Colons and Dialogues

Colons are commonly seen in dialogues within news stories, but they are never seen in fiction writing because colons hinder the flow of reading.

Take for example the following dialogue in a newspaper:

A witness of the accident, Howart Steward, 47, said:

"The boy was running across the road while the traffic light was still red."

In fiction writing, the example above will have to be reworded to exclude the colon, and this may be done in several ways. For example:

"The boy was running across the road while the traffic light was still red," Howart Steward told the policeman.

or

Howart Steward was at the scene of the accident when it happened.

"The boy was running across the road while the traffic light was still red," he told the policeman.

From the examples above, it is clear that news and fiction writing requires dissimilar styles in writing. The use of colon while acceptable in news stories is a no-no in fiction writing, so if you are writing fiction, remember always to exclude colon in dialogues.

P.S. This is one of the reasons why many journalists find it hard to write a novel!