Thoughts on speech tags?

[Twook00]

I took some time to look at speech tags today, using two of GRRM's works as a guide. I thought I would share. I was very surprised by the variety he uses. What are your thoughts on speech tags?

In his short story called A Night at the Tarn House, the first eight speech tags are...

"Faster!" Chimwazle called...
"Faster!" Chimwazle roared...
"Halt!" he cried...
"Except for the one," said the Pooner.
"You ate the noble Florendale," the Twk-man said.
"There was only the one," he decided confidently...
"Is there a Twk-town near?" asked Lirianne.

And from the prologue of A Feast For Crows, the first five speech tags are...

"Dragons," said Mollander.
"Throw the apple," urged Alleras...
"You were born too late for dragons, lad," Armen the Acolyte told Rooney.
"The last dragon in Westeros," insisted Mollander.
"Throw the apple," Alleras urged again.

 

[ThinkerX]

Which says something.

The really great authors of decades past used to employ a wide range of speech tags as a matter of course. They were also not shy in the least about digging up unusual or exotic descriptive words.

George RR Martin dates from this period, and his best selling tales still use a wide range of speech tags.

Does this make him a lingering holdout from the past? Or is there more to his style, something truly appealing?

The whole style of writing is changing - and I often wonder if it is a change for the better.

 

[BWFoster78]

My opinion is well documented. 90+% of the time, "said" is your best option.

 

[The Dark One]

When I use a tag, "said" is overwhelmingly my tag of choice.

But I do like to have passages where I use no tags - just dialogue - and it is simply up to me to create such strong characters that it is obvious from the dialogue who is speaking. It would be hard to keep this up for long but it's pretty satisfying when you get it right. It might be just 2, 3, 4 lines of dialogue but it can be intense and very effective, especially in a 1st person narrative.

 

[robertbevan]

yeah. "said" or "asked" is usually the way to go. as with any art, make sure you've got a solid handle on the "rules" before you consider breaking them.

 

[Steerpike]

GRRM can do anything he wants. Nevertheless, I believe most editors today will view excessive use of such dialogue tags as amateur or bad writing. As an author, you should write in the way you personally believe is the best expression of your art, but if you are doing something that can hinder your chance of success it is good to be aware of it.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

GRRM can do anything he wants. Nevertheless, I believe most editors today will view excessive use of such dialogue tags as amateur or bad writing. As an author, you should write in the way you personally believe is the best expression of your art, but if you are doing something that can hinder your chance of success it is good to be aware of it.

What he said. Remember, there are no rules; there's only what you can get away with. If you submit to editors who aren't cool with dialogue tags, you're not going to convince them to publish you. This doesn't mean dialogue tags are inherently bad (in my belief, most readers have no problem with non-"said" dialogue tags, it's really editors and writers who do), just that their use may be incompatible with your goal of getting published.

 

[Ophiucha]

I think the problem with dialogue tags is less that there's a problem with dialogue tags and more that there's a problem with how writers use them and which ones he used. Let's take an example. Whispering. A couple of kids sitting on a couch, and Johnny leans in close to Mary, mouth right by her ear. "I like you," what do we say here? I find a lot - I mean, seriously, way too many - use both "whispered" and a qualifier, i.e. "whispered in a hushed tone". And those are often your two options: a tag that describes the way you say something (shouted, whispered, etc.), or describing it specifically ("he said in a hushed/quiet tone" or something similar). Problem two: people using any mouth-related verb as a dialogue tag. You really can't "sigh" a word. Arguably you can't "breathe" a word. Or "cough" one. Yet many writers use all of these, and they pop up on those "39304 Alternatives to 'Said' Lists" that circle around on the internet.

I guess, in summary, I'm not against some dialogue tags, as long as they are being used to summarize "said + qualifier". I think saying "he questioned" is better than "he said in a questioning tone".

 

[Ireth]

Problem two: people using any mouth-related verb as a dialogue tag. You really can't "sigh" a word. Arguably you can't "breathe" a word. Or "cough" one. Yet many writers use all of these, and they pop up on those "39304 Alternatives to 'Said' Lists" that circle around on the internet.

Well, to a certain extent you can speak while sighing, breathing or coughing, it's just not always easy or very clear. On that note, "gasped" is another one that doesn't make much sense. A gasp is an intake of breath, and people exhale while speaking.

 

[Chilari]

I'll take issue with the inability to "cough" a word. It's possible. You know when you're having a conversation in which maybe someone is being poked fun at and they deny something and someone coughs a word relating to the thing they're denying or the act of denial so when someone asks "what did you say?" they can say "nothing, I just coughed." But if you're genuinely coughing and trying to speak, it's more of a splutter between coughs.

I tend not to use "said" too much. If there's a specific way they're saying it, I'll use that if I've not already used it recently. Words like demanded, confirmed, pondered, it gives the words a voice.

"What were you doing last night?" asked Bob. - it's fairly characterless. It could be a lighthearted question of a colleague or sibling after seeing them hungover in the morning, for example. There's no emotion, no mystery. The meaning of the question is dependant on the context, which could be any range of things - from a police interview to a question asked of someone whose face is covered in mud.

"What were you doing last night?" demanded Bob. There's emotion in a demand, a need for an answer, a drive. In this example, Bob might be a jealous husband wondering where his wife was the previous evening. Or he might be a detective questioning a prime suspect, or a father who knows his son wasn't in his bed at midnight.

"What were you doing last night?" pondered Bob. Now this could be a police detective (yes, again) asking a corpse why they're in an unexpected location following a murder, or someone asking their friend who was conspiciously absent form an event they were meant to attend. There's mystery in the pondering, an indication that the reader might not find out the answer right away, a hint that the answer is important - or perhaps that the asking of the question is.

Tags aren't just there for variety. They're there to give the story a little extra depth, the characters more of an emotional range. You shouldn't be scared of using them just because someone said editors don't like them. You've got to be careful not to overuse them or saturate the page with them, but they cannot just be ignored for ease or in the hope that just using "said" most of the time is going to make your book more publishable.

 

[Ireth]

Well said, Chilari.

 

[BWFoster78]

I'll take issue with the inability to "cough" a word. It's possible. You know when you're having a conversation in which maybe someone is being poked fun at and they deny something and someone coughs a word relating to the thing they're denying or the act of denial so when someone asks "what did you say?" they can say "nothing, I just coughed." But if you're genuinely coughing and trying to speak, it's more of a splutter between coughs.

I tend not to use "said" too much. If there's a specific way they're saying it, I'll use that if I've not already used it recently. Words like demanded, confirmed, pondered, it gives the words a voice.

"What were you doing last night?" asked Bob. - it's fairly characterless. It could be a lighthearted question of a colleague or sibling after seeing them hungover in the morning, for example. There's no emotion, no mystery. The meaning of the question is dependant on the context, which could be any range of things - from a police interview to a question asked of someone whose face is covered in mud.

"What were you doing last night?" demanded Bob. There's emotion in a demand, a need for an answer, a drive. In this example, Bob might be a jealous husband wondering where his wife was the previous evening. Or he might be a detective questioning a prime suspect, or a father who knows his son wasn't in his bed at midnight.

"What were you doing last night?" pondered Bob. Now this could be a police detective (yes, again) asking a corpse why they're in an unexpected location following a murder, or someone asking their friend who was conspiciously absent form an event they were meant to attend. There's mystery in the pondering, an indication that the reader might not find out the answer right away, a hint that the answer is important - or perhaps that the asking of the question is.

Tags aren't just there for variety. They're there to give the story a little extra depth, the characters more of an emotional range. You shouldn't be scared of using them just because someone said editors don't like them. You've got to be careful not to overuse them or saturate the page with them, but they cannot just be ignored for ease or in the hope that just using "said" most of the time is going to make your book more publishable.

The alternate viewpoint is that speech tags are to be used only to tell the reader who is speaking. In this case, you want to do two things:

1. Use them as little as possible. They should only be used when there's no better way make it clear who the speaker is.
2. Hide them. Using "said" tends to hide in the text better than using any other speech tag.

I think the reason some people (okay, I admit I'm one of them) might look down upon using speech tags the way you describe is that it's far superior for your choice of words to identify the emotions of the speaker. To me, it's a lot like using all caps to emphasize words. If you have to use the speech tag to do it, maybe you need to reconsider your word choice.

 

[Steerpike]

@BWFoster78 - yes, choice of words, context, the action going on around the characters. I think, in general, if you need the dialogue tag to do that extra work for you, you've missed something in your writing. It's sort of the "middle" option to me. Using dialogue tags laden with emotions or other information may be better than nothing (i.e. better than not providing that information at all), but taking it out of the dialogue tag and letting the dialogue itself, as well as the writing that provides the context for the dialogue, do this job for you is the much better option, in my view.

 

[Chilari]

The words themselves don't always convey the right emotions. As with the example I gave above, the way the question is asked is not exclusive to one set of emotions. Rewording the question won't necessarily make the emotions of the asker any more plain. You could ask "What were you up to last night?" if it's a casual question, perhaps, but beyond that, "What did you do last night?" or "What happened to you last night?" Don't really add any clues. If you change the language in a bigger way you risk making it sound stilted. Saying that you shouldn't need to use tags because you should be able to convey emotion in the dialogue itself is mistaken; certainly in some cases emotion will be implied, but even then it's open to interpretation if you don't use dialogue tags.

Say, for example, the context of a scene is a character discovering her brother holding a bloody knife following an argument between the brother and the sister's boyfriend. She asks "What did you do?" What are her emotions? She must have some in that situation. Is she angry? Fearful? Wary? Confused? If angry, is she angry in a cold, dangerous way or a hot, expressive way? Without a dialogue tag you just don't know. But her reaction here could be critical to the presentation of her character.

Actions can certainly be used to avoid dialogue tags where the action indicates the emotion. Say this character is edging around the room towards the door as she asks her brother what he did. Then you can infer fear. Or she marches up to him and grabs his wrist. Then you can infer anger. That kind of context can remove the need for a dialogue tag, and is something I use occasionally.

 

[Steerpike]

Yes, Chilari, I do think there are times when the emotion meant to be conveyed is actually different than what might be provided by the words themselves or even the context around them. I don't think that is the general state of things, but I do think there are times when you want to do that. It is really the one instance in which I've felt that the general thoughts on dialogue tags should be disregarded. If you need the dialogue tag to make it work, then I think you go ahead and use it. I think the problem is that too many writers, particularly when starting out, fall back on those tags because they're easy to throw in, and they avoid writing a better scene, or a better exchange of dialogue, because of it.

 

[BWFoster78]

Chilari,

I seriously doubt that I can change your opinion on this matter just as you probably can't change mine. I just wanted the full argument posted for those who might read this thread.

When I read tags used the way you advocate, they have a negative connotation for me, and I think that the reader should be able to get the emotional context from the story rather than the tags. I understand that you disagree. It shocks, appalls, and dismays me that not everyone just accepts what I say and changes their opinion, but I'm learning to live with it.

 

[Twook00]

GRRM can do anything he wants. Nevertheless, I believe most editors today will view excessive use of such dialogue tags as amateur or bad writing. As an author, you should write in the way you personally believe is the best expression of your art, but if you are doing something that can hinder your chance of success it is good to be aware of it.

I agree with you here. I generally do not take issue with speech tags unless the author is being lazy or using them incorrectly. That said, I am not the editor/publisher. As a new writer, I do not have the same privelages as GRRM or Gaiman.

 

[Kevlar]

I agree with Chilari and Steerpike both. As Steerpike said, dialogue tags are overused, and therein, I believe lies the modern infatuation with hating them on sight. One thing I must say is that while "said" does generally flow with the text better, using it too much causes it to draw much more attention than any alternative, especially when used similarly consecutively. It sticks out in a way I find distasteful and offputting. A good example, which I believe has been mentioned on these forums though not by name, is the book "Magyk." Stupid spellings aside, when I was eleven I thought it was an "OK" book. I didn't have any other way to describe it. Even back then I realized my opinion was brought down substantially by seeing he said/she said five times in a row.

As Chilari said though, sometimes you need a stronger word than said. Sometimes there is no way to add more emotion to your dialogue itself without changing the connotation behind it.

 

[Penpilot]

I'm with Kevlar on this. Forcing black and white "rules" into writing situation like this just doesn't work for me. I'm of the school of used the right tool for the right job thinking.

I've seen said bookisms used well and I've seen them used poorly, and generally, I find it's not the said bookisnm that's flawed. It's the writing around the said bookism that's flawed.

To me, always using 'said' is like only ever using a wrench when you have a full toolbox of other options available. Sometimes there's a screw to turn, and I'm not about to use a wrench to do it when there's a perfectly good screwdriver sitting there. The problem is for some writers they can't tell if what's in front of them is a screw, a nail, or a nut.

Addendum:

After thinking about this for a bit more, I realize this is a case of Show vs. Tell. When you uses action, context, and description, to convey a situation in such a way so the reader understands the tone of what's being said, it's showing. Said bookisms are just telling. And like Show vs. Tell, you have to understand and figure out when to show and when to tell. It's never exclusive.

 

[Chilari]

I can certainly understand the argument against speech tags (are they called bookisms, Penpilot? I didn't know that) but I think it mostly boils down to the perception that they are frequently overused or badly used. I'm not saying they should always be used for preference, I'm just saying they shouldn't be dismissed wholesale because they are so frequently over/badly used. The trick, as with many aspects of writing, is to know when to use them and when to use something else. To ignore them entirely is to deprive your writing of some variety - and if the problem is overuse, them removing the thing that is overused increases the chances of its alternative becoming overused.