Things You Can Do to Improve Your Writing Now

One Writing Boo Boo You Should Avoid

"Oh, sure," she laughed. -- Ok, try it. Try talking and laughing. Try actually saying a word while going ha, ha, ha. Doesn't work.

I have also seen the following: "Oh, sure," she shrugged.

A shrug can speak even less than a laugh. A shrug does not have lips, tongue or larynx. Don't use actions as dialogue tags, and I'm referring to actions that have nothing to do with actually speaking.

Exceptions to this? Sure. Sometimes you can have a goofball character burp words. If the dialogue can happen that way in real life, and you really want the reader to know that the character spoke the way the dialogue tag suggests, then yes, an unusual dialogue tag, like burping or coughing or choking, can work. But don't overuse it.

How to fix your slew of "she laughed" dialogue tags? Easy. Make the laugh into an action sentence so that it is no longer being used as a dialogue tag. Refer to the example above. It has a comma between the dialogue and the laugh. Write it this way instead: "Oh, sure." She laughed.

The "she laughed" part is now a complete sentence. A complete sentence, by the way, has a minimum of a subject and a verb, starts with a capital and ends with a period. And there's your easy fix.

Be careful not to overdo the "she laughed" sentences. Also, be aware that you can have the sentence at the front of a paragraph too, instead of following. Example: She laughed. "Oh, sure."