I was mailing with a friend who is a published author this morning. She mentioned that her last agent told her that writing dialogue, e.g. 'I'd better go now,' said Marcus. Is old-fashioned now, and that she (the agent) preferred her to write: 'I'd better go now,' Marcus said. I've never come across this mentioned before. Is this just one person's pet idea? Since my friend is pushing 70, it also occurred to me that maybe the agent was making a few gentle suggestions to bring her up-to-date!
My feeling is that said Marcus is somewhat archaic, but not so much so that every instance must be purged. I wouldn't ever use it in a leading context, though: Said Marcus, 'I'd better go now.' really sounds out of touch, but Marcus said, 'I'd better go now.' is just fine.
Both are good, but "said X" is the phrase of choice for old-ish kinds of books, no offense to your friend. It does usually only shows up for rhythmic or reasons in my poetry. "X said", in my opinion, gives better flow to narratives and such.
I must be a fuddy-duddy. My personal pref would have been for said X save for the leading context as pointed out by Cog.
i definitely agree that 'said x' is old-fashioned, out of date, archaic, et all.... i'm going on 72, but it was 'oldish' for contemporary fiction even when i started reading, more than six and a half decades ago...
Either. Or 'he said'. Honestly, it doesn't matter; this is such a minute detail. I don't even notice it when I'm reading. All you have to focus on is getting the point across, not satisfying the more pretentious styles of mainstream fiction by overcomplicating simple sentence structure. I know alot of books tend to do this, and are praised for it, but it's just not needed IMO. Just do what feels write and get the sentence down. P.s - What the heck @ publishers giving sell-by-dates on gramatical choices? That's rubbish, surely.
That is right, but when I use it in this instance... "Someone stole the cookies" I would follow up with said Marcus. It just sounds better to me.
That very thing has been discussed at writers' conferences I've attended, and all advise using Marcus said.
I'm sorry, but anyone who would make an issue out of this should get out of the business. "It's just completely nonsensical," said Marcus.
Now, now. If used heavily in the manuscript, it could nag at a reader''s mind. It's a credit to the editor's sharp eye for detail. We probably all have writing quirks that we'd never pick up on our own.
Problem is, Ashleigh, if a writer sends a manuscript to an agent/publisher, and that writer has committed several of the so-called 'sins' such as an archaic style of writing or too many italicized sentences, just to name a couple, chances are that agent/publisher won't read the story and the writer is dead in the water. Might as well not shoot yourself in the foot before you even get started.
I find it hard to believe an editor is going to have serious issues with this. It borders on the ridiculous. Just grabbing three books from my stack that were published in last decade or so, two use "X said" and one uses "said X." Interestingly, the one that uses "said X" is by far the most acclaimed of the three, published in 2004, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and appearing on several best books of the year, or even decade, lists. So it doesn't seem to have harmed the prospects of the work.
I've been doing the same, going through recently published books (like, published in the past 3 yrs), and I must say that I've found PLENTY of 'said x'. To me, it is sometimes less intrusive than 'x said'. It seems more like a matter of style, with British writers using it a bit more frequently than US. Maybe it is more 'literary'? All the same, I think it's an interesting point to note, and I'll be sure now to steer away from using 'said x' too often. In fact, I did a search for 'said' over a chapter and found that I rarely use 'said x'. Maybe my friend was in the habit of using it all the time, and as Cogito says, if it attracted the editor's notice, it was worth her pointing it out.
It's a bit pernickety; I would use whatever felt right at the time, although X said is more common for me. But it's nice to know editors are concentrating on what's important.
I usually write X said but most of the time I use the dialogue or scene's own flow and context to omit the "said" and just write the quote, as it seems clear enough who is speaking it. I have also been playing with omitting the quotation marks themselves and just use a preceding dash or separating line space; I like the bare aesthetic of it.
Well, if that's what you prefer to do, go for it, but I think it's difficult enough, especially in these times, to get an agent/acquiring editor to consider a 'new' writer's work. For me, I'll just stick with the accepted formats - at least until I acquire a big enough name to write the way I want.
If you stumble around with issues like this and the ever-popular, "I can't think of a name for the story", you'll never get anything done. I think speech tags should be used to identify the speaker ... period. And even then, they should be used sparingly. If done correctly, using speech affectations, you can easily get by with a sprinkling during a long conversation between three or more people. And, then, too many people use them in every paragraph, naming the speaker. John said Jill said John said Jill said They can also be combined with action, such as "Blah, blah," the teen said while scratching her boobs. "Don't do that in public," her mother said. "Stop stirring up your fleas." "They like to be scratched." Oscar Rat
You can set up which is the format you're going to use in any given work. If you use "said Marcus" throughout, the reader will just go with it - it won't call attention to itself. Nobody so far has mentioned the sound of this example when read aloud. I'd be inclined to consider "said Marcus" because I don't like how s leads to s in "Marcus said". I read all my stuff aloud, and things like that stand out to me.
