Yes. Precisely. You don't 'nod' a word. You nod your head. You can say a word while nodding your head, though...!
I checked with my 40K novella and it had 197. My current WIP on the other hand is 85K and has 621 said:s.
I've now got 105k words and 717 saids! Nobody thought I had too many saids in the chapter I posted, which has eight characters speaking in it.
Lot's of great things have been said here. No, I haven't had the time (or patience) to read through all seven pages of comments, and I'm jumping in pretty late, but I'd like to offer my two cents. (But no more! I still have to buy gas for the week. ) The way I see it, everything you take the time to add in (or choose to leave in during the editing phase) should be essential. By this I mean that it must convey its own meaning that adds to, specifies, or amplifies what is going on. So much so that leaving it in or taking it out makes just enough difference in how the reader can experience the work. Put another way, your segment would make less sense without it. Whether it is a dialogue tag or the line of dialogue itself, it must be considered for it's usefulness. If the dialogue makes sense with or without the tag, how much more does the tag offer to a reader who just wants to see how the next character responds? It is the same scenario when writing your opening paragraphs or opening chapter. Even if you have no dialogue in this section, you want every word, every sentence, every paragraph to feel essential, and smooth. Every word has it's place in the sentence, and every sentence has it's place in the paragraph based on the idea you want to get across. You may find that when you think of the smoothest progression of thoughts, you might have to rearrange the sentences and thus change some wording. As writers, most of us are writing to an audience of readers. Most readers will skip over dialogue tags because they can naturally infer how to read the dialogue. Many times, they may read it differently than we intend, but that is okay, too, if the point still gets across (i.e. if it doesn't contradict something that happens later, like angry-seeming dialogue immediately followed by hugs and kisses and no clarification). Some of the best life advice I've ever received is that there is a time and a place for everything. I think that applies here, if we amend it to say "almost everything." I don't think there will ever be a good time to use "ejaculated" as a tag. I also find it hard to believe that most readers know or care to know exactly what "chortled" means (and if they can't understand the context without understanding that word, they will undoubtedly miss something because most wont read with a dictionary. They want entertainment). That being said, I do believe that using "whispered" or "shouted" and things of that nature is acceptable. Words like "demanded" and "asked" sprinkled in from time to time can link us into the pov character's perception a little (if there is one), What I will personally never be okay with is tags like, "growled," "spat," "screeched," "hissed," or any other animalistic action that humans don't really do while speaking. Altogether, you want the readers to be able to experience the story. That's why most fiction writers write. If It's creative wordsmithery you want to be noticed, perhaps poetry is your game. In modern fiction, the storytellers "magic" is in transparency. You have to create the illusion. Readers want to fall into the mystifying web you're weaving. But if you break the illusion by reminding them it is a lie, you lose their confidence and they see you for the sham you are. If John and Mary are yelling at each other, then it may be okay to say so. But as I see it, you just might want to work harder to build the tension and make good use of punctuation. If you say one person shouted, you inevitably have to imply or state that the other shouted also. Alternatively, if the whole conversation is them shouting, you don't want to flood it with exclamations and interrobangs. Allow me just one last analogy. In the movie The Matrix, some characters are able to see the matrix and or sense that something is not right. Those are the one's who leave. In writing, you've got a chance to build a matrix of your own for willing participants, but they will not be satisfied if they continually receive glimpses of the matrix as opposed to the artificial reality they've stepped into. Today's readers have been spoiled by cinema and have less patience. Most will skip over what we deem important if they aren't equally convinced. So make everything essential, like a one word difference may make the difference, and you won't be wasting words. If readers skip it, it is space that could have been put to better use in publishers and editors eyes. Remember, context and subtext can go a long way if you figure out how to implement them.
I'm editing my work to replace all other speech tags with "said" for a strict proof reader, and I have to say it's sucking a lot of the character out of it. Good thing it's not the master file. Anyway, I have a question for those who would enforce the use of the word "said" over any other tag; Would the following example be acceptable to introduce a flash-back? "Elongated terminology promotes vocabulary development," he had once told her.
(Hope this does not annoy you too much!!) You don't need to nor should you replace all speech tags with said. It would be as bad as never using said. Voice modulators like whisper and shout are pretty much required to impart volume, and if the dialog does not support the tag you are replacing, the dialog as well would require updating to help maintain the intent of the now replaced tag. (Hope that made sense). The character imparted by the dialog itself should still remain. If the majority of the character is imparted through the tags, this exercise should be a good thing, yes? Good on you for even trying. As a suggestion, doing one chapter first and having that read may be a good approach, vs doing it all? It needs more context. Can you post the 5 lines or so either side?
It's a stylistic choice rather than an error, so I would question your proof reader if they have demands like that. A good rule of thumb is don't use a speech tag at all if you don't need one but, if you do, make it "said" unless there's a good reason to use something else. A blanket "ONLY EVER USE SAID!" rule is just silly. Looks fine to me.
If it's a flashback, is it correct to use the quotation marks? I thought in these circumstances they were left out?
I think I understand now - use of "said" or nothing else isn't an absolute, just a toning down of various other colourful terms. I'll still use "mumbled" in the context of somebody talking through a mouthful of food, which only happens once in my current work. For the flashback, I was focusing more on what comes after the speech with my question, since the actual speech is quite long and loses its meaning out of context. The lines before and after are: Stuart Graves was a man June hadn’t thought about for a long time. As far back as she could remember, June had been raised by Stuart; a frail looking old man with short grey hair which was almost white. His fragile looking exterior hid an energetic personality, and it was he who had introduced her to the art of Stormbringing. “A Stormbringer is a person with the ability to control time, space, gravity, or energy. Some Stormbringers can control more than one of these things, and on very rare occasions you'll find a Stormbringer who can control all four of them,” he had once told her. At such a young age, June didn’t really understand what he meant by controlling time, gravity or energy, but space was different. Like June, Stuart was able to control space. He called each portal a “Storm,” and by opening a pair of them he was able to go from one place to another in seconds, even if his destination was thousands of miles away. I guess I should rephrase the question - is it acceptable to write "he had once told her" instead of "he had once said to her"? Or would the second example be better?
Why would they be left out if a character is still speaking? Also, how would the dialogue be written without them? Would it just be the same minus the quotation marks?
Totally agree. I also agree that mumbled is a valid not-said tag! Your flashback example looks fine to me. You could rewrite it to eliminate the "he had told her" but I don't think you need to - it reads well.
Good, I was hoping that would be the case. I am glad we caught the effort before it had been completed
The tag is fine. I might argue that the dialogue itself has too much backstory vibe, but the tag is fine. What would annoy me as a said-using-advocate would be anything like ...he had once declaimed... ...he had once explicated... ...he had once asserted... 'Told' is plain and simple and largely invisible, like 'said'.
Thanks for the feedback. I need to find the right balance. Generally, common one or two syllable words can be used in place of "said", such as "told", "asked", and so on, as long as they fit the grammar and context. Common volume related terms, such as "shouted" or "whispered" are also valid where necessary. Other words could be used to good effect if they fit the tone of the narrative, but should be used sparingly. Describing speech as being "grinned" or "frowned" (or other facial expressions) should become "said with a grin" or the equivalent, depending on the situation. Anything else I should add to the above rules of thumb?
I'd start with "only use a tag if it's needed." It will be needed fairly often and that's fine, but it stops you having a run like this: "xx" Jane said. "xx" Joe replied. "xx" said Jane. "xx?" Joe asked. "xx" said Jane. Where even said, asked, told, etc will start to become intrusive and annoying.
There aren't absolute rules to follow. "Said" is unobtrusive, and is generally the best choice when you need a tag. That doesn't mean you can never use other tags, but I'd use them sparingly. Also, think about making the dialogue and the rest of the narrative work for you. If you've got a story where using "said" strips out all of the character, there are likely other problems with it. The dialogue or narrative aren't pulling their weight and you're having to rely too much on unusual tags to do work that you could do more effectively, and more evocatively, with changes to dialogue or other parts of the narrative. All of that said, there are still times when you might find that a more colorful tag does the task best, and if that's the case, use it. A story littered with colorful dialogue tags is going to look amateurish to a lot of people and can pull people out of the story. When I was reading submissions, if someone used unusual dialogue tags the whole way through, it would generally be enough to tell me what I needed to know about them as a write. A page or two of that, and that story would typically get a rejection and I'd move on to the next one. There were a few, from time to time, that were good despite the uses of such tags, but I'd end up taking a lot of the colorful tags out in the initial edits and have the author rewrite the dialogue or make other changes instead.
I've been back through my prologue, replaced some tags with "said" and counted up how often I use each tag: Said: 8 times Announced: Once Yelled: Twice Shouted: Once Asked: 4 times Snapped: Once Added: Once Whispered: Twice Mumbled: Once Admitted: Once Replied: Once Grumbled: Once Laughed: Once Total speech tags: 25 The word count for the passage is about 1100. Would this pass as an acceptable submission?
That sounds like a lot of variation in 1100 words but it's impossible to tell how well it works just from the numbers. It depends on things like how many characters are speaking, how much dialogue there is vs description, etc.
Part of it is a super-hero TV show, so there's a lot of posturing and showing off in the first paragraph. Overall there's six different characters across the entire 1100 words. I suppose it would be hard to tell just from the numbers. I wouldn't want to hijack the thread by posting all of it here. I'll just have to take it one chapter at a time and see how it averages out across the 57 thousand words. Overall, there aren't any obscure or old sounding words in the above list of tags, so it shouldn't send readers scurrying for the nearest dictionary.
So this thread has gone completely insane since I was last here. But... I'VE HAD A 'SAID' REALIZATION: I've been thinking about what you've all been saying and realized that my opposition to 'said' might be a bit too harsh and then..... I made an important realization and subsequent decision. I will use the invisible "said" if what the character says or does is more important than how they say it. If all the elements need to point to one thing in that line--the action a character takes or WHAT they say are supposed to be the star of the show. If I use a colorful tag, it could be distracting if they're supposed to focus on something else. This is an exert from my novel where I rewrote it by choosing to use 'said'. Backstory here: Will likes Augustus (his best friend,) and doesn't want to tell him how he feels and is anxious a lot of the time. He's trying to act normally around him, and isn't doing very well: "As they went on talking, Will was listening closely and suddenly, he was idly running his thumb over Augustus's hand without even realizing it. At this touch, Augustus moved his hand slightly. "Sorry," Will hurriedly said, tensely snapping back to reality, drawing his hand back in regret." Had I used ANYTHING other than 'said', it would've been too much at once and thus, ruined. I'm guessing you were more able to pay attention to the right parts now? I hope so. I guess to me "said" is like salt--it's simple, yet familiar. A little here and there is a good thing, giving it a definite flavor, but nothing too showy like hot sauce (colorful tags). A dash here and there is great, but too much is unbearable--yet having none isn't right either. I actually want to thank everyone for (again,) a mature discussion and not just openly mocking me or saying something equally rude/childish. Thanks to your reasonable responses, I listened, learned and changed my mind a bit.
