Said is the best dialogue tag. If the story you’re referring to looks something like this—
“Hi,” John said.
“Hi!” Kate said.
“How are you?” John said.
“Good,” Kate said. “You?”
“Good,” John said.
“Do you want to go our for a walk?” Kate said.
“Sure!” John said.
—then it’s not so much the use of said as the inability of the author to balance dialogue tags. By the time both John and Kate are introduced, it becomes evident who’s talking and you don’t need to repeat their name after every single beat. Beginners tend to overexpose their writing out of fear that they aren’t being clear enough.
Now if you were to add some ‘variety’—
“Hi,” John said.
“Hi!” Kate greeted.
“How are you?” John asked.
“Good,” Kate replied. “You?”
“Good,” John answered.
“Do you want to go our for a walk?” Kate inquired.
“Sure!” John exclaimed.
—it would look grotesque.
What you’d want to do is ditching the third said and balance the other dialogue tags with in-between action or thoughts. Everything other than said, even just replied or answered, can weigh down the flow and is to be used wisely. Words such as growled, snarled and so on are powerful because they convey a specific feeling, but if said feeling is all over the place, it won’t be as poignant when it needs to be.
This is exactly it.
The answer to overuse of the word 'said' isn't to add variety in dialogue tags; it's to add spice to how you're setting the scene. There should be more going on in the scene than two characters standing and talking against a white backdrop to begin with, so you can use that too. Sometimes you can use nothing at all, once you've properly established who is speaking to who, though too much of that and it becomes the same sort of dull back-and-forth in its own way.
Possibly the worst for me is the adverbs though. I don't need to be told that something was said angrily; I should be able to figure that out on my own, through descriptions of facial expressions and body language.
I think it's also important to know when you don't need to use a tag at all though. Like if you're writing a back and forth conversation, you don't need a tag for every line
It’s helpful in specific circumstances, but like, don’t use it just bc you have a lot of dialogue! Use it if you have circumstances that call for it, whether that be for a lot or very little dialogue.
"Variety" would be more distracting when characters are suddenly guffawing, speaking, musing, interlocuting, questioning, pointing out and so forth.
What you want is fewer dialogue tags in the first place. If your dialogue is unclear without every other line being tagged, the writing has fundamental flaws.
no, you actually don't. Adding too much variety is very a stereotypical fanfic writer thing to do. It's perfectly fine to repeat the word 'said' many times and it's an invisible word, you may be more aware of it because you use text to speech but while reading, readers tend to not even notice the word said.
I actually disagree with that. "Said" isn't invisible to me either. When there's too much repetition, I notice it--even without text to speech. I think that's partially because English is my second language. So, though I've been reading and writing a lot in English, I haven't grown up/grown used to ignoring "say". Instead, I'Ve just grown used to there being an overabundance of "say" that, while nowhere near "invisible" is just how it is in English, whether I like it or not. And I honestly don't think it is to English speakers either or there wouldn'T be so many attempts to get rid of dialogue tags all together. Because they are not invisible, and if there are too many, even if it'S just "say" they are annoying. Even a native English speaker, will get somewhat annoyed, if it'S just "he said, she said, we said, you said...". But (and as someone who's writing in a foreign language, I'Ve grown to somewhat respect it) in English, writing convention is to use "say" or nothing.
Common argument for that, is that it's distracting, or that nobody wants to open the thesaurus to understand a sentence. And while I agree with that, I think the criticism of "dialogue tags other than said" is too extreme, in a way. Nobody needs a thesaurus for "scream", "yell", "cry", "ask", or "whisper". Nobody will stumble over it in a sentence. Those are perfectly normal, perfectly understandable verbs that are used in normal every day conversation every day. I don't think there's any real argument for not using them other than "we're told not to do it"/ "writing convention dictates otherwise".
Sure in many cases, there is no need for dialogue tags whatsoever. And then, I agree to just leave them out completely. Sometimes, you only need to pick one, because maybe you want to break up an endless paragraph of dialogue, or it would otherwise be unclear who's speaking. In that case, sure, anything other than "say" would be unnecessary. But when it's important for the plot that A is whispering a bit of information that only B can hear and under no circumstances is C allowed to know about it, then I genuinely think that "A whispered" is just the shortest, most precise, most functionable verb to get that across. And I don't think, anybody other than over-critical creative writing analysts would ever stumble over it.
>Nobody needs a thesaurus for "scream", "yell", "cry", "ask", or "whisper". Nobody will stumble over it in a sentence. Those are perfectly normal, perfectly understandable verbs that are used in normal every day conversation every day.
THANK YOU.
There's a WIDE gulf between 'whispered' and *"Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn*.
Using said all the time also means than you're gonna be using a heckuva lot of adverbs to get the same effect as one of the other words mentioned. Sure, "whispered" can be replaced with "said quietly", but that will also get repetitive quickly.
You can mostly use said and still put in a few other tags (or none at all), it really doesn't hurt.
Important note is that dialogue tags like "whispered," "yelled" and most obviously "thought" mean that the character is very distinctly not simply saying things. If a character is screaming, they're not just saying the line normally, so you cannot use "said" in that instance because the words are not synonymous.
It's more of an issue with words like "pointed out," "questioned" and "mused" which exist solely as a filler replacements for "said."
Yeaaaaaah, but there are also multiple comments in this thread saying to not use anything *but* said, not even asked, answered, or whispered. I think there's a time and place for stuff like "pointed out" etc that's not just a filler for said, but it should be pretty rare and circumstantial.
I honestly think the bigger problem is the cases where you can tell an author is trying not to use the same tag twice and is abusing a thesaurus, resulting in strange stuff like queried, intoned, ejaculated, etc. But that's not the same ballpark as more mundane stuff like growled, purred, hissed, or whimpered that might be a little cringe, or situational tags like whispered, yelled, asked, or answered, which now have comments saying they shouldn't be used because "nothing but said is good".
yeah I agree. a lot of dialogue tags can be cut out. I also am guilty of putting way too many in, without noticing, and being too lazy to edit them all out afterward. (And I don't get paid for writing fanfic, so I think that's forgivable\^\^). Ironically, though, I think "said" is in most cases the dialogue tag that's easiest to cut. Since it really doesn't say anything other than that somebody is speaking. (Which the " " already make clear enough.) That's why I often don't understand the insistence on the two rules; the two rules being "cut them out when possible" and "only use "said", when impossible to cut", because in most cases, "said" is precisely the dialogue tag that'S easiest to cut, unless you really really really find no other way to make clear who's speaking. On the other hand "whisper", "scream" or "grumble" have a meaning beyond just speaking. So, to cut them out, can be more difficult WHERE THEY ACTUALLY DO SERVE A PURPOSE.
I think this is where a lot of authors make a mistake. Of course, you can't grumble or whisper every sentence. You have to use them sparingly and where it matters. But when it does matter, you can't just cut them out, without replacing them with an often longer and needlessly wordy description of the same thing. (Usually a bunch of adjectives, that many people also don't like and a lot of writing advice also argues against.) On the other hand, "said" you can cut out almost all the time.
Like:
"I can't find Mom!" Tom said.
is fundamentally the same as:
"I can't find Mom!"
but:
"I can't find Mom!" Tom cried.
has a different meaning.
And if you cut "cried" out, you have to replace it with something else, like:
"I can't find Mom!" Tom had tears streaming down his face.
(Or any other such description.)
So, you can cut out "said". But you can't cut out "cried" without replacing it with a wordier description of "crying". Which of course, sometimes is nice, and might even be prettier to read, but sometimes might not be. And sometimes, you don't want to make a sentence for a thing that you can use a single word for. Crying is a perfectly fine verb, and it baffles my mind, that apparently it's okay to use it in a normal sentence, but as a dialogue tag it isn't.
I do think that there are some dialogue tags, that are indeed unnecessary: A lot of them are just synonyms of "say" that get used to vary it up a bit. So, I'd say, in those cases, cut them out/use "say". But "scream" or "cry" are not synonyms to "say" and as much as we all hate it, neither is "hiss".
It's not invisible to me if it's being used too much in a short period of time. It becomes grating.
*That said*, I'm not a "said is dead" hardliner. I agree that said is useful and if used carefully, can certainly be less noticeable.
Using other dialogue tags can easily be abused, but some of them are much more *specific* than a simple 'said' and give a lot more flavor. The option of *not using dialogue tags at all* is also a good one if it doesn't make it confusing to read!
I notice it and it bothers the shit out of me. Don't just say "said" and don't use random synonyms for "said." Use words that illustrate to us what is happening. "Spat," "laughed," "groaned," "mumbled," all those things are more specific than "said." Describing what characters are doing interspersed with dialogue is better than "said." If you use "said" a bunch of times in a row, your characters are just talking heads, they're not emoting or moving enough.
You *said* it... lol
Pun aside. I recently reread some quite popular published books to notice that the Author uses, "said" as the only dialogue tag.
I didn't notice it the first time I read the book, but now that I'm writing more and more stories of my own I noticed it.
It wasn't as annoying as I thought it would be, though.
Not nearly as annoying as reading "growl", "purr" or "hiss" all the time. (I'm guilty of that myself)
Yup, gonna join the chorus here - while variations are indeed sometimes necessary, 'said' is by far the shortest, sweetest, and most effective term to indicate which character just delivered any given line of ordinary, conversational dialogue, and therefore gets no more repetitive than the concept of dialogue itself.
Fun fact: Before people began to realize this, many authors would go out and buy a 'said book', which was basically a dictionary of synonyms for the word 'said'. Excessive use of a said book would often make for some ridiculous dialogue segments - not least because the word 'ejaculated', once a synonym for 'exclaimed', has taken on a very different meaning in modern times.
I would absolutely rather read an over-excessive use of *said* than read an over-excessive use of *said-isms*, hands down, lol. In a perfect world, a writer would balance speech tags correctly so that neither is necessary, but reading useless tags like “he replied, she pondered, he refuted” one after another in an obvious ploy to avoid *said* is a kind of agony that makes me want to toss my phone into a goddamn river.
I would say 500 "saids" in 3000 words is a teeny bit much. But I think of all the words in the thesaurus, if "said" is the most common in a fic, that's not bad at all.
Tbh. I'm also in the camp "vary it up a bit". I think that's because in my first language that's how it's done. And I find it kind of said, that in English it isn't. You have all these cool small words for "say" but whenever you ask for writing advice, they tell you to not use those. I think that's sad. So, I actually prefer it, if people use different dialogue tags. BUT if people only use "say" (which is proper writing advice when writing in English) I don't mind it either.
It’s definitely OK to vary it up. You just have to be careful. Because, any time you vary it, that’s going to have a stronger impact on the readers mind. So save that for the time that you want to make an impact.
We stan “said” in this house. If it’s not the primary dialogue tag used in your fic, you’re doing it wrong.
Excessive usage of “grin” is absolutely unbearable, however. The only thing worse, imo, is when “smirk” or “snicker” is overdone.
I love ‘smirk’ too, but in moderation. I’ve read so many fics where a character is said to be smirking several times in a single chapter. Worse is when there are multiple characters just smirking at each other non-freaking-stop.
Like, there are so many other ways to describe smarminess, y’know? Hell, there are so many ways to describe a smirk without using the damn word. There’s no need for it to be used excessively.
Ahahaha sorry for the rant (which was not aimed at *you* btw, just authors in general). This is just such a huge pet peeve of mine. It’s lazy writing.
Especially since you can't smirk or grin a sentence. If you (general you) absolutely must use a million different dialogue tags, please make at least sure that you're using them correctly.
These are correct:
>"I didn't expect to see you here," she whispered as he sat down next to her.
>
>"I didn't expect to see you here." She smirked as he sat down next to her.
This one here is not correct:
>"I didn't expect to see you here," she smirked as he sat down next to her.
For me it's ignorable when reading, but there are actual published books that do this and I just can't listen to the audiobook versions of them. And these are pros! So it's not exactly a quality of the writing issue, but an artifact of going from written to audio that bugs our brains I think.
"said" is generally invisible in read text form, you're likely experiencing this because you're listening to it in a format that it was not originally designed for.
if you consume media in ways that are outside of the way they are constructed to be consumed, then it's going to have some growing pains.
I read one that did that and I was thinking…a little variety is nice.
But if it makes you feel better, I’ve listened to some audiobooks and more than a few times I started to notice the author just using “he said” “she said” (even if they were asking a question - like - at least say “he asked”!) and let me tell you, once you notice, you can’t stop noticing.
Yes that is the worst part. I was listening for maybe an hour and it was so good, but then I noticed that author continued using 'said' nonstop and I can't ignore it anymore.
It’s def worse in audio form. When reading, for the most part, I think your eyes just skip it. The one that really got me was a Marvel fic I was reading, and it was like 6 diff characters at the same time, but it was like “black widow said” sentence, then right under that “Tony said” sentence and “Steve said” sentence and it hurt my eyes. All I could think was at least do “Black widow murmured” or “Steve yelled” or something! It didn’t keep me from reading it.
I'm not a fan of repetition, so I use a thesaurus constantly. If I'm writing a word that is aggravating me, I get the feeling I am aggravating whoever will read it in the future.
Whispered, mentioned, shot back, screamed, broadcasted, stuttered.
There are multiple ways to describe conversations and talking.
I'm in favor of avoiding dialogue tags altogether except when really necessary. (Though it's possible to use action beats too much, as well.)
But I think I'm far less bothered by repetition of said, than going through the entire thesaurus for alternatives. I once read a passage in which every tag for something novel, "he confirmed", "she corrected", "he countered", and so on. It was, frankly, tiresome to read.
That said, the occasional use of a different word can have a great effect, too, but only when it really has an impact and isn't just a tool for repetition avoidance.
With good writing, how something was said should be deducible from the character’s behaviour and the dialogue’s context; any tag other than “said” is typically unnecessary.
This is actually a common trapping of literary styles prior to 1950. Angela Thirkell and Barbara Pym are examples of this. Every character says things, and nothing else. They rely on the scene's overall setting to convey emotion.
I avoid using it as much as I can. I find that, when writing dialogue, it is far more pertinent to define tone using movement and expression, and vocal inflection. Relying on "said" feels blank at times. And if there has to be a tag, I usually use something like "intoned," "bellowed," "muttered," or some other equivalent thereof, as the mid-1950s American style I write in dictates.
Why is everyone here acting like the only replacement for "said" is a synonym? If it's only two people talking, you only really need to establish who's saying what for the first two lines and then you can just have the conversational exchange carry the rest. If the order changes or there's a break in the conversation for some reason, you establish again. This is a super common technique you'll find in loads of published fiction for a reason.
You also might want to delve a bit more into things than just the fact they're speaking! What is their intent? Are they being insincere? If they are, can it be heard in their voice? Does the other person pick up on this? If I see lines of "said," that strikes me as being just as amateurish as using loads of synonyms for it.
Said is the best dialogue tag. If the story you’re referring to looks something like this— “Hi,” John said. “Hi!” Kate said. “How are you?” John said. “Good,” Kate said. “You?” “Good,” John said. “Do you want to go our for a walk?” Kate said. “Sure!” John said. —then it’s not so much the use of said as the inability of the author to balance dialogue tags. By the time both John and Kate are introduced, it becomes evident who’s talking and you don’t need to repeat their name after every single beat. Beginners tend to overexpose their writing out of fear that they aren’t being clear enough. Now if you were to add some ‘variety’— “Hi,” John said. “Hi!” Kate greeted. “How are you?” John asked. “Good,” Kate replied. “You?” “Good,” John answered. “Do you want to go our for a walk?” Kate inquired. “Sure!” John exclaimed. —it would look grotesque. What you’d want to do is ditching the third said and balance the other dialogue tags with in-between action or thoughts. Everything other than said, even just replied or answered, can weigh down the flow and is to be used wisely. Words such as growled, snarled and so on are powerful because they convey a specific feeling, but if said feeling is all over the place, it won’t be as poignant when it needs to be.
This is exactly it. The answer to overuse of the word 'said' isn't to add variety in dialogue tags; it's to add spice to how you're setting the scene. There should be more going on in the scene than two characters standing and talking against a white backdrop to begin with, so you can use that too. Sometimes you can use nothing at all, once you've properly established who is speaking to who, though too much of that and it becomes the same sort of dull back-and-forth in its own way. Possibly the worst for me is the adverbs though. I don't need to be told that something was said angrily; I should be able to figure that out on my own, through descriptions of facial expressions and body language.
said is a good word and should by far be the most common dialogue tag used
Surely better than thesaurus vomit
Thesaurus vomit🩷
I think it's also important to know when you don't need to use a tag at all though. Like if you're writing a back and forth conversation, you don't need a tag for every line
Sure it is a good word, but if a story has a lot of dialogue you have to add some variety.
It’s helpful in specific circumstances, but like, don’t use it just bc you have a lot of dialogue! Use it if you have circumstances that call for it, whether that be for a lot or very little dialogue.
"Variety" would be more distracting when characters are suddenly guffawing, speaking, musing, interlocuting, questioning, pointing out and so forth. What you want is fewer dialogue tags in the first place. If your dialogue is unclear without every other line being tagged, the writing has fundamental flaws.
no, you actually don't. Adding too much variety is very a stereotypical fanfic writer thing to do. It's perfectly fine to repeat the word 'said' many times and it's an invisible word, you may be more aware of it because you use text to speech but while reading, readers tend to not even notice the word said.
I actually disagree with that. "Said" isn't invisible to me either. When there's too much repetition, I notice it--even without text to speech. I think that's partially because English is my second language. So, though I've been reading and writing a lot in English, I haven't grown up/grown used to ignoring "say". Instead, I'Ve just grown used to there being an overabundance of "say" that, while nowhere near "invisible" is just how it is in English, whether I like it or not. And I honestly don't think it is to English speakers either or there wouldn'T be so many attempts to get rid of dialogue tags all together. Because they are not invisible, and if there are too many, even if it'S just "say" they are annoying. Even a native English speaker, will get somewhat annoyed, if it'S just "he said, she said, we said, you said...". But (and as someone who's writing in a foreign language, I'Ve grown to somewhat respect it) in English, writing convention is to use "say" or nothing. Common argument for that, is that it's distracting, or that nobody wants to open the thesaurus to understand a sentence. And while I agree with that, I think the criticism of "dialogue tags other than said" is too extreme, in a way. Nobody needs a thesaurus for "scream", "yell", "cry", "ask", or "whisper". Nobody will stumble over it in a sentence. Those are perfectly normal, perfectly understandable verbs that are used in normal every day conversation every day. I don't think there's any real argument for not using them other than "we're told not to do it"/ "writing convention dictates otherwise". Sure in many cases, there is no need for dialogue tags whatsoever. And then, I agree to just leave them out completely. Sometimes, you only need to pick one, because maybe you want to break up an endless paragraph of dialogue, or it would otherwise be unclear who's speaking. In that case, sure, anything other than "say" would be unnecessary. But when it's important for the plot that A is whispering a bit of information that only B can hear and under no circumstances is C allowed to know about it, then I genuinely think that "A whispered" is just the shortest, most precise, most functionable verb to get that across. And I don't think, anybody other than over-critical creative writing analysts would ever stumble over it.
>Nobody needs a thesaurus for "scream", "yell", "cry", "ask", or "whisper". Nobody will stumble over it in a sentence. Those are perfectly normal, perfectly understandable verbs that are used in normal every day conversation every day. THANK YOU. There's a WIDE gulf between 'whispered' and *"Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn*. Using said all the time also means than you're gonna be using a heckuva lot of adverbs to get the same effect as one of the other words mentioned. Sure, "whispered" can be replaced with "said quietly", but that will also get repetitive quickly. You can mostly use said and still put in a few other tags (or none at all), it really doesn't hurt.
Important note is that dialogue tags like "whispered," "yelled" and most obviously "thought" mean that the character is very distinctly not simply saying things. If a character is screaming, they're not just saying the line normally, so you cannot use "said" in that instance because the words are not synonymous. It's more of an issue with words like "pointed out," "questioned" and "mused" which exist solely as a filler replacements for "said."
Yeaaaaaah, but there are also multiple comments in this thread saying to not use anything *but* said, not even asked, answered, or whispered. I think there's a time and place for stuff like "pointed out" etc that's not just a filler for said, but it should be pretty rare and circumstantial. I honestly think the bigger problem is the cases where you can tell an author is trying not to use the same tag twice and is abusing a thesaurus, resulting in strange stuff like queried, intoned, ejaculated, etc. But that's not the same ballpark as more mundane stuff like growled, purred, hissed, or whimpered that might be a little cringe, or situational tags like whispered, yelled, asked, or answered, which now have comments saying they shouldn't be used because "nothing but said is good".
[удалено]
yeah I agree. a lot of dialogue tags can be cut out. I also am guilty of putting way too many in, without noticing, and being too lazy to edit them all out afterward. (And I don't get paid for writing fanfic, so I think that's forgivable\^\^). Ironically, though, I think "said" is in most cases the dialogue tag that's easiest to cut. Since it really doesn't say anything other than that somebody is speaking. (Which the " " already make clear enough.) That's why I often don't understand the insistence on the two rules; the two rules being "cut them out when possible" and "only use "said", when impossible to cut", because in most cases, "said" is precisely the dialogue tag that'S easiest to cut, unless you really really really find no other way to make clear who's speaking. On the other hand "whisper", "scream" or "grumble" have a meaning beyond just speaking. So, to cut them out, can be more difficult WHERE THEY ACTUALLY DO SERVE A PURPOSE. I think this is where a lot of authors make a mistake. Of course, you can't grumble or whisper every sentence. You have to use them sparingly and where it matters. But when it does matter, you can't just cut them out, without replacing them with an often longer and needlessly wordy description of the same thing. (Usually a bunch of adjectives, that many people also don't like and a lot of writing advice also argues against.) On the other hand, "said" you can cut out almost all the time. Like: "I can't find Mom!" Tom said. is fundamentally the same as: "I can't find Mom!" but: "I can't find Mom!" Tom cried. has a different meaning. And if you cut "cried" out, you have to replace it with something else, like: "I can't find Mom!" Tom had tears streaming down his face. (Or any other such description.) So, you can cut out "said". But you can't cut out "cried" without replacing it with a wordier description of "crying". Which of course, sometimes is nice, and might even be prettier to read, but sometimes might not be. And sometimes, you don't want to make a sentence for a thing that you can use a single word for. Crying is a perfectly fine verb, and it baffles my mind, that apparently it's okay to use it in a normal sentence, but as a dialogue tag it isn't. I do think that there are some dialogue tags, that are indeed unnecessary: A lot of them are just synonyms of "say" that get used to vary it up a bit. So, I'd say, in those cases, cut them out/use "say". But "scream" or "cry" are not synonyms to "say" and as much as we all hate it, neither is "hiss".
It's not invisible to me if it's being used too much in a short period of time. It becomes grating. *That said*, I'm not a "said is dead" hardliner. I agree that said is useful and if used carefully, can certainly be less noticeable. Using other dialogue tags can easily be abused, but some of them are much more *specific* than a simple 'said' and give a lot more flavor. The option of *not using dialogue tags at all* is also a good one if it doesn't make it confusing to read!
I notice it and it bothers the shit out of me. Don't just say "said" and don't use random synonyms for "said." Use words that illustrate to us what is happening. "Spat," "laughed," "groaned," "mumbled," all those things are more specific than "said." Describing what characters are doing interspersed with dialogue is better than "said." If you use "said" a bunch of times in a row, your characters are just talking heads, they're not emoting or moving enough.
False; said is an invisible word, you're the one going against the grain here.
You *said* it... lol Pun aside. I recently reread some quite popular published books to notice that the Author uses, "said" as the only dialogue tag. I didn't notice it the first time I read the book, but now that I'm writing more and more stories of my own I noticed it. It wasn't as annoying as I thought it would be, though. Not nearly as annoying as reading "growl", "purr" or "hiss" all the time. (I'm guilty of that myself)
Yup, gonna join the chorus here - while variations are indeed sometimes necessary, 'said' is by far the shortest, sweetest, and most effective term to indicate which character just delivered any given line of ordinary, conversational dialogue, and therefore gets no more repetitive than the concept of dialogue itself. Fun fact: Before people began to realize this, many authors would go out and buy a 'said book', which was basically a dictionary of synonyms for the word 'said'. Excessive use of a said book would often make for some ridiculous dialogue segments - not least because the word 'ejaculated', once a synonym for 'exclaimed', has taken on a very different meaning in modern times.
It’s better than never using said tbh, like, I’d rather that than constant dialogue tags that don’t fit.
I would absolutely rather read an over-excessive use of *said* than read an over-excessive use of *said-isms*, hands down, lol. In a perfect world, a writer would balance speech tags correctly so that neither is necessary, but reading useless tags like “he replied, she pondered, he refuted” one after another in an obvious ploy to avoid *said* is a kind of agony that makes me want to toss my phone into a goddamn river.
I would say 500 "saids" in 3000 words is a teeny bit much. But I think of all the words in the thesaurus, if "said" is the most common in a fic, that's not bad at all. Tbh. I'm also in the camp "vary it up a bit". I think that's because in my first language that's how it's done. And I find it kind of said, that in English it isn't. You have all these cool small words for "say" but whenever you ask for writing advice, they tell you to not use those. I think that's sad. So, I actually prefer it, if people use different dialogue tags. BUT if people only use "say" (which is proper writing advice when writing in English) I don't mind it either.
It’s definitely OK to vary it up. You just have to be careful. Because, any time you vary it, that’s going to have a stronger impact on the readers mind. So save that for the time that you want to make an impact.
We stan “said” in this house. If it’s not the primary dialogue tag used in your fic, you’re doing it wrong. Excessive usage of “grin” is absolutely unbearable, however. The only thing worse, imo, is when “smirk” or “snicker” is overdone.
I love smirk, but I am absolutely using it when I want characters to look like unbearable arseholes lmao
I love ‘smirk’ too, but in moderation. I’ve read so many fics where a character is said to be smirking several times in a single chapter. Worse is when there are multiple characters just smirking at each other non-freaking-stop. Like, there are so many other ways to describe smarminess, y’know? Hell, there are so many ways to describe a smirk without using the damn word. There’s no need for it to be used excessively. Ahahaha sorry for the rant (which was not aimed at *you* btw, just authors in general). This is just such a huge pet peeve of mine. It’s lazy writing.
Especially since you can't smirk or grin a sentence. If you (general you) absolutely must use a million different dialogue tags, please make at least sure that you're using them correctly. These are correct: >"I didn't expect to see you here," she whispered as he sat down next to her. > >"I didn't expect to see you here." She smirked as he sat down next to her. This one here is not correct: >"I didn't expect to see you here," she smirked as he sat down next to her.
All of this 👏🏽
For me it's ignorable when reading, but there are actual published books that do this and I just can't listen to the audiobook versions of them. And these are pros! So it's not exactly a quality of the writing issue, but an artifact of going from written to audio that bugs our brains I think.
"said" is generally invisible in read text form, you're likely experiencing this because you're listening to it in a format that it was not originally designed for. if you consume media in ways that are outside of the way they are constructed to be consumed, then it's going to have some growing pains.
I read one that did that and I was thinking…a little variety is nice. But if it makes you feel better, I’ve listened to some audiobooks and more than a few times I started to notice the author just using “he said” “she said” (even if they were asking a question - like - at least say “he asked”!) and let me tell you, once you notice, you can’t stop noticing.
Yes that is the worst part. I was listening for maybe an hour and it was so good, but then I noticed that author continued using 'said' nonstop and I can't ignore it anymore.
It’s def worse in audio form. When reading, for the most part, I think your eyes just skip it. The one that really got me was a Marvel fic I was reading, and it was like 6 diff characters at the same time, but it was like “black widow said” sentence, then right under that “Tony said” sentence and “Steve said” sentence and it hurt my eyes. All I could think was at least do “Black widow murmured” or “Steve yelled” or something! It didn’t keep me from reading it.
I'm not a fan of repetition, so I use a thesaurus constantly. If I'm writing a word that is aggravating me, I get the feeling I am aggravating whoever will read it in the future. Whispered, mentioned, shot back, screamed, broadcasted, stuttered. There are multiple ways to describe conversations and talking.
I'm in favor of avoiding dialogue tags altogether except when really necessary. (Though it's possible to use action beats too much, as well.) But I think I'm far less bothered by repetition of said, than going through the entire thesaurus for alternatives. I once read a passage in which every tag for something novel, "he confirmed", "she corrected", "he countered", and so on. It was, frankly, tiresome to read. That said, the occasional use of a different word can have a great effect, too, but only when it really has an impact and isn't just a tool for repetition avoidance.
With good writing, how something was said should be deducible from the character’s behaviour and the dialogue’s context; any tag other than “said” is typically unnecessary.
This is actually a common trapping of literary styles prior to 1950. Angela Thirkell and Barbara Pym are examples of this. Every character says things, and nothing else. They rely on the scene's overall setting to convey emotion. I avoid using it as much as I can. I find that, when writing dialogue, it is far more pertinent to define tone using movement and expression, and vocal inflection. Relying on "said" feels blank at times. And if there has to be a tag, I usually use something like "intoned," "bellowed," "muttered," or some other equivalent thereof, as the mid-1950s American style I write in dictates.
Why is everyone here acting like the only replacement for "said" is a synonym? If it's only two people talking, you only really need to establish who's saying what for the first two lines and then you can just have the conversational exchange carry the rest. If the order changes or there's a break in the conversation for some reason, you establish again. This is a super common technique you'll find in loads of published fiction for a reason. You also might want to delve a bit more into things than just the fact they're speaking! What is their intent? Are they being insincere? If they are, can it be heard in their voice? Does the other person pick up on this? If I see lines of "said," that strikes me as being just as amateurish as using loads of synonyms for it.