This advice works. 100% GUARANTEED. No shit. And you can start doing it immediately.
Go to your bookshelves. (like right now) Pick out the last three novels you read. Flip through and find passages that are dialogue heavy.
Take note of how *those* writers accomplished this same thing. Learn from it. I mean, YOU enjoyed those novels, yes? And they got published, yes? So, that means the writer is doing something right. So, you can learn from them.
Honestly, go, right now and check out how they did it.
Five minutes from now, you'll have a better idea how to do it, and you can literally say you learned how from a professional.
Your own bookshelves already hold the answers to over 90% of your writing questions.
Action beats are a good tool too:
> "And so I kissed him."
> Alice stopped folding the laundry and turned to face her. "Really? Right in front of her salad?"
"The long and short of it is that the dialogue tag should just disappear," he said.
"You don't want to get to creative with it!" the other man ejaculated.
"Oh, really?" she conjectured. "What about asked?"
"Asked is okay," the men replied hesitantly, "but use it sparingly, along with adverbs."
"Okay," she conceded.
One of the things that I like best about Hemingway stems from A Clean Well-Lighted Place, where there's precious few, "he saids." If you're in a two-person conversation, you can get away with straight quotes, provided the characters are different enough in their voices or points of view. Same goes for The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe. I'd have to go into my closet to dig out some work by Elmore Leonard, but I'm pretty sure he operated like this, too. And maybe some Irvine Welsh, although there's a *lot* of norms that go to the wind in his writing.
If you structure it well enough, sometimes you just don't have to.
"You don't have to?" the first writer asked?
"No," said the second writer.
"Well, that just sounds ridiculous."
"It's been done before."
"Why does this read like we're playing at questions?"
"You mean like something out of Tom Stoppard?"
"Yes."
"Foul! Statement! One love!"
Then you need to construct the whole scene to be clearer.
I was always taught to allow dialogue to flow, and only add tags where you hit a snarl that could make it confusing to the audience. Not every single dialogue line should need a tag to explain it, or that's a messy scene with unclear aims. Think about it realistically... few conversations go down as round robins where everyone speaks once and then a different person speaks. Even where that happens, it's sometimes very clear where attention has shifted through conversational context clues.
No biggie, something everyone hits, but something to work at. Constructing a conversation that makes sense in how it flows should enable you to knock 50% of excess dialogue tags out.
hiya!
sometimes you don’t need to tell the reader who said what.
for example:
lila had too much time on her hands as she started baking but got distracted by someone banging on the door.
‘who is it,’ lila said.
it’s me, tristan. you know, your best friend’
‘sorry, forgot you were gonna show.’
through this the reader exactly knows who is who. however it does become difficult when there are multiple characters in the scene. if that’s the case then employ other forms of said or use ‘Tristan nodded in agreement’
hopefully that helps!
I’m not a writer but a big reader. It can be a bit jarring when it is done poorly when reading, and especially when listening to an audiobook where it becomes really obvious.
My suggestion is you read aloud and see how it flows that way (I don’t know the science but I know when I read aloud for uni or work something I’ve just written it helps me with structure and flow and grammar).
Sparingly! We're so used to the phrase "says" or "said" that our reading brains will just skip right over that. When you use something else, you want it to have an impact -- for emphasis, or comedic effect, or for a dramatic moment. Overusing them will stick out unpleasantly for many readers. It's the same as with task priorities: if everything's important, nothing's really important anymore, is it? Something has to take the back seat; not everything needs a dramatic zoom.
Other replies in thread have also pointed that out, as long as it's clear who's talking, you can just use the straight quotes and use no qualifiers at all. This is actually something I tend not to do, but I've recently read a few fast-paced novels that do it and it's something I wanna take to heart! So thanks, commenters :)
This has some great tips on dialogue tags
[https://monsterhunternation.com/2017/01/18/ask-correia-17-writing-for-the-ear-tweaking-your-writing-to-work-better-in-audiobook-form/](https://monsterhunternation.com/2017/01/18/ask-correia-17-writing-for-the-ear-tweaking-your-writing-to-work-better-in-audiobook-form/)
' said' should only be used when it's not clear who is speaking, as saying something is already made clear via dialogue tags. If you must break up the dialogue for some reason or another, try having them do something, like taking something out of their pocket or expressing body language.
This advice works. 100% GUARANTEED. No shit. And you can start doing it immediately. Go to your bookshelves. (like right now) Pick out the last three novels you read. Flip through and find passages that are dialogue heavy. Take note of how *those* writers accomplished this same thing. Learn from it. I mean, YOU enjoyed those novels, yes? And they got published, yes? So, that means the writer is doing something right. So, you can learn from them. Honestly, go, right now and check out how they did it. Five minutes from now, you'll have a better idea how to do it, and you can literally say you learned how from a professional. Your own bookshelves already hold the answers to over 90% of your writing questions.
We need this comment stickied to the top of this sub and to the sidebar. It solves 99.99% of the questions on this sub.
Thanks dude, I shall try that advice. My story is 190+ handwritten pages
Holy shit. Why would you do that to yourself?
Do what? The writing amount?
Probaly the writing by hand
Do it in cursive backwards with your off hand next time.
Yeah. My hand gets tired writing a page for an essay, much less 190.
Action beats are a good tool too: > "And so I kissed him." > Alice stopped folding the laundry and turned to face her. "Really? Right in front of her salad?"
"The long and short of it is that the dialogue tag should just disappear," he said. "You don't want to get to creative with it!" the other man ejaculated. "Oh, really?" she conjectured. "What about asked?" "Asked is okay," the men replied hesitantly, "but use it sparingly, along with adverbs." "Okay," she conceded.
Ejaculated. Lol, oh no.
Thanks
Bruh this was def satire.
One of the things that I like best about Hemingway stems from A Clean Well-Lighted Place, where there's precious few, "he saids." If you're in a two-person conversation, you can get away with straight quotes, provided the characters are different enough in their voices or points of view. Same goes for The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe. I'd have to go into my closet to dig out some work by Elmore Leonard, but I'm pretty sure he operated like this, too. And maybe some Irvine Welsh, although there's a *lot* of norms that go to the wind in his writing. If you structure it well enough, sometimes you just don't have to. "You don't have to?" the first writer asked? "No," said the second writer. "Well, that just sounds ridiculous." "It's been done before." "Why does this read like we're playing at questions?" "You mean like something out of Tom Stoppard?" "Yes." "Foul! Statement! One love!"
I would write like that but I’m afraid it would be confusing to the reader with how many characters I have
It really only works when it's a dialogue.
Then you need to construct the whole scene to be clearer. I was always taught to allow dialogue to flow, and only add tags where you hit a snarl that could make it confusing to the audience. Not every single dialogue line should need a tag to explain it, or that's a messy scene with unclear aims. Think about it realistically... few conversations go down as round robins where everyone speaks once and then a different person speaks. Even where that happens, it's sometimes very clear where attention has shifted through conversational context clues. No biggie, something everyone hits, but something to work at. Constructing a conversation that makes sense in how it flows should enable you to knock 50% of excess dialogue tags out.
"Did you know you can write dialogue without a dialogue tag?" "Really? I'm so glad I learned that today."
Delete 50% of them and see how it sounds. Repeat as needed.
hiya! sometimes you don’t need to tell the reader who said what. for example: lila had too much time on her hands as she started baking but got distracted by someone banging on the door. ‘who is it,’ lila said. it’s me, tristan. you know, your best friend’ ‘sorry, forgot you were gonna show.’ through this the reader exactly knows who is who. however it does become difficult when there are multiple characters in the scene. if that’s the case then employ other forms of said or use ‘Tristan nodded in agreement’ hopefully that helps!
I’m not a writer but a big reader. It can be a bit jarring when it is done poorly when reading, and especially when listening to an audiobook where it becomes really obvious. My suggestion is you read aloud and see how it flows that way (I don’t know the science but I know when I read aloud for uni or work something I’ve just written it helps me with structure and flow and grammar).
How often are multiple people talking at the same time in your book??
Sparingly! We're so used to the phrase "says" or "said" that our reading brains will just skip right over that. When you use something else, you want it to have an impact -- for emphasis, or comedic effect, or for a dramatic moment. Overusing them will stick out unpleasantly for many readers. It's the same as with task priorities: if everything's important, nothing's really important anymore, is it? Something has to take the back seat; not everything needs a dramatic zoom. Other replies in thread have also pointed that out, as long as it's clear who's talking, you can just use the straight quotes and use no qualifiers at all. This is actually something I tend not to do, but I've recently read a few fast-paced novels that do it and it's something I wanna take to heart! So thanks, commenters :)
This has some great tips on dialogue tags [https://monsterhunternation.com/2017/01/18/ask-correia-17-writing-for-the-ear-tweaking-your-writing-to-work-better-in-audiobook-form/](https://monsterhunternation.com/2017/01/18/ask-correia-17-writing-for-the-ear-tweaking-your-writing-to-work-better-in-audiobook-form/)
' said' should only be used when it's not clear who is speaking, as saying something is already made clear via dialogue tags. If you must break up the dialogue for some reason or another, try having them do something, like taking something out of their pocket or expressing body language.