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He Said, She Said
As a child between about the ages of 6 and 12, I had clear career plans. I wanted to be an author.
It’s easy to see why: my parents were careful to instill a lifelong love of literature in all of their children. Books were better than any toy. Also, I had a lot of imagination. When I was supposed to be sleeping, I acted out nearly full casts of characters with my own storylines as a game I played with my sister.
I wanted very much to be a good writer and so I internalized whatever advice I heard. Somewhere, probably from a teacher, I got the impression that said was off limits. It would make one’s writing repetitive and uninteresting. So, I used everything but. I used exclaimed, inquired, queried, wondered, mentioned, noted, replied, etc. Then when I was about 12 or 13 and going through my “read all the famous books even if you don’t actually enjoy them” phase, I started paying attention and realized that good writers really don’t mix up their dialogue tags much at all. Said is standard. An occasional asked will appear, but even for questions, it is typical to find said. Oh.
This is easily explained. You don’t need to use a bunch of exciting speech verbs in order to write engaging dialogue. You can skip that by mixing up your dialogue with descriptions, and you can even leave off the tags a lot of the time by simply indenting for the next line in the conversation.
It is generally a good idea to learn the rules of your artistic trade before stomping on whichever ones you can and making your millions. But avoid internalizing rules that make no sense in the first place.
Published in General
Right you are, Serif! Maybe “Trust, but verify.” works here, too?
True for any trade. There are so many things once learns from those who have gone before, and there are great opportunities for breaking the rules going forweard.
A co-worker once pointed out that in our office meeting minutes nobody ever “said” anything.
Indeed. Presumably the most exciting thing would be the dialogue and the characters, not the synonyms of “said.”
Now if only I knew how to write exciting dialogue!
I have read the advice of several famous writers who had said to stick to said, and I agree. On the other hand, it can also get boring in a long back-and-forth conversation. A lot of times rather than even outright stating that something is said, I include an associated action within the dialog:
None of them are explicitly saying or asking, and certainly not enthusing or exclaiming or inquiring. But when my characters do not have other gestures or expressions thrown into the conversation, they do either say or ask. Keep it simple.
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Elmore Leonard’s 10 tricks for good writing:
See rules 3 and 4.
“Said” seems to disappear, which is exactly what writers want. :-)
Take a clip from the Trump threads on Ricochet!
That would actually be a fun publishing project. :-)
And, of course, all of these can be broken, but an experienced writer is more likely to get away with it than a neophyte.
I allow them if something is on fire or if there is a character who exclaims everything.
I guess you guys will have to throw me out!
What were your favorite children’s books?
Emphasis devices–italics, boldface, exclamation marks, and even cap-and-lowercase–interrupt the reader’s train of thought, which is why they should be used sparingly. And after a while, too much emphasis can be quite irritating (as it is in Catcher in the Rye). The reader will either tune it out or become frustrated and close up the book.
I vote close up the book.
I really liked the Little House books. That was one of the old classics Dad used to read to us. Until we were old enough that we decided we just wanted to read to ourselves from then on, every night before bedtime, my father would read aloud a chapter or two. My Friend Flicka, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, everything.
In terms of picture books, two that stand out in my memory are Officer Buckle and Gloria and Ten Minutes to Bedtime, both written and illustrated by Peggy Rathmann. They are delightful. Buy them for any small children in your life.
Mine was The Phantom Tollbooth. I identified with Milo. Anyone else read it?
I read it at least three times as a child. Great book. Jumping to Conclusions always sticks with me.
Rule #3 of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing is “Never use a verb other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue.”
I break many of his ten rules, and this is one of them. I use: said, replied, added, continued, screeched, screamed, yelled, cooed, purred . . . there may be a few others. However, I do use “said” most of the time. I see his point, I just don’t accept the “never” part of his rule.
Yup. Me, too!
(Oops! I just used an exclamation mark…oh, DARN, I did it again!..)
Expert advice is necessary. You have to know the rules before you break the rules.
Harry Potter broke nearly all those rules and yet were great books.
If we all followed the rules exactly, we would have the same voice. How incredibly boring.