I'm worried after reading a critique for for a novel, that not using "she said" or "he said" before the dialog was amateurish. This is the way my dialog is written in almost everything I've done. No wonder it hasn't taken off as a best seller. Daniel got to the hospital and went upstairs, and was immediately overcome with anxiety. All the commotion around the nurses’ station was too much. Getting into Vera’s room Daniel said to Emma, “Any change today?” “No Daniel, she seems alright... There is still activity in the brain, but the doctors know little of anything to help her.” “I wish there was something we could do, maybe fly in a specialist or something.” “Her doctor is one of the best... What’s up with you, why so stressed?” “I don’t know maybe everything. Can we go down stairs for a coffee? I’m starting to feel like the room is closing in on me.” “Sure Daniel, I could use a cup.” Daniel walked out staring at Vera’s pink tennis shoes. Emma saw him looking and said, “They put them on her to keep the feet propped up at the right angle.” Any comments? Should I add Daniel said: and Emma said; to all the lines?
I'm a bit put off by your tags being on different lines than the actual dialogue, but the solution isn't to add a tag to every line. I mean, tags and beats are only there to make it clear who's talking, and in this snippet, it's perfectly clear - you've got tags at the only two instances where there could be any confusion, as far as I can see, so I'd say you effectively used the tool in question. I might like my dialogue a bit more dressed up with action than this, but the tags themselves are fine. If anything, denoting every single line seems amateurish to me ... ? I don't know where you read this, but it sounds like nonsense.
No no no. I strongly suspect that the advice--do you have it available to quote?--doesn't mean that you need a dialogue tag everywhere, but instead that when you do use a dialogue tag, it should use 'said' instead of some synonym for 'said'. What you're supposed to be avoiding is something like: Jane hissed, "What are you doing here?" Angela whined, "You said to be here at two o'clock!" Jane objected, "I meant in the morning!' Angela mumbled, "Oh." Jane whispered, "You need to pay attention next time." Angela uttered, "I'll try." At least, that's my assumption.
Returning to add: There are some issues with your sample. Daniel's 'said' should be tied to what he said, as in: Daniel got to the hospital and went upstairs, and was immediately overcome with anxiety. All the commotion around the nurses’ station was too much. Getting into Vera’s room, Daniel said to Emma, “Any change today?” And I would suggest adding a couple of beats or tags so that you don't need to keep repeating Daniel's name. A little tweaking as an example: Walking into Vera’s room, Daniel said to Emma, “Any change today?” Emma shook her head. “No, she seems alright... There is still activity in the brain, but the doctors know little of anything to help her.” “I wish there was something we could do. Maybe fly in a specialist or something.” “Her doctor is one of the best..." Emma peered at him. "What’s up with you? Why so stressed?” “I don’t know. Maybe everything. Can we go down stairs for a coffee? I’m starting to feel like the room is closing in on me.” “Sure. I could use a cup.” Daniel stared at Vera’s pink tennis shoes as they walked out. Emma said, “They put them on her to keep the feet propped up at the right angle.”
Building on what @ChickenFreak said, I'd reword it... Daniel got to the hospital and went upstairs, and was immediately overcome with anxiety. All the The commotion around the nurses’ station was too much; it made Daniel's stomach churn with anxiety. (1) Getting into Vera’s room Daniel said to Emma, (2) “Any change today?” Emma took her attention away from the lifeless form in the bed. (3) “No Daniel, she seems alright... There is There's (4) still activity in the brain, but the doctors know little of anything to help her.” “I wish there was something we could do, maybe fly in a specialist or something.” “Her doctor is one of the best... What’s up with you, why so stressed?” (I don't like the sing-song rhythm of this. It sounds like a couple of lines from a comedy song.) “I don’t know(comma - or full stop) maybe everything. Can we go down stairs downstairs for a coffee? I’m starting to feel like the room is closing in on me.” (But he's only just got there; Emma's the one who's been there all night or whatever.) “Sure Daniel, I could use a cup.” Daniel walked out staring at Vera’s pink tennis shoes. Noticing Daniel's glance lingering on Vera's pink tennis shoes as they left, Emma saw him looking and said,(5) “They put them on her to keep the feet propped up at the right angle.” 1/ This is a style thing. What I don't like about the original is a/ He did this, then he did that, then his feelings were... b/ You're TELLING us what his feelings were, rather than SHOWING it. So, I've cut out a/ entirely, and tried to show him feeling something. 2/ You don't usually say something to somebody, you say something and the whole room can hear you. 3/ And, following on from 2/, I now have to show that it's Emma who was listening; I've also taken the opportunity to paint a bit more of the picture. 4/ Contractions such as there's are commonplace in dialogue; it's how we naturally speak. 5/ Having Daniel doing something, and then Emma doing something in the same paragraph is uncomfortable - to me, at least! - because it's less clear who delivers the subsequent dialogue. OK, you've used the tag against Emma, but you could have chosen to use a beat, when the dispute over the "ownership" of the paragraph would be more problematic.
I like what @ChickenFreak and @Shadowfax did with the original snippet... which was OK by itself, in answer to your OP, you don't need to, and absolutely should NOT add "saids" or any other tags, if it is clear who is speaking. Redundant tags are one of the first things I look for and edit out. What their two improvements did was to improve the emotional content of the scene, which was great.
That was an unedited rough draft that I happen to be working on. The contractions are something my editor is always making me change. For some reason I think and speak in contractions but write with full words. I have the same weird fluke of writing in present tense even though I know my editor is going to change it. I was worried about the tags before, but now that I see what Chicken freak and Shadowfax wrote I need to add more feelings.
Don't worry about contractions in dialogue, it is part of the character's voice and should be written how the character actually speaks. My wife is writing a fantasy set in fifties Appalachia in a very rural setting. I told her to think how my cousin Dawn speaks (Western NC, Asheville) and write it that way. so it comes out "I'm a-goin' to the store, be back in a minute," and that is the way that character speaks. Many of the men who were in the Army in WWII (five years earlier) don't have such a thick accent in her story. However, don't do that in narration, when it is you speaking, unless you are writing first person, maybe. Thoughts, others?
I think you're right that the contraction issue depends on the character, but in a contemporary setting, I have a VERY difficult time with dialogue that contains no contractions. As a side note, I'd caution against heavy dialect even in dialogue. Use some if you want, sure, but that's a major annoyance for me. I don't want to have to decipher a book I'm reading. I want to read it and enjoy it. Very few authors can pull off dialect and I can't stand a lot of the well-regarded novels written this way. Which is not to say that people shouldn't use the tool. I'd just caution against going overboard.
If you're going to split the tag from the dialog, use a colon. . . . Getting into Vera’s room Daniel said to Emma: “Any change today?” It's a very old-fashioned technique. Be extra-careful with using it to excess (it wouldn't take much to achieve this). I use the tag/dialog split every now and then myself. I usually have a bigger build up to it, not just a simple 'said', but that's just me.
I think once you have established the two parties speaking, you don't have to add tags unless you need to for tone or emotion. If it is just flat dialogue, establishment is all that is needed. However, outside of 2 people speaking, say 3 or more. Then it might be a good idea to add in tags so they don't get all jumbled together in a ball of yarn. As it is it looks fine.
"I normally despise dialogue tags," said Simpson17866, "but I recently read on this site that putting them in the middle of a line is less disruptive than putting them at the beginning or the end."
