Monday Madness: He Said, She Said (The Great "Said" Debate)

"Said is an invisible word. Readers' brains skip right over it," he said.

"But it's so boring," she argued.

"That's the point," he insisted.

"Whatever," she muttered.

When I started writing toward publication, I viewed dialogue tags in the same way I viewed verbs: the more specific they are, the stronger the writing.

And then I joined a critique group whose members said that I was figuratively bludgeoning them to death with all my mutters, whispers, groans and exclamations. And thus we entered the Great Said Debate.

There are some who believe that said is the only dialogue tag to be used at all (with the exception of asked, but even that's not necessary to some). Then there are those (like the greener me) that used them ALL THE TIME and couldn't get enough of them.

Now, I'm proud to say that I'm somewhere in-between. But I've some guidelines that I follow now:

1. What do you think you're doing?

When I've finished a line of dialogue, I think about what that character is doing at that moment. What is their state of mind? Are they in the middle of an action? If so, that action can often be used in place of a dialogue tag. (This method is very much approved by most agents.)

Example: Instead of, "You cannot defeat the Ogre Army all by yourself!" Ulrich said angrily. You can say, Ulrich slammed a fist on the table. "You cannot defeat the Ogre Army all by yourself!"

2. Too much action, not enough talk.

Mickey touched her shoulder. "I love you."


She stepped away. "I don't love you."


He followed. "That's not what you said last night."


"Last night I was drunk." She laughed. 

(Note that "laughed" is not a dialogue tag. (Please, for the love of sweet, baby giraffes.))
Just as it's possible to overuse dialogue tags, it's possible to overuse action. The trick is finding a happy medium. (I hate it when people tell me that. Lol.)


3. If you have to use an adverb with said, you're probably better off using something else.

I hate adverbs. Really. Epecially "-ly" ones. In the words of Mark Twain, "If you see an adverb, kill it."

4. You say it best when you say nothing at all.

Sometimes when it comes to dialogue, you don't have to use tags or actions every time someone speaks to indicate which person is speaking. As long as your consistent with your paragraph breaks (new paragraph for a new speaker) then a reader should be able to follow. And if you have a long scene of conversation, this comes in handy.

The choice of when to use action, when to use a tag or when to use nothing really boils down to fluidity. What makes the story flow the best? To see if your conversation is working, read it aloud. If you're tripping over tags and slogging through the action, then there's something wrong and you need some pruning.

But that's what she said.