Writing good dialogue isn’t easy. When writing dialogue, you want to ensure that the scenes your characters participate in not only reveal character or advance the plot; you want to make sure that what they say to each other is interesting and that it is believable and sounds natural. Part of that recipe is the dialogue tags you choose to employ, i.e., the phrase or word that tells your readers who’s speaking. And like everything else in your novel or short fiction, dialogue tags should not distract your readers or interfere with the story you’re trying to tell. Many writers believe dialogue tags should only be “He Said or She Said.” Or should they be?
As an aside, my daughters, who are younger than fourteen, read incessantly. They love Rick Riordan and J.K. Rowling, Shannon Messenger, Leigh Bardugo, and others. My eldest reads twice as quickly as I do, AND comprehend what she’s read, which I find amazing. But I digress. If you have children, you know the types of dialogue tags that a great many writers of Children’s literature and YA and even some graphic novels use. The dreaded adverbs we, as writers of literary fiction and other “adult literature” are told to avoid are not only used in children's literature—they’re welcome. Here’s a passage from The Shadow and Bone Trilogy by Bardugo:
“Do you know who we are?” the woman asked. Her hair was steel gray. Her face lined, but beautiful.
“You’re witches,” blurted Mal.
“Witches,” she snarled.
And from Lynette Noni’s The Prison Healer:
“Don’t worry, it’ll grow back,” Kiva said gently.
And “Finished,” called the guard at the door.
As you can see from these excerpts, and as the kids today say, dialogue tags in YA and children’s literature are a little “extra.” Authors of such works use adverbs at will, and employ action within the sentences, both pre-dialogue and post-dialogue tags. While there is no concrete “rule” in adult literature of whatever genre, using adverbs and dialogue tags other than “he said” or she said” may not work. Generally speaking, and I’ll be frank here, I know dialogue tags other than “he said” and “she said” can and often do work. Personally, I’m not an absolutist on this topic—at least mostly. I’ve used a little extra something something when it comes to dialogue tags over my writing career, mostly to add a little curveball, a little spice to liven the writing up. But my preference, and the preference of a lot of writers and readers, is to avoid overwriting, to avoid adverbs and other accoutrement when it comes to dialogue tags. That said, a well-placed and well-done anything—adverb, adjective, metafiction passage, description, whatever—can work. You just have to know what you’re doing and you have to be self-aware.
While there is no concrete “rule” in adult literature of whatever genre, using adverbs and dialogue tags other than “he said” or she said” may not work.
Back to the “he said” “she said” rule/not a rule. The writer Joe Moore, on his blog The Kill Zone, wrote about new authors overusing synonyms for the word “said.” Moore: “They go to: exclaimed, murmured, screamed, whispered, pleaded, shrieked, demanded, ordered, cried, shouted, and my all-time favorite, muttered. Thing is, I as a reader, don’t care. I just don’t read dialogue tags — at all.”
I agree with Moore. I don’t want to hear the tags either. They get in the way. They attract attention that we don’t need. They should, in my opinion, disappear the second you read them, if they’re there at all. It’s not always easy to eliminate them altogether, but you can do it. Here’s an excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants:
The man called "Listen" through the curtain. The woman came out
from the bar.
"Four reales."
"We want two Anis del Toro."
"With water?"
"Do you want it with water?"
"I don't know," the girl said. "Is it good with water?"
"It's all right."
"You want them with water?" asked the woman.
"Yes, with water."
"It tastes like licorice," the girl said and put the glass down.
"That's the way with everything."
"Yes," said the girl. "Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe."
In this passage Hemingway uses few dialogue tags, and to great effect. He sets it up by dropping in an occasional dialogue tag or introductory sentence, such as, “The man called ‘Listen’ through the curtain. The woman came out from the bar.” And then Hemingway goes straight into the conversation without including dialogue tags. He returns to them later on, however, which not only reminds the reader who is speaking but adds to the musicality and beats of the conversation.
Another thing to know about dialogue tags is that they can be placed anywhere in the sentence of dialogue—at the beginning, the middle, or, more commonly, at the end of a sentence. As long as we know who’s speaking, the dialogue tag does its job. We see this in this excerpt from the same Hills Like White Elephants:
"Yes," said the girl. "Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe."
"Oh, cut it out."
"You started it," the girl said. "I was being amused. I was having a fine time."
Hemingway has his character speak, then he inserts the dialogue tag, then she speaks again. While he inserts periods here so that she’s speaking separate sentences, he could have just as easily written a comma instead of a period, like this: "Yes," said the girl, “everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe."
Another thing to know about dialogue tags is that they can be placed anywhere in the sentence of dialogue—at the beginning, the middle, or, more commonly, at the end of a sentence.
When you write dialogue tags, make sure they work. Depending on your audience and genre, there are expectations of what’s acceptable and what’s not, and you should be familiar with those expectations, just as you should be familiar with the tropes and imagery, the plots and words and themes readers have come to expect when they read said works. Once you’ve reached a level of mastery of your craft (remember the 10,000 hour rule of mastering anything?), you can probably figure out how to make anything work, even if it breaks one of the “rules” of writing. If you’re not sure something works, have a beta reader take a peek and make your adjustments as needed.
Happy writing.
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Cully Perlman is a novelist, short story writer, blogger, and Substantive Editor (SE). If you have a novel ready for editing, he can be reached at Cully@novelmasterclass.com or Cullyperlman@gmail.com
Thanks for the reminder. And yes, I’m not a fan of anything other than he said and she said.