For those of you unfamiliar with my books, I write lesbian fiction, or as some call it, sapphic. But regardless of whether you have or haven’t read any of my books, I guarantee that some of the dialogue tag mistakes I’m about to mention exist in those novels. But, as I kept writing, I kept learning, and I’m still learning. So, please don’t point the finger. I already know mistakes, such as those I’ll point out in this post and others, exist in my books. I get it, but this is not a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do scenario. This is one ever-evolving author trying to share, so you don’t make the same mistakes. Okay?
The other thing to take into consideration is that, depending on whether you write in first-, second-, or third-person, some of what I’m mentioning may not align with your style. That will be up to you to research. In case you’re wondering, I write in third person, and that actually has three sub-styles, if you will: Objective, Limited, and Omniscient. I’m not going to delve. I’m just going to say that I write in Third-Person Omniscient, which means my narrator is basically God, knowing everything about everyone, everywhere. Full stop.
Anyway, back to dialogue tags, those little words that identify who’s speaking and, oftentimes, their tone. The two most invisible tags known to man (and woman) are “said” and “asked.” Readers are so accustomed to those two words, they breeze through them like they’re not even there, which is what you, as the writer, want.
When I open a book sample online and see 15 different dialogue tags in the first several pages, I close it and move on. Why? Because it’s glaring. You want your book to flow easily for the reader. There is no need for you to bombard them with your skill at using a thesaurus to find other words equal to “said” or “asked.” I’m not saying you can’t have a variety of tags in your story, either. Of course, you can. Muttered, mumbled, screamed, shouted, yelled, whispered, purred, and blurted are just a few you can use. Just do everyone a favor and use them sparingly. Sometimes less is more.
Speaking of sparingly, another mistake is the overuse of dialogue tags, including “said” and “asked.” Meaning, the author calls out each person speaking in a quick, back-and-forth conversation. For any avid reader, this will quickly become jaw-clenching. If you’re doing your job as a writer correctly, there is no need to tag every line with who’s speaking unless you fear the reader can’t follow. But there’s an answer, and it’s easy.
Write the entire scene without any tags whatsoever, and when you’re done, go back and decide where you may need to insert a “Mary said,” or “Julia said,” or “Tom, Dick, or Harry said.” You may be pleasantly surprised by how few you need. That is, if your characters’ tone and styles carry through, as they should, and you’ve included a few action beats to match the intensity or lack thereof in the conversation.
Also, when you decide to venture into the world of using other dialogue tags, please keep in mind that whatever you choose as a dialogue tag has to be something you can actually do to a word. Words can be said, asked, muttered, mumbled, screamed, shouted, and so on, but they cannot be smiled, grinned, nodded, laughed, or sneered. If you cannot do it to a word, it is not a dialogue tag. For instance:
“Yes,” John said, smiling. (This is correct. John said it, and John is smiling.)
“Yes,” John smiled. (This is incorrect because you cannot smile a word.)
Of course, in the second example, if you changed the comma after “yes” to a period, and followed it up with a new sentence such as “John smiled as he strode away.” That’s fine because “smiled” is no longer a dialogue tag. It’s an action.
Now, this next little tidbit is going to go against the writing style of none other than Ms. J.K. Rowling. Whilst listening to a Harry Potter audiobook, I heard over a dozen instances that I consider mistakes, but I’ll let you be the judge.
Hiss is an onomatopoeic word. How’s that for a six-syllable mouthful? Well, what it describes is a word that imitates the natural sound associated with said word. Other examples include belch, clang, clap, gargle, woof, and cough, just in case you’re confused. Anyway, back to hiss. To hiss something, one of the words spoken should contain an S sound. Try to hissssss something that doesn’t contain an S. Go ahead. Try. You can’t, and while you shouldn’t overuse any dialogue tag except, of course, for the two invisible ones, hissing something that doesn’t contain an S…well, you get the picture. Just like you can’t smile a word, you can’t hiss it if it doesn’t contain an S sound.
Lastly, regarding the two invisible dialogue tags, my personal preference is to rarely use “asked” in my novels. It’s in them, especially in the older books, but not so much anymore because I find it redundant. If a line of my dialogue ends with a question mark, it seems unnecessary to use “asked” as the dialogue tag. The question mark tells the reader that John, Mary, Peter, Paul, or Ringo is “asking,” and before you think this is just my opinion, it’s not. From what I’ve read, “said” is always appropriate as a dialogue tag, whether it’s a statement or a question. Therefore, I lean toward “said,” and not to repeat myself, but this is my own personal preference. You need to do what works for you…unless, of course, it’s hiss. :)