Dialogue Alley: Tag, You’re It!
Welcome, fellow writers, editors, and language enthusiasts! To follow on from my last post, where we talked about ‘generic’ and ‘weak’ words, I wanted to come in this week to talk about a similar concept.
Many authors will go absolutely crazy trying to use any dialogue tag in the English language that isn’t ‘said’; but, the truth is that doing so can actually weaken your writing. Who knew?
Let’s unpack that.
WHAT’S A DIALOGUE TAG?
‘Believe it or not, you already know,’ she said.
Dialogue tags are simply the descriptors used before or after dialogue to indicate who is speaking.
‘You’ve always known what a dialogue tag is, you just didn’t know what it was called, until now,’ she said.
This helps keep track of who is speaking in new dialogue instances or in long back-and-forth conversations.
The standard dialogue tag is ‘said,’ or ‘asked’ if the speaker is posing a question; because they are the standard, people confuse them for being the ‘least interesting’ and partake in something called ‘elegant variation,’ in which they use any other verb under the sun to tag their dialogue with.
BUT ‘SAID’ IS SO BORING
And that’s the beauty of it.
Many people are under the misconception that using ‘said’ as your dialogue tag is a weak or generic term like those we talked about last week; and while, technically, it’s not the most descriptive term in the book, its lack of impact is what makes it so versatile and useful.
While using specific dialogue tags on occasion can add some extra colour to your writing, it can be obtrusive in moments when your reader should be focusing on the content of the dialogue. Additionally, you don’t have to add a dialogue tag at all if it’s obvious enough who’s speaking.
Consider the examples below:
‘My least favourite part of writing is trying to figure out which dialogue tags to use,’ grumbled Frank.
‘What do you mean?’ questioned Melissa, unsure what he was talking about.
‘It’s just so difficult,’ he sighed sadly. ‘There are so many verbs to choose from and I don’t want to sound repetitive!’
‘Why not just use “said?”’ she enquired, puzzled by his persistence. ‘It’s much easier than consulting the thesaurus all the time.’
‘Are you kidding?’ he scoffed, exclaiming: ‘That’s the most unoriginal dialogue tag there is!’
‘Why does it need to be original?’ she queried.
vs.
‘Ugh, this is my least favourite part of writing,’ said Frank, screwing up his face and plopping it into his hands.
Now it was Melissa’s turn to screw up her face, though in her case it was out of confusion, ‘What is?’
‘Picking dialogue tags, it’s just so difficult,’ he said, lifting his head from his hands to meet her gaze.
His response was met by a raised eyebrow, ‘Why not just use “said?”’
‘Are you kidding? That’s the most unoriginal dialogue tag there is!’
‘Why does it need to be original?’
In the first exchange, we see heavy use of ‘elegant variation,’ focusing mainly on how everything was said, instead of giving attention to the speakers’ actions or how they interact physically throughout the exchange.
It doesn’t necessarily feel robotic, but it makes the reader stop to consider the dialogue tag used in order to gauge what tone they should be reading it in.
Whereas in the second exchange, more description is given and fewer ‘unique’ dialogue tags are utilised. This saves the reader from stopping to take instructions from the tags, and instead, they naturally glean the nature of the conversation through the actions of the speakers.
Additionally, the words spoken have been changed to make the dialogue flow more naturally. We’ll cover that in more detail in a future blog post.
Don’t be scared of using ‘said’ when you’re writing dialogue, it won’t make you look like a sub-par writer. In fact, if you are able to set the scene and write the dialogue itself to a high standard without dabbling in all this ‘elegant variation’, you will come across as a much more proficient writer than you think.
I’ll see you next week for another instalment of Author’s Toolbox, hopefully, I can help with the ease of your writing process. Until then:
Keep practising, keep learning, and most importantly, keep writing!
