What of 'he enquired politely.' or 'she responded assertively.' I have a number of fairly lengthy dialogues and it felt wrong to keep using he said. There are a few beats but with short phrases I was trying to make sure I tagged every two or three lines, he said or she said over and over again seemed too repetative. Are tags like those above sure to highlight me as a novice?
It depends how often you use them. There are two "sins" in your examples, if they are typical rather than occasional in your writing. The first is shying away from said or asked as tag verbs. Most of the time, said or asked are virtually invisible to the reader unless you tag every scrap of dialogue, and tag it in the same position. Using other verbs in tags draws attention away from the dialogue itself and onto the tag, which is usually undesirable. The second "sin" is Tom Swifting, so called from the youth-targeted series of books under the pen name of Victor Applegate III. Tom Swifting is the compulsive use of adverbs to modify tag verbs, and it will mark you as a novice more than nearly any writing habit.
Ok, I will bear that in mind. I don't think I used many adverbs attached to the tags as in my example, when people are speaking I tend to be concentrating on that. On my next edit I will be looking out for it though. I think I will allow myself a couple of these but will try and revert to said and asked where possible.
As much as possible, allow the context to express the tone of speech, rather than beating the reader over the head with adverbs. For example, the wording of a reply, and the other person's reaction, can indicate sarcasm without saying sarcastically.
