“Well I wasn’t listening, was I!” he said.įor some authors, it’s a matter of stylistic preference.Įven so, it’s hard to argue that the first version is better than the second.

Whenever you read the author attributing who said what, it reminds us a narrative convention is being used.Ĭompare these two versions of the same conversation: Romy Sommer in ‘Writing dialogue: What to avoid’, webinar preview here. Keep it as tight as possible, and move as quickly as possible into the purpose of the conversation. Novel writing coach Romy Sommer says of dialogue: The more we read ‘he said’ and ‘she said’, the more we’re aware of the author creating the dialogue. The problem with dialogue tags is they draw attention to the author’s hand. Show how people speak using action and gesture.Use said or other tags only where necessary.Here are some tips for using dialogue tags such as said and synonyms for said well: How to use said and its synonyms well: They let characters’ words do the emoting.

‘He said’ and ‘she said’ are often preferable because they do not draw the reader’s attention to the fact they are reading written dialogue. Given that there are countless verbs that can take the place of ‘said,’ should you simply find a stronger, more emotive one and use that? It would be strange, for example, for a character to ‘sneer’ the words ‘I love you’, since the word ‘sneer’ connotes contempt rather than affection. yelled, shouted, bellowed, screamed, whispered) It identifies who spoke and/or the tone or emotion behind their speech. In written conversation or dialogue, a tag is a group of words following quoted speech (e.g. Read other words for said as well as tips for keeping your dialogue natural and engrossing: What is a ‘dialogue tag’? It’s not only what characters say but how they say it that matters. Writing effective, compelling dialogue has multiple elements.

Another word for things remembered