October 24, 2019
As a line editor, over the years, I’ve developed a real love for two dialogue tags: asked and said. They are sneakily powerful, serving a variety of functions. And they aren’t narcissistic words, either, like some dialogue tags can be. You know: dialogue tags other than said.
I hadn’t really thought about dialogue tags other than said or asked much. I’d been too focused on the job said and asked do. But one day recently, I had a client – we’ll call her Stevie – and she used a crazy amount of dialogue tags other than said. I’m talking… well, about 99.5% of the tags were other than said.
And I realized something. Something important.
She was using words like commanded, appealed, soothed, admonished, challenged, criticized, questioned, countered, chided, contested. And many, many more (I actually wrote almost all of them down!)
And okay, a lot of them start with the letter C. A lot of them start with S, as well: scoffed, smirked, scolded, shot back, stated, sympathized, and more.
That’s not what I noticed. Nope.
I noticed that many of these words are aggressive words. They are words of verbal warfare, of one-upmanship, of hostility and anger.
And beyond that, I noticed two other things:
1. They were making me very very angry and I had to take frequent breaks and actually leave my office for a few minutes, until my blood stopped pounding in my ears and the black cloud over my head broke itself up.
2. No matter how calm the characters were supposed to be, those aggressive words made them seem as if they, too, were arguing and had a contentious relationship. And you know what? When you’re trying to write two people coming together and maybe having feelings for each other, that doesn’t work so well.
In short, no. But use them sparingly. A lot of them tell what the dialogue shows. Questioned, for example. Stop and think. Can the reader tell that the character is questioning the other? Does the content of a character’s speech show us that they are sharing a secret? Then there’s no need to use confided.
But sometimes, you need that extra oomph. Sometimes, using he countered in a spot helps the reader understand the dynamic between the two characters. Maybe that helps the reader understand that a negotiation is happening. That’s a valuable spot in which to use a dialogue tag other than said.
So my takeaway for you today is to take a good hard look at your dialogue tags. Look at the tags used in the book you’re reading—because of course you’re reading, right?
Take a step back. Change that tag to another word. See how it affects the reader, the characters, the tension in the scene, the dynamics between the characters who are speaking.
And never, ever, be afraid to use said. Or asked. They are good little words.
Check out this older post, about a time when I encountered tags other than said in a published book.
Or this one, which came about because one of you had a question about that post.
And then you gotta wonder about the difference between asked and said, right?
Another reader question about asked and said, and here’s a bit more in-depth answer to that question.
This is the spot where I’m supposed to link to a bunch of other posts that reinforce this idea. But most of them… I don’t like. They are either too elementary (What is a dialogue tag?) or kinda insulting to those of us who believe that you can use both types of tags – said/asked and the fancy stuff – just with caution and an eye toward good craft. You, my reader, are savvy enough to toe this line. You really are.
So here’s one good one about the subject. It’s from Litreactor, which is a new-to-me site, so expect me to poke around there some more and see what they’re all about.
Look out for sites like this. It’s Reedsy, and yes, I’ve got a profile there and you can see it and hire me through it (but why when I’m right here and you’re right here?). But this… isn’t good advice for a young writer. The implication is that you only want to use dialogue tags other than said, and we know that’s not how this works. SAID. ASKED. These are magic words. Use ’em.
May 22, 2019
Been doing a ton of samples lately. Prospective clients. Summer approaches.
Noticed a trend. Big one.
Sending a lot of samples back with message: “I can work on this now, but I think your money’s more wisely spent if you take some time and fix these sentence fragments. If you’re stuck and need help, let’s talk about a pricing structure and coaching sessions that’ll help you improve this area of your craft.”
I don’t know where this trend is coming from, what’s fueling it. If authors are in such a rush that they aren’t paying attention to the simple formation of a sentence (and really, there’s rarely anything truly simple about a sentence). If their beta readers or critique groups or partners aren’t calling them out on this, whether from expediency or because they think it’s not their job (it is), or from simple ignorance of what constitutes good writing.
I can come up with a million reasons for why this is happening.
Ultimately, I don’t care what those reasons are, to be honest.
I want to see good writing crossing my desk. The kind that the author has worked on, paid close attention to, done his/her/their absolute best by, and then they’ve taken the time to learn some more, rolled their sleeves back up, and went deep yet again.
It’s not because I’m a snob. That I only want to work with the best. That’s not it at all.
Far from it. Some of my favorite clients are the ones who bring me a rough manuscript and then, as we work together, their craft improves. They do the hard work, and their pages reflect that, and the story reflects that, and then their readership reflects it, too.
Do you see the key? Have you picked up on what I’m stressing here?
Doing the hard work. Learning the craft. Doing the hard work.
Doing.
The.
Hard.
Work.
That means writing in full sentences. Sentences are powerful things, but if you cut them off at the knees, if you truncate them, you’re taking their power away. And in a novel, sentences are all you’ve got. They are the everything. The only thing more important are the words, themselves, that make up those sentences.
So yes. I’m trying to give these authors choices. I’m trying to save them some money — editing isn’t cheap, and I am a not cheap editor within the field. If you want to work together in a coaching situation, I’m more than glad to. Not because it’s lucrative for me, but because it’s important that you learn these skills, especially the basic ones. And because as you master them, your money is better spent when my editor’s eye can turn from the basics of writing to the more nuanced use of words and other elements of fiction: Plot. Setting. Pacing. Characterization. And the detail work, the timeline, the grammar, the echo words, your character’s eye color, the unusual spelling of your main character’s father’s name…
Slow down. Take your time. Don’t rush to publication; that never goes well.
Do the hard work. Work on your craft.
But if you need help, ask for THAT. Don’t pay me for an edit in which I have to call out 75% of your manuscript because the sentence fragments don’t work, even stylisticly. It’s a poor use of your money and a poor use of my time.
Do the hard work.
If you need help understanding how/why sentence fragments are a problem, ask. I’ll answer. I’m glad to work with you and teach you how to spot them, how to remove them, how to write better prose that readers will love.
Do the hard work.
Good luck.
