Exactly. The comments in this thread can be really helpful for a new writer. Also, I saw in your profile that your favorite book was by Orson Scott Card. You might take a look at his books and see how he handles dialogue tags. I think you'll notice that he follows pretty much the advice people are giving here. Looking at my copy of Enders Game, it seems that overall he tries to avoid having to use a dialogue tag if possible. When he does use one, it'll be very simple such as: said, asked, whispered, or cried. But nothing too fancy beyond that.
I can remember reading Georgette Heyer and being very impressed with her ability to never use the word "said". At the time, it worked. Mind you, at that time, it was quite acceptable to start a book with three pages of description of a library before you even mentioned who was in it.
Now to be fair, I have seen someone effervesce before. Seriously, and I'm not having a laugh this time. You take one of those fizzy vitamin tablets, put it under your tongue, then fill your mouth with fizzy drink. Try talking around that.....foam everywhere ! Of course, I still doubt it should go in a story, but hey...! Anyway we know Jennie isn't responsible for the list, only for posting, so we're not poking fun at her, just some of the things on the list
Yes, but did they do so in a way that produced words? Sure, you could belch a sentence: But could you really effervesce a piece of dialogue? Not that I'd particularly like to see it, mind you. Some alternative verbs do make sense in certain situations: mumble, whisper, growl, grumble. These sould still be used very sparingly, though, because they distract the reader from the dialogue itself. Others make no sense at all: barked, sniffed, snorted, nodded, smiled. These are not word-forming actions, and when you really examine a sentence that uses them in place of dialogue tag verbs, they are ridiculous. They may make sense in beats, but not in dialogue tags, and you have to pay attention to the difference.
This post made my day... As it is my thesaurus is extinct and fails to satisfy my desires... The dismay at the loss of potential paper cuts deludes me... I'm so happy right now. So many words for me to abuse! Bookmarked... uh... webmarked ? netmarked? internetmarked? aardvarked?... -PeGi "So then s/he decided to eat cabbage instead..."
I’ve got to ask the original poster because it’s been bothering me. Did you actually type that long list yourself? I keep imagining an enthusiastic young writer spending hours getting a list together. Please say you just copied and pasted it from somewhere.
No it isn't, no it isn't, and yes it does. He said/she said exhanges are tedious in the extreme. But the way to get around that is not to replace them with "he expostulated" and "she shrieked", but to use more subtle (and professional) ways to indicate who is speaking. As often as necessary, yes. That's a lot less often than most of us actually do use it in our first drafts.
Additionally, many of the words you have listed do not readily lend themselves to dialog. Consider: If you are coughing, it's pretty hard to talk and waved does not generally conjure images of someone speaking. When straying from 'said'/'asked' format, you want to be very careful not to stray too far or too often and, in fact, as others have already mentioned, even the 'said' format can be lessened simply by how you frame the words. If, through the action surrounding a statement, you make it clear that the following comment is from a particular person, there is no need to even include the tag. Consider: It doesn't actually say the 'he' is the one talking, but, based on the references and actions, it should be clear that 'he' is the speaker.
Apparently Stephen Fry complained about that when doing the talking book version of the first Harry Potter book, and Rowling paid more attention to it in subsequent books. I can't help wondering: had she paid attention to things like that to begin with, would she have only suffered 10 or 11 rejections instead of 12?
