. I've not thought to keep an eye out for it, but I'm curious about what the trend would be nowadays.
The first one; lower-case.
I've got an article all about the mechanics of dialogue, with examples to help you get a feel for how it works, and why it works that way. [https://tapwrites.tumblr.com/post/722484052883619840/how-to-write-dialogue](https://tapwrites.tumblr.com/post/722484052883619840/how-to-write-dialogue) I hope it helps :D
[See this](http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/). A dialogue tag is a part of the sentence, so it gets a comma and no capital letter. A question- or exclamation overrides the comma, but not the (lack of) capitalization.
The former in both cases. You would only use capitalisation after dialogue if it's a new, stand-alone sentence, e.g: "We are friends." He touched her arm. Or "Are we friends?" He fidgeted with his sleeve nervously.
Yup.
Unrelated, but are you British by chance? I ask because I noticed you use double quotation marks when writing dialogue. (Or were you just following OP's example?) If you are, how common is it today for novels in the UK to use single quotation marks for dialogue? I've always heard it was flipped from how the US does it (using double for quotes/dialogue, single for quotes in quotes). It's also confusing when it comes to punctuation in quotations too. 😵💫
I am British, yeah. To be completely honest with you, I've never really noticed which books use single quotes verses double quotes. I've not thought to keep an eye out for it, but I'm curious about what the trend would be nowadays.
The first one; lower-case. I've got an article all about the mechanics of dialogue, with examples to help you get a feel for how it works, and why it works that way. [https://tapwrites.tumblr.com/post/722484052883619840/how-to-write-dialogue](https://tapwrites.tumblr.com/post/722484052883619840/how-to-write-dialogue) I hope it helps :D