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Q&A The difference between two speech formats

I am conflicted about which one is appropriate for a story, or whether it makes a difference at all. A few years ago, god knows where, I've seen speech that was formatted like so: —Hello. - Tom...

2 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by D. Tunus‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:57:39Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/20509
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar D. Tunus‭ · 2019-12-08T04:57:39Z (over 4 years ago)
I am conflicted about which one is appropriate for a story, or whether it makes a difference at all. A few years ago, god knows where, I've seen speech that was formatted like so:

> —Hello. - Tom said.

and a more common form which is found in a lot of books:

> "Hello," Tom said.

Does it make a difference, whatever one I use?

EDIT: I don't know how this displays since I am using my phone, but the first speech format was supposed to have a dash at the front in case it is replaced on your screen with a dot.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2016-01-18T22:15:20Z (over 8 years ago)
Original score: 0