You were talking about “said?” Because I have things to say about it, and dialogue in general.

fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment:

First of all, there is really nothing wrong with “said.” Most of us don’t want to leave “said” alone. It’s always “said [ADVERB]” or “said with a [FACIAL EXPRESSION/SOUND]” And, hell, most of us wouldn’t want to read “said” a million times. The fact is that “said” is a default… thing, and it just looks boring on the page if that’s the only dialogue tag ever used.

Second, if there are only two people in active conversation, you don’t have to say who said what after every line of dialogue. Once you hit seven, you should be able to understand the syntax and flow of dialogue on a page.

Third, even when you want to denote the speaker, you don’t have to use a dialogue tag. Actions speak louder than words, after all. Take the following:

A:

Bob hung his head. “I’m sorry, okay?”

B:

Bob threw his hands in the air. “I’m sorry, okay?”

C:

Bob snorted. “I’m sorry, okay?” 

Same words. Different actions. Totally different meanings.

And finally, if you’re not going to use “said,” Keep it simple, stupid. If you’re using a 3-or-more syllable word as a dialogue tag, find a shorter one. And then burn your thesaurus. And don’t use tags that just reiterate what you could imply from the tone.

“What you did was wrong,” Sally chastised.

Like that. That is silly and unnecessary. Stop doing that.

Also, using “ejaculated” gets you four hours in the shame cube.

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