Novel writing coach Romy Sommer says of dialogue: The more we read ‘he said’ and ‘she said’, the more we’re aware of the author creating the dialogue. The problem with dialogue tags is they draw attention to the author’s hand. Show how people speak using action and gesture. Use said or other tags only where necessary.Here are some tips for using dialogue tags such as said and synonyms for said well: How to use said and its synonyms well: Read more in our complete guide to dialogue. They let characters’ words do the emoting. ‘He said’ and ‘she said’ are often preferable because they do not draw the reader’s attention to the fact they are reading written dialogue. Given that there are countless verbs that can take the place of ‘said,’ should you simply find a stronger, more emotive one and use that? Even then, this would maybe need additional, clarifying narration. Unless their words ran counter to how they truly felt. It would be strange, for example, for a character to ‘sneer’ the words ‘I love you’, since the word ‘sneer’ connotes contempt rather than affection. The connotations of dialogue tags are important. yelled, shouted, bellowed, screamed, whispered) It identifies who spoke and/or the tone or emotion behind their speech. In written conversation or dialogue, a tag is a group of words following quoted speech (e.g. Read other words for said as well as tips for keeping your dialogue natural and engrossing: What is a ‘dialogue tag’? It’s not only what characters say but how they say it that matters. Writing effective, compelling dialogue has multiple elements.
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