Here are a couple of dialog rants. There is some repetition, and parts could use a re-write. I just copied them from the forum thread.

Dialog -- the unnecessary speed-bump and the odd skid:

Separating the "he-said" part of a senrence in dialog by using a period at the end of the part in quotes and capitalizing the following "he" or "she", is a very common and annoying error. The exception to that is when a question mark or exclamation point is used. But in that case, the "final" punctuation mark still does not end the sentence. It is less clear when a name follows the quote, but a close look will tell whether or not it is a he-said.

Sometimes MSWord is partly to blame. If you end a quote with a period (or ? or !), whether on purpose or accidentally, the next part will be "corrected" by the officious word processor. It is not always a good idea to let your software be too helpful!

The other side of this coin is the run-on speech sentence, the exact opposite of the speed-bump. The quote should end a sentence, but it is left open with a comma when the next phrase is not a "he-said" but a separate sentence.

Neither of those sentences contains a proper "he-said", so they should be divided. This is where the period and following capital are appropriate. I've seen some much longer examples.

Using a non-speech word for a he-said is another issue. Can a person grin a vocal statement? Nod spoken words? Laugh a couple of sentences (understandably)? Is head-shaking a way of speaking words? Ehhh.... Watch what you're saying.

A he-said can come before a quote too:

Note the comma before the quotes. The spoken sentence is capitalized because it is a complete sentence. A broken quote is another matter. If the he-said is injected into the middle of the spoken material -- perfectly legal if not overdone and useful if you are introducing a new speaker -- the sentence may continue on both "sides":

Hope you're not too confused now.

It is hard to see small errors and potential misunderstandings in your own writing. You know what you mean to say, and your knowledge colors what you see. Someone else approaches the same words from a very different viewpoint. That's why it's a good idea to have someone read over your work before you call it finished.

Say What?

Nothing puts life into the characters -- and the whole scene -- like dialog. Or dialogue, if you like the longer spelling. It has its own rules and pitfalls too.

Some things to think of when characters have a conversation are:

1. It should be believable. People should speak naturally and in character, and because they have a reason to. (They can't step in to explain things for you.)

2. We the readers need to know who is talking. Much of the time a "he-said" takes care of that. However, it can be annoying to have to hop over "he said, she declared, he exclaimed, she stated, he said, she said, he averred" constantly when there are only two people talking and we know darned well who is saying what. So, here's a bit of a breakdown of the "he-said" aspect:

2A. Always use a "he-said" when introducing a new voice to the conversation, or make it clear in some other way who is speaking. Also, try not to introduce the speaker at the end of the speech. We don't want to read on thinking "Why is X saying this," or "Who T. F. is saying this," and suddenly find out after a 300-word spiel that it was Z or Y talking.

2B. Don't use a lot of "he-saids" that aren't needed! Never use two in the same paragraph.

2C. Try not to push the variations too hard. Plain vanilla "he said" goes unnoticed if not overused. Dredging the thesaurus for clever substitutes can make them too obvious. You want to attract attention to the picture, not the frame.

Now -- how to avoid a "he-said":

If a character is acting and speaking, let the action show who's talking. If Mary stomps into the room with an angry glare and demands to know where her lamb is, you don't have to tack "Mary demanded" or any such thing onto the end of her statement. We know who's yelling at the three people sitting at the table eating lamb stew.

Action and description will relieve you of a lot of extra work and words that you might otherwise use to dress up speech. If Jack is scuffing his heels, walking head down up the hill with Jill, you don't have to say that he spoke of the waterbucket "glumly."

A rapid interchange between two characters can go said-less for a few paragraphs at a time. Here's a little example that has a bit of everything:

"I wish they hadn't done it," Mary mumbled.

"What?" Jack looked up from coiling the rope.

"Ate my lamb."

"Oh, for crying out loud, ask Bo-Peep for another. She's got plenty."

"They're not my lambie-pie!"

"What was so special about the stupid thing?--AHHH!"

Jill contemplated her sopping wet brother, shaking her head sadly as he groped to get the bucket off his. "Jack, you are such an ass."