English: Parallel dialogue (2008) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today I’m going to talk about dialogue tagging. You know, the “John said” bit of “I can’t understand it,” John said. (Okay, that was probably a little basic, but please stick with me.)
There has been a lot said about dialogue tagging, and how to do it best. Get rid of all the adverbs. Take away all the descriptive tags and replace them with “said”. Ignore them entirely. Naturally the whole thing is terribly confusing and novices like me have no idea which advice to take.
Take adverb reduction, for example. Look, I get where this is coming from. The dialogue should speak for itself without the writer having to explain the tone of voice. “What are you doing?” Mary asked sharply could be replaced with “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mary asked, enriching the dialogue itself and eliminating the need for the description.
But the thing is, I think there is room for the occasional adverb. Not all the time, and not at the expense of better written conversation, but description can sometimes add to the whole experience. Besides, I am yet to read a book completely devoid of adverbs. So maybe, I’m thinking, it’s not a case of cutting them out entirely, but instead thinking about each one and whether it’s really needed. Most won’t be, but some will.
Okay, onto the “said” brigade. This is replacing the likes of “Speak for yourself,” Andrew muttered with “Speak for yourself,” Andrew said. The idea behind this is that again, the dialogue should speak for itself without the author having to explain things. Again, though, I’m less than convinced. Sure, it makes the text neater and simpler, but then again I think you lose some of the texture and feel of the scene. Perhaps again it’s a case of selective application. I’m just not sure.
Finally, there’s the idea of removing tags altogether. Now don’t get me wrong, no one does this exclusively, but it can work pretty well with conversations. It doesn’t necessarily mean not tagging the dialogue at all, just removing the “he said”, “she said” type of thing. For example:
Sarah frowned. “I just don’t see where you’re going with this.”
“Are you kidding? It’s as clear as day!” Mark got up and walked to the window, looking out. His frustration was obvious.
“It’s as clear as mud. What exactly to you hope to achieve?”
“World peace. Power over the universe. Or, failing that, I’d settle for getting that prick fired.”
I quite like this. It’s clean, it’s neat and it doesn’t detract from the conversation. However, what it can do is make the reader lose track of who is speaking. To use the example above, at this stage of the dialogue it’s clear whose voice is being used, but if it went on for two or more paragraphs I would find myself counting back to work out who is saying what. Maybe I’m alone in this – just about every book I’ve read this year has had this in several places, with me getting confused as to which words belong with which character. But then again, maybe I’m not alone, and authors (or editors) are inadvertently sacrificing clarity for the sake of brevity. I don’t know. So, while I quite like the technique, I think it should be used wisely so there is as little reader confusion as possible.
So where am I going with this post? Well, I don’t have advice to offer or an argument to make; instead, it’s really just a train of thought about how best to write dialogue. I don’t know that there are any right or wrong answers, but as I inch ever closer to the editing stage of my manuscript, I find myself thinking more and more about this sort of thing.
In the end, I think it’s down to personal tastes. Sure, there are some rules, like don’t go over the top with your descriptions – after all, isn’t it better when the reader has to make their own picture? It gets them so much more engaged – but really, do what you think feels right. Sure, some people won’t agree, but there are others who will … and if you get it horribly wrong, your editor will point it out anyway, right?*
*Unless, of course, I have it horribly wrong, in which case feel free to correct me. Thank you!
Related articles
- Writing Effective Dialogue (nancyjcohen.wordpress.com)
- Editing Tip – Adverbs (fallsintowriting.com)
- He Said, She Said: The Art of Dialogue Tags (andyswordsandpictures.wordpress.com)
- How To Edit Before You Submit Your Manuscript To An Editor (aknifeandaquill.wordpress.com)
This is a tough one, Emily, but I’ll leave you with my experience. Devotees of Strunk & White, as many editors are, don’t love adverbs. A smattering is fine, but things like “said sharply,” “screamed angrily,” and the like, make them cringe as they feel it weakens the writing, and is a sure sign (many feel) of an amateur. Of course, there are plenty of great writers who use adverbs, but the key word here is: “sparingly.”
As for tags like “muttered,” “cried,” etc. I tend to go with Hemingway on this one, and skip them altogether. Let the dialogue, and the description of their body language do the work of telling whether the speaker is using a low tone, or a loud one. But again, that’s a matter of taste, and there are still more examples where authors use these types of tags, many of them bestselling, though sometimes in reviews you see snarky comments about that.
All of this to say, you’re right. There are no hard and fast rules on dialogue tagging. You kind of have to do what you feel is best, but I’d err on the side of caution and use adverbs and tags like “moaned,” “whimpered” etc. as little as possible.
Thanks Tracey! Like I said, I’m still learning this crafty so all advice is most welcome. As you said it does come down to taste, but the word “sparingly” is a really good one for me to keep in mind when my time comes to edit. Thank you for your input.
To add on (I hope; if I’m taking off in a different direction than you intended, ignore me!), I think you have to hear/know/see the logic behind all of these “rules” to then make smart choices about which ones to follow in your writing. Right?
Oh, definitely. And that was one reason I wrote this post – to make sure I did understand the logic so I have more idea of what I’m supposed to be practising. If I had it totally wrong, I was going that someone would be nice enough to point out out to me! Thanks for the comment
Agree. Black-and-white rules are over-simplifications. The principles are that the focus should normally be on what is said, and that it is clear who is saying it.
On this latter, I’ve read that each character’s dialogue should be distinctive enough that it should be obvious who’s saying what without having to point it out. I can’t quite manage that, but it’s something else to bear in mind. If the identity of the speaker is obvious from the use of catphrases, vocab, etc, then that’s one tag that can be avoided.
I find that dialogue in which the writer attempts to avoid using the same tag twice is particularly cringe-worthy. Ditto with using the flashiest possible tags in an attempt to demonstrate exceptional vocabulary.
I also feel that it’s possible to over-use embedded actions and description within dialogue. Doing so slows down the pace of the interchange, making it less natural. This is most apparent during arguments, in which the responses should almost come out on top of each other. ‘He/she said’—or no tags at all—can be the quickest way to get on with the fireworks.
Excellent points, as always, Peter. And you have pared it down to essentials, namely what is being said and who is saying it. Believe it or not, I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms before, but if I can get that to work during my editing process I should, with any luck, be well on my way to getting it right. Thanks for the comment!
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I tend to use adverbs way too much in speech tags and then having to go back and correct it later, and I see the point of the rule about no adverbs in this context, but I think it’s ridiculous to exclude a whole category of words in general, because after all, it’s all part of language and it’s there for a reason.
I’m very confused about the tagging thing as well, and just figuring it out as I go along… Sometimes I try to pay attention to how my favourite authors do it when I read their books, but then I get caught up in the action and I forget to pay attention. But in theory, I think that’s a pretty good way to learn about how to do it.
Oh, and connected to that: I read somewhere that the key to the whole tagging thing is that it should be unobtrusive. When you notice it as a reader, it’s too much. Apparently.