I'm glad I opened this can of worms here. Better than disturbing a wasp nest of critics. Would the following be considered an improvement over the "anti-said" original: "Have you been watching those baby movies again?" asked his older sister, June. "Grub Guy's NOT for babies." said Simon. "Stop arguing!" snapped their stressed mother. "Simon, I called you down three times. Your pizza is in the microwave." she added as she left the room. June waited for the door to close. "A grub is a baby insect, so Grub Guy must be a baby." she whispered, trying not to alert their mother. "Stop making fun of Grub Guy, or I'll..." Simon's frustration got the better of him. "Or you'll what?" He contemplated his threat silently for a moment. "I'll tell Dad you've been sneaking out at night again." he continued through a mouthful of cold pizza. I prefer this style, rather than having to consult a thesaurus in a mad effort to avoid using the word "said". It goes against what I've been taught, but I can concentrate more on plot and character development. Thank you for your opinions, they have been most helpful.
Looks fine, no one is suggesting one repeat 'said' over and over in every sentence. I took 'stressed' and 'silently' out because you show that with the rest of the sentences respectively, no need to tell. Simon's frustration ... goes on the same line as his dialogue. Otherwise "Stop making fun..." shifts to June. And I don't have an absolute rule of not using other tags besides said and asked/answered. Others might put 'said' there or choose a different tag or use the one you used. It's a personal preference.
FYI, some of the punctuation is wrong here. You need to use a comma, not a period, when you have a dialogue tag. For example: "I like pizza and hamburgers," said Simon.
Lessons are being learned. I'll revise my work so far and bring it up to code. In all of the books I've read, I never really noticed the commas at the end of most lines of dialogue, nor the indentations. But now that they've been pointed out to me they're quite easy to spot.
