Editor's Notes #38: Dialogue Part 3—Those @#$!$%^ Tags

This is the third and final part in my series on dialogue. Click HERE to read Part One—Regional Overkill, and click HERE to read Part Two—Sounding Real.

Book after book has been written about them. Blog after blog has featured articles with cautionary tales. And yet . . . the overly awkward dialogue tag still manages to work its way out of the garbage can and into manuscripts the world over.

In fact, while researching for this post, I was astounded at the number of articles I found which advocated "the death of 'Said'" and "making your dialogue more interesting with anything but 'said'" and other generally bad advice.

I'm not saying there's never a good moment for a shout here and there, but the advice to young writers on various teaching blogs & forums goes directly against the advice of best-selling authors, who sometimes advise to skip tags altogether as often as possible, and more often suggest "said" or "asked" as a way of making the tag disappear.

Personally, I tend to skim over dialogue tags when I'm reading, so I like the idea of eliminating them more often than not, unless the conversation becomes confusing. Maybe it's because I read decent books that use "said" and "asked" and, as promised by those high-level authors, those two particular words become invisible after a little while.

No one wants to read the old-fashioned (and thankfully, almost never used) "he ejaculated" as a dialogue tag. The more obscure tags will pull a reader from the story as physically as tipping him out of his chair. Think of how often you've read "blustered," "queried," "wailed," "bellowed," "quipped," and the like. I don't know about you, but when I read those words, in my mind the character is instantly replaced by the Skipper from Gilligan's Island, a blusterer & bellower from way back. Or suddenly the character is Lucille Ball, wailing her trademark waaahhh.

Elimination of dialogue tags in certain spots can be effective for quick back-and-forth action. If your characters are written distinctly, their manner of speech should indicate easily enough who's talking.

Another mistake inexperienced writers often make is to use dialogue tags that don't work in the physical world:

• "I love you," she breathed. Nope. You can't breathe in while speaking. And breathing out is not the same as forcing air through your mostly closed vocal cords.
• "Don't do that," he growled. Nope again. Try growling and saying anything intelligible. You're not Batman.
• "Get over here, NOW," she hissed. Double nope. Hissing and speaking don't mix, and hissing sounds usually require the use of the letter "s." Just ask Harry Potter.
• "What do you mean, you won't?" he barked. Nooooope. Unless it's a dog literally barking, and you understand that he sounds like arf arf woof woof grrr but you can translate it in your head like a foreign language, or—oh, forget it. You get my point.

So . . . to recap these three posts neatly: don't overuse regional dialect and slang, make sure your characters sound as real as the people around you, and make those dialogue tags disappear, whether literally or figuratively.

I'd love to know: Have you ever read a truly abominable dialogue tag? Have you written one you regret (or that your editor made you regret until you removed it)?

Editor's Notes #32: Inner Dialogue & How to Punctuate Thoughts

Punctuating dialogue has so many rules, depending on whether there are dialogue tags, split sentences, spoken words, or internal thoughts. Most of the rules are hard and fast, but there can be a little bit of flexibility when necessary.

As with any guidelines that allow for exceptions, the key is to be consistent. There's nothing more confusing than a lack of consistency, and nothing that will turn your readers off more quickly by pulling them out of a story.

My partner in crime, S.K. Anthony, covered all the how-tos of punctuating spoken dialogue in her article "How to Correctly Punctuate Dialogue for Novels" (aptly named, eh?), so if you'd like to know how to . . . um . . . correctly punctuate dialogue for novels . . . then pop over to Writers After Dark and read all about it. As for me, I'm going to tell you what to do if the dialogue is all in your character's head.

So here are the basics, and the POV you're writing from can help you decide which is best for you with relative ease:

Most people will write a character's thoughts in italics, either with or without a dialogue tag. It makes sense because the italics set off a visual cue in the reader's mind that we're hearing thoughts, not spoken words. The sample using omniscient POV uses a dialogue tag, since the reader needs to know who's doing the thinking, and the omniscient point of view gives you a little bit of everyone while keeping the author as the dominant voice.

I don't understand, Lynda thought as she looked around the kitchen in a panic. Why would Kat have eaten all my brownies without telling me? And to think I was going to surprise her with them for breakfast! 

Kat walked in, empty coffee cup in hand. "Heyyy, 'sup? Any of those brownies left for breakfast?"

You don't need the dialogue tag for regular third-person POV, since it will be clear who's speaking and whose thoughts are happening.

"G'morning." Kat yawned, holding out an empty coffee cup and glancing around the kitchen. "Any brownies left? I couldn't stop thinking about them last night."

Like you don't know. Unless you're a sleepwalker . . . and a sleep-eater. "Well, I was going to ask you the same thing." 

You could also do this exact exchange with no italics, and it would still be clear because of the POV. All it needs are a few tweaks in the verb tense.

"G'morning." Kat yawned, holding out an empty coffee cup and glancing around the kitchen. "Any brownies left? I couldn't stop thinking about them last night."

Lynda looked as baffled as she felt. Like Kat didn't know. Unless she was a sleepwalker . . . and a sleep-eater. "Well, I was going to ask you the same thing." 

There's an additional complication, though, in certain instances when characters communicate telepathically. In Alex Cavanaugh's CassaSeries (CassaDawn, CassaStar, CassaFire, CassaStorm) the Cassans have the ability to communicate this way. Cavanaugh does a nice job of differentiating the types of thoughts. If a character is simply in his own head, then there are no italics or dialogue tags. If two characters are sharing thoughts with each other, italics come into play.

Two important things to remember:

1. NEVER use quotation marks for internal dialogue of any type. They're reserved exclusively for spoken words and will only confuse the reader if you add them anywhere else.
2. Be consistent, whether you're using italics with a tag, italics without a tag, no italics and no tag, or a mixture as in the book series mentioned above.

So what do you think, folks? Did you learn anything today? Did you already know it? It's entirely possible that you just don't care, because you're never going to use ANY dialogue in your book—and I would love to read a book that used only clicks, grunts, shrugs, eyebrow raises and elbow nudges to communicate, don't get me wrong—but I doubt any of you currently have that as your WIP. 

I hope.

D = "Dialogue tags aren't always needed," she cried.

Have you ever read something like this?

“Where are you going?” he queried.

“I’m headed to the store,” she whispered.

“Really?” he gasped.

“That’s right,” she breathed.

When I’m reading, the overuse of dialogue tags in a book catches my eye as if it’s in bold print. Odd or uncommon tags are even worse. Sometimes “said” is good enough.

In my house, we talk to each other. I would suspect most households are the same. My husband has never growled, or even grunted, “Pass the coffee, Dollface,” and to the best of my recollection, I’ve never wailed, “We’re out of shampoo!” He doesn’t roar or bellow when he’s angry—and frankly, I think that would scare the crap out of me if he did, since he has a deep voice. I might exclaim here or there, or shout to someone up the stairs, but I don’t gasp when the mailman drives up, even when the package says “Amazon” on it.

http://litreactor.com/columns/on-dialogue-tags-why-anything-besides-said-and-asked-is-lazy-writing has a great article on dialogue tags, and my favorite part of it is the very beginning:

Chortled is a verb. The definition is: To laugh in a breathy, gleeful way; chuckle. And it is a horrible, terrible, stupid word. For me it conjures the image of an obese woman laughing through a mouthful of spray cheese. I don’t know where it came from, but I do know we should send it back and light it on fire.

What a vivid mental image. The columnist, Rob Hart, describes expressive dialogue tags as “the laugh track of the literary world.” They tell, rather than show, what’s happening, and every writer in every part of the world who’s ever written a single word has heard the “show, don’t tell” speech. Ultimately it shows lazy or immature writing.

If you read the authors everyone recognizes as skilled, you’ll notice simple dialogue tags or none, in most cases. I’ll bet Stephen King doesn’t chortle. He probably laughs, just like the rest of us.