Dialog tags are those bits of information outside the quotation marks that tell who is speaking. Sometimes called speaker attribution, they help keep straight who is speaking. The problem is they can also unnecessarily weigh down your dialog.
Changing Styles
What do exclaimed, replied, pondered, whispered, and chuckled have in common? They are all used to identify the speaker. Beginning writers may think they are clever to pepper these synonyms for said throughout their work. But these are not invisible words absorbed by the dialog, they stick out like a blinking neon sign saying, “Look at me, look at me.”
A generation ago characters replied, exclaimed, and chuckled their way through dialog, but current writing practice advises against it. Trust your reader to deduce when a character is replying, eliminate the word exclaimed after an exclamation point (it’s redundant), and try to speak mid-chuckle. It’s very difficult if not impossible.
Invisible Said
In preparing for this blog post, I searched my Roget’s Thesaurus for the word said. It wasn’t there! The listing went directly from sage to sail. Said is such a bland word it doesn’t even have an entry, making it a perfect candidate for invisibility. And that’s what you want. You want your reader to skim over the word just long enough to identify the speaker.
In cases where it’s obvious who is speaking you don’t need speaker attribution. This works well for two speakers each with a distinctive voice.
Pres took the take-out bag from his mother. “Mmm. Smells good.”
“Have you talked to Lilly? Think of the children.”
“Mom. I don’t want to discuss it.”
“You have to face it sooner or later.”
Action Tags
An action tag identifies the speaker through action. For example:
The door swung open. “Harry, thanks for coming so quickly.”
He nodded.
“As I said, we’ve a bit of a situation. Mice.” She pursed her lips. “Nasty creatures,” she said as if he didn’t understand.
“You’ve got two options,” Harry said. “Traps or poison.”
“The trouble is, they’ve been in both Children’s and Reference. Poison is out of the question. And we don’t want children pinching their fingers in mousetraps.” She glared at him challenging him to solve her problem.
Harry rubbed his chin. “Hmm. No poison. No traps.” He paused. “Have you considered a cat?”
In this example Harry nods, rubs his chin, and pauses. The female character purses her lips and glares. These actions not only tell who is speaking but also paint a visual allowing your reader to experience your character. Did you notice the word ‘said’ used once for each character? If not, it just goes to show how invisible said can be.
Under certain circumstances you can eliminate dialog tags, at other times replace them with action tags. The goal is to make them as invisible as possible so the reader experiences the story through the character’s eyes with no distractions.
