![]() ![]() The line of dialogue belongs to the character the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. In fact, using “said” is one of Elmore Leonards 10 Rules For Writing: It is an important verb you’ll need to use over and over again. “Said” is just like “that” in the way it can fade into the background of a story. The use of “said “ is considered standard for writing. To delve into these 3 types, and get you into the “Goldilocks” category, let’s look at the general writing guidelines so we know how/when to break them… Image by Pencil Parker The Guidelines. And–this is very important–they get dialogue flowing in a way that is so natural they can cut dialogue tags out altogether a few paragraphs at a time. They use “said” the right amount, they vary the use of dialogue tags to include the other standard: “reply”. Just right.) This writer knows how to write their way out of a bowl of porridge (I never claimed that analogies were my forte!). (I like to call this the “Goldilocks” category, because ideally you want to fall inside it. Just the right amount/variations of dialogue tags.Not enough variation in dialogue tags.Their characters “exclaim”, “reply”, “shout”, “comment”, “whisper”, “yell”, “snarl”, “mumble”, “gasp”, etc., but they almost never “say” anything. This writer hates the word “said” and will do anything to avoid it. I find writers fall into 3 categories when it comes to dialogue tags. Image by Mohamed Hassan How people use dialogue tags… Said/says, replied/replies, answered/answers etc. Intention (ordered, suggested, demanded, etc.).Emotion (sobbed, cried, begged, raged, etc.). ![]() Dialogue tags are verbs which can also show: Without them, spoken dialogue can easily become confusing or downright unreadable. They’re an essential part of writing fiction and non-fiction alike. Also called an “attribution”, they’re essential to indicate the speaker and can be used before, after, or in the middle of dialogue. Image by Geralt What exactly are “dialogue tags”?ĭialogue tags in creative writing are words or phrases that express which character is speaking, and in what way. It’s the use (or lack thereof) of dialogue tags. This is also something I’ve noticed in my many years as a beta reader/critiquer and have pointed out to the individual authors of the Critique Blitz too. Thankfully, it’s a very easy thing to fix on your own! I’ve detailed the first issue in the last blog post, “The use of “that” in creative writing”, and in this blog post I’ll be detailing the next problem I see a lot of. ![]() There were some common grammatical and structural areas in need of improvement running through quite a few of the stories. We had the pleasure of offering free beta reads/critiques of the first 1000 words of various works. To launch our new Services, we offered a promotion and did a Motley Writers Guild Critique Blitz in February. That’s fine! Do it! But first, it’s good to know what they are, and how to use them to take your writing to the next level. Sometimes your writing is going to need to break the guidelines. It’s intended to help you become a better writer overall, and you can refer back to these posts whenever you need some guidance.īear in mind that these are only suggestions merely “guidelines” (writers, like pirates, love “guidelines” instead of “rules”). This is the second in a multi-part series of Guild posts specifically about the craft of writing, on a basic level. ![]()
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