C
Chessie
Guest
Yo. I got this from another writerly website and loved it so much I'm sharing it here. It's nice to have variety, yes?
plus... you better have a very good reason to use ejaculated as a dialogue tag. heh heh.
Maybe in Bow Junka Wow Wow... hmm.
you better have a very good reason to use ejaculated as a dialogue tag. heh heh.
Hahha... Who would ever use such a foolish word? Umm... I ummm... have to go edit some stuff now. *ctrl-f. Ej--*
If you're going to use a tag at all, rather than a beat or just leave the dialogue untagged, said is the best choice the vast majority of the time. Writers who strain too hard to avoid said end up with comical manuscripts.
Stop it you guys. Sheila is gonna come in here with a magical wand and make us disappear otherwise. *angel eyes*
Agreed. It really depends on the mood and emotion of the scene for me.I love seeing these kinds of lists for said but I think that they should be reserved for special occasions. Often I have noticed that using something other than said/says tends to call too much attention to the tag. I would rather have my dialogue tags go somewhat unnoticed
Now I feel incompetent.
You would absolutely detest my writing then. The sort of storytelling you describe actually has flavor.When I'm writing dialogue, I try to find the best way to not detract from the story or tension or type of narrative. I'll try to explain.
If you're one of the old-style writers, like say... Raymond Feist or Eddings era, 90's and before — I find that when reading 'expressive' (we'll go with that) dialogue in these books it's not such a big deal. To try to explain this, I think it involves narrative. Feist's books are told as an omnipresent narrator, and so when I read his stuff, I often find myself imaging it's more a second telling — I imagine an old man on a pipe in a couch by a fire, telling me the story. "And so when the old man has dialogue tags that always end with adverbs", he said thoughtfully, or "with funny saids," he explained, I find that it doesn't break my immersion from the story because it is part of a meta-story. I imagine that an old man telling me the story would say these things.
However, I must also confess this is far from my favourite type of storyteller.
When it comes to true immersion in a book, I can't help but admit that I think it's all about strict third or first. You just feel more part of the story. It's because when you are reading, any words that are not part of the story are immersion breaking. "For example," he said, if I were instead to, say, keep "explaining this in form of italic examples," he said expressively, suddenly, you are aware that I am telling a story and you are not part of it — "because I am jamming adverbs or adjectives", he said extremely loudly, which, if you imagine you are viewing a story through a window, where the window is the form of media for transferring the story into pictures in your mind, all these random words and things are making the window nice and colourful, and good as colourful windows are, "it really does detract from the story," he said.
But I am by no means an expert, so take what I say as you will. Oh and one more.
"beats however, I find fit both narratives if used correctly and not just for the sake of it," he pressed the post button.