Clusterfuck Draft To Legible Story

How To Use Dialogue Tags Like A Pro

Recently, I bought a paperback. A mystery book. Let's not disclose the title and writer. XD

And guess what? I found THREE dialogue tags error within the first 80 pages. Well, apparently, books full of inept dialogue tags are published all the time. *Shrug*

So the title is somehow not legit. Even pro makes dialogue tags error. But I guess at the end of the day, everyone does. I'm in no way a pro. This is me reminding myself too how to use a dialogue tag properly. Let's start. I'll do this in a simple way and explanation.

So what is a dialogue tag? How it differs from an action beat?

Dialogue tags are phrases like “he said” or “she asked.” They attribute a line of dialogue to the characters so that the reader (hopefully) always knows who is speaking.

Dialogue tags are functional. You use them in writing because you can't hear the characters talking, and you can't see what they're feeling.

Now let's get to the nitty-gritty.

1. Always prefer 'said' (or say) to any other verbs.

When you feel like 'said' can't convey the dialogue well, opt for the simplest kind of verb. Eg: asked, whispered, mumbled, shouted.

Some writers, including me, used a fancier verb, like retorts, responds, rejoins. But keep it low. Don't use fancy dialogue tags too much. It will take away your reader's focus from the dialogue.

But ONLY using 'said' will make your writing humdrum. Sometimes you don't need a dialogue tag at all. Slip some actions between the paragraphs.

2. Avoid adverb in a tag like the plague!

Yeah, most of the time, it's a bad bad bad idea to use an adverb to describe your tags. Rather than an adverb, why don't you use a verb/description instead?

See this:

"Listen. Stop calling me for God's sake! You're starting to act like a psycho," she said angrily.

vs

"Listen. Stop calling me for God's sake!" She clenched her phone to stop herself from tossing it across the room. "You're starting to act like a psycho."

If you tell me you don't get that she's angry there, something is wrong with you. XD

It might not be the best example, but you see what I mean? Using adverbs (you can use it sparingly, of course) makes your writing looks amateurish. You don't want that. XD

And oh, wait. You see what I did? That's called an action beat. You have a dialogue AND a description instead of a speaking tag. So you use a period mark instead of a comma to end the dialogue.

Or at times, you don't even need a verb/adverb for your dialogue.

Consider:

"My mother died last night," she said sadly.

vs.

"My mother died last night."

It's clear she's sad without you need to tell us she's sad. Who's got happy when their mother died? UNLESS something is wrong with your character, then you can describe her happiness there.

Or if you want to make it emotionally stronger, consider adding a bit of description here:

"My mother died last night." She looked away as a tear slipped from her eyelid.

So you know she's sad without having to tell us she's sad. This is where people say 'show don't tell'. Actually, you CAN tell, it depends on the character's personality. But some readers don't get how telling works, and some writers don't know how to make telling works...

3. Use as few dialogue tags as possible.

You can either do it the way I told you in point two (action beat), or you can use the characters name to show whos talking.

Eg:

"Where have you been, Jona?"

"Nowhere."

"You left without notice for a fucking month."

"Let it go, Luuk."

So you can tell who's talking and you should know their emotions without the need of dialogue tags and/or descriptions. This way of writing is especially effective for arguments and action scenes. But don't make it a dialogue-only scene. You're not writing a script. You can write this way (without descriptions/tags) sporadically.

4. Dialogue/action tags don't only belong at the end of the dialogue.

A lot of writers write a damnable 13 lines of dialogue without any break. Please don't do that.

Look at this:

"So read this dialogue. I'm going to write a long one without a break. You're going to get bored with it soon enough, believe me. You need to have a variety of sentence length and variety of dialogue length. Don't simply write the whole conversation in the same freaking paragraph without any break. Have you gotten tired of this dialogue already? I know I am getting annoyed from writing this long. So what you can do to remedy this? Break it up! Add some actions and descriptions somewhere in between this dialogue. I'm going to show you how to do that below," Karin said, annoying her readers.

vs.

"So read this dialogue. I'm going to write a long one without a break." Karin thought that was what she wanted to do, but apparently, she didn't. "You're not bored with this dialogue this time, I guess. Now you see how dialogue length plays their part?"

An annoying sound of a motorcycle engine jabbed Karin's ears at the moment. 

"Don't simply write the whole conversation in the same freaking paragraph without any break. Have you gotten tired of this dialogue already? Well, I think it's getting better now, right?" Karin added. "So, again, what you can do to remedy this? Break it up! Add some actions and descriptions somewhere in between this dialogue. I have shown you how to do it. You should know better now."

Karin finally stopped her rant.

So...you see? Break your dialogues into some chunk. Don't get prolix if possible.

I think that's all for now. Ask me in the comment if you have anything to ask. Thank you!

Yours,
Karin.

Reference: https://www.novel-writing-help.com/dialogue-tags.html