A random sample of current bestsellers on Amazon ( The Shack by William P. I’ve been in the said-only camp for a very long time, but I can’t help but notice that a lot of published books use adverbs along with other dialog tags. Thanks for addressing my question on your blog, Jessica–and for shortening my email! Since it’s such a common fault, it behooves writers–all of us–to study every tag with care, to deliberate on its inclusion, and to question its necessity. The vast majority of people overuse attribution tags, dragging readers out of the story. This technique can wear on readers after a while, and also confuse them as to the identities of the speakers, so you need to use it with care.)īut, of course, everything you see in these comments comes with a caveat…there’s a reason for what those books and writing teachers say. (With some exceptions, naturally–often you’ll find scenes in thrillers, for example, where the dialogue is terse, bitten off, and there are no tags. ![]() To achieve the correct rhythm, you’re going to want to do more than just have blocks of text. Physical actions can often substitute for dialog tags, though you have to be careful they don’t clutter the scene too much.Įvery author has a voice, and part of that voice is the rhythm of scenes and dialog. (Here I refer to constructions like “these words,” he laughed, “can’t be spoken because I am laughing.” That construction is very different from: “These words can’t be spoken.” He laughed at the very idea of their pronunciation. My least favorite is “laughed.” You’re laughing or speaking, but you’re not speaking in full sentences and laughing at the same time. Someone mentioned “hissed” if the words involved don’t have S-sounds. Thus you see “never use an adverb,” “eliminate all instances of the verb to be” and “there’s no need for the word that.”Īll too often writers, afraid to have no dialog tags or afraid of overusing “said,” will go for something that just doesn’t work. There are no hard and fast rules in writing, so the books go for the middle ground, their writers aiming to correct the maximum number of mistakes at a single sweep. ![]() If your character is going to whisper we need to see very clearly why she is whispering before it even happens. They should never interrupt the flow of the story or become a distraction to the reader and they should never be used in place of showing versus telling the story. I think dialogue tags could actually add a lot to the story if used carefully and properly. It’s a lot easier to use one word than it is to write an entire paragraph describing why the character might grunt later. For example, by saying that your character “grunted” you don’t need to show the character actually doing the labor or feeling the pain. I suspect that the concern about dialogue tags isn’t so much about there being a rule but about how writers could easily use dialogue tags as a cop-out. My simple answer is “no,” there’s no real rule about dialogue tags. So here’s my question: Is there a real “rule” in the publishing world against descriptive dialog tags, or is that just something authors of writing books tell writers to get us to buy more books on how to make our writing more descriptive using nouns and strong verbs? Has an editor ever told you they liked a book, but they were passing because there were too many adverbs? A lot of published books use mostly said and asked, but an equal number do not. But I also read published books that have their characters “whispering” and “grunting” and “saying questioningly” with abandon. ![]() I’ve read just about every book on writing, and if they address the topic, they say not to use adverbs ever, and that “said” or “asked” is sufficient (no shouted, yelled, whispered, groaned, commanded, etc.). I’ve had an ongoing discussion with some writer friends about adverbs and dialog tags other than “said,” and I’d like a professional agent’s opinion. I received an interesting question from a reader recently, interesting because it’s something that I’m sure is often discussed in writers’ groups, but not anything I’ve ever really thought of.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |