When to Use a Quotation Mark at the End of a Paragraph

When a character’s dialogue continues in a new paragraph, no quotation mark is needed at the end of the paragraph until that character finishes speaking. That’s because a closing quotation mark signals that the character is done speaking and that if there is an opening quotation mark at the beginning of the next paragraph that a different character is speaking.

So, if you wrote:

The mirth faded from Koder’s face. “My apologies for not meeting you at the station. 

“It’s very difficult for me to get away.”

“Luftwaffe officers held a gun on me,” Niels said. “A Gestapo agent was there, and–”

This tells the reader that the “It’s very difficult for me to get away.” is spoken by Koder not Niels.

But if you wrote:

The mirth faded from Koder’s face. “My apologies for not meeting you at the station.” 

“It’s very difficult for me to get away.”

“Luftwaffe officers held a gun on me,” Niels said. “A Gestapo agent was there, and–”

​This signals that a different character – neither Koder nor Niels – spoke the line “It’s very difficult for me to get away.”

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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