"Get out of here," her cheeks flushed red she found the nearest plate and threw it at the wall next to his head. With my students, I love to use an example like this: I once had a mentor who put it like this: people don't laugh things, they don't chuckle things, or smile them, etc. This is often the place where writers make a very common mistake: Of course, this can become somewhat boring, or monotonous. "I can't believe you would do that," she said. While there is some wonderful advice in here, this is also a very common and (somewhat) contentious topic.Īs others have pointed out, there are essentially three ways of crafting dialogue. "asked" when you use a question mark (use "said"). Might be back and forth banter like a tennis game of dialogue andĮasy to follow or a person's manner of speech or tone might be a Skip attributions altogether when it is clear who is speaking."Run!" Johnny charged for the forest, not waiting for the group. Use beats, the prose between dialogue, to make attributions through.To make your dialogue pop and other such sites for alternatives. Use words besides "said" but only if they are called for: emotional.Verb to one that means saying loudly, such as "shouted", or attribute Instead of writing "he said loudly", either change the It is the ubiquitousĪttribution that offends no one when not overused. Use "said", such as "he said" or "she said".This subject is under constant debate, but the standard advice is to keep dialogue tags simple. You may be surprised by how much more natural your writing becomes when you stop doing it. Over describing dialog is a very widespread beginner mistake. Whenever possible, make feeling clear through word choice, not through line delivery. This is includes using adverbs to describe how characters are speaking. Whenever you do it, the reader is forced to shift modes, and doing it too often can bring them out of immersion. "You're so picky, but I can cook them a little longer if you'd like."įinally, I strongly discourage adding unnecessary descriptions to what characters are doing in the dialog tags. "I do like eggs, but these eggs are far too runny." People will understand that paragraph breaks indicate alternating speakers. It's also worth noting that when only two people are talking, you can often cut out dialog tags after the first quotation or two. You see "said Mable" because you are thinking critically about words and structure, but the reader will rarely be consciously aware of the words "said Mable." Instead, they will only be conscious of the proceeding sentence their brain will seamlessly absorb the fact that Mable was the person who said it. "I don't care for these eggs," said Mable.
Their brain will actually tune some repetitive things out, and the word "said" is one such thing. A well written story will immerse the reader in the experience of reading. However, reading is an entirely different story. We don't like to repeat ourselves and we hate seeing all those "said"s stack up because they seem cumbersome and repetitive. When we write we are hyper-aware of our word choices and sentence structure. "Character said" really is one of the best ways to tag dialog. Most people understand when you change lines, it's a new person and if you established it is just 2 people talking, they can follow who is who as long as you give tidbits here and there on who is what in the convo.
#HOW TO INTRODUCE A QUOTE WITHOUT SOUNDING CHEESY FREE#
So feel free to skip a line or 2 with the he said she said stuff as long as it is just 2 people talking. Notice how I used other ways to fill the trailing of a quote. You don't have to put said after every line, and even when you give "tags" to quotes, you don't even have to use said. Admittedly, she thought it was cute at the same time. "Do you always use such corny lines to pick up women?" She smiled at his attempt to be cheesy. "Because the sparkle in your eye, and the radiance of your smile could only be because you are an angel that fell from heaven."
"Why do you always look at me that way?" She turned her head away, embarrassed as she recalled all the times she caught him glancing at her while working. You don't always have to tag "said" after every line said.