What is the direct speech? Direct speech is any word spoken by a character, the actual words that someone has spoken. How to punctuate the direct speech? Ex:that depends a good deal on where you want to get to said the cat 1-Opening speech marks. " 2-Begin with a capital letter. T hat 3-End with a comma,exclamation mark or question mark. "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to , "Oh no ! "he shouted. "Did you understand ? "she asked. 4-Close the speech marks. "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to ,"said the Cat 5-End the line with a full stop. "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to ,"said the Cat . In the previous example the reporting clause (speaker's name) came after the direct speech but there are different ways for writing the reporting clause,it may come before or after the direct speech or even break up the direct speech into 2 parts. ...