Mini-rant

[emmagrant01]

Dear average children's book author,

Please don't be afraid of using the dialogue tag "said". Please. I beg you.

No, really. The characters don't have to grin, giggle, spout, smile, cringe, or laugh their words out. Actually, no one does that, not even anthropomorphized cartoon animals. They just SAY things, and we can infer from the context (and even from the accompanying art) things like giggling or smiling.

Oh, and when you DO use a simple "said", it does NOT have to be modified by an adverb. Really, it doesn't.

In the meantime, I am editing your words as I read aloud to my 3 year old, because it's unbelievably distracting.

Emma

Comments

[nicevenn.livejournal.com]

The same could be said for J.K.R. herself. ;) And yes, it's annoying.

[rickey-a.livejournal.com]

LOL - been there, done that!
As for a great series for preschoolers- read Charlie and Lola to BG.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

I think those kind of 'ticks' really rear their clunky heads when you're reading aloud.

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

Are you talking about verbs like "mumble", "shout", "joke", "whisper"... too?

[tildathebuilder.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, yes. I edited so many stories while reading to my kids. Some of the clunky language drives me mad. I don't get away with it anymore, now they read fluently I get told off for missing and changing the words :D

Another yes to Charlie and Lola!

[conuly]

What book is this?

[conuly]

It's one thing to do it once in a while, but "don't repeat yourself" doesn't apply to basic little words like "said", no more than it applies to "the".

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

Really? That's interesting because in Spanish is the opposite. Repeating "said" all the time it's considered as a lack of vocabulary XD

[conuly]

In the Victorian era that was the fashion for English-speakers as well, and people bought "said books" to avoid repeating it too much. Occasionally you still hear that old (bad!) advice given to elementary school students who are starting to write compositions...

but really, it just makes your writing sound weird and artificial, especially when the only synonym you can think of is "ejaculated".

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

What book are you reading?

[zedmeister.livejournal.com]

Is the purpose to teach kids vocabulary? If so, the quality of the writing may have been sacrificed on purpose.

[luci0logy.livejournal.com]

I was discussing this very thing at a staff meeting on children's writing this week and I'm sad to say that in the UK the literacy strategy still puts a great deal of weight behind teaching children to write like this.

[aj-socks.livejournal.com]

YES! I once mentioned that to a fanfic writer and I was... over ruled by another writer that disagreed with me. lol >.> So glad others agree!!

[celestlyn.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with you. Including the word 'said' in every instance will quickly bore one to tears and to me it shows a lack of imagination and vocabulary. I can also see the point she is making. It gets silly to always add adverbs and qualifiers to the dialogue. I prefer something somewhere in the middle. One can change things up enough to not be boring and still maintain a pleasant flow. It doesn't always have to be 'said'. It can be 'replied', 'stated', 'informed'...etc. A little 'grinned' and 'laughed' goes a long way.

[lagreyeyes.livejournal.com]

Oh, holy fuck, I SOOO agree with you!!

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm guilty of adverb abuse quite often, but I know what you mean and I totally agree. There's nothing wrong with using "said" and you can even use "said" with an exclamation point. Point to JKR, when using an exclamation point, Ron does not have to "ejaculate" his words out. *cringes*

I like writing dialogue that doesn't even use "said" or anything else, when it's totally clear who's saying what in the conversation. Like, if Harry and Draco are having a conversation, and they are alone, it's pretty clear after the first "Harry said" that the next person speaking is going to be Draco. So you don't have to use "said" in every dialogue sentence!

[silver-04.livejournal.com]

Wow your son is 3 now, children grow so fast.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

It's about moderation and understanding how extraneous words affect the flow for the reader. When a writer uses a different dialogue tag every time a character speaks, it distracts from the flow of the dialogue. I'm talking about the ridiculous extremes I see in a lot of children's books, like:

"I'm going to the zoo," Sally exclaimed excitedly.

"You are? I'm so jealous," Carl sighed dismally.

"Whay don't you ask your mom if you can come too?" queried Sally.

I mean, ya know? That gets old. And we don't actually need all of those words to get the idea across. It's sloppy and redundant.

When an author generally uses "said" (or as few tags as possible, which is my preference as a reader and a writer), then an occasional "replied" or "whispered" can be used to highlight a particularly important piece of dialogue. It's intentional, and it draws the eye. But if the writer does it ALL the time, it distracts from the dialogue, rather than enhances it.

I used to use "smiled" and "grinned" a lot, and I only dropped those tags after having several writers whose work I respect point out that people don't actually smile out words. If it's important to note that the character is smiling, just say it: Harry smiled. "I always loved that shirt." It took a long time, but I finally realized that they were right. :-P

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Most of them, honestly. But what set it off today was a little story in one of his kids' magazines that was just over the top with crazy dialogue tags AND adverbs on EVERY. SINGLE. LINE. Argh!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Most of them, honestly. But what set it off today was a little story in one of his kids' magazines that was just over the top with crazy dialogue tags AND adverbs on EVERY. SINGLE. LINE. Argh!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

In this case, I doubt it. But yikes, there are ways to teach vocabulary that don't involve exposing them to bad writing. :-P

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I'm honestly not sure how it is in the US. :-P

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that these are habits I used to have, and I was dragged from them kicking and screaming by some amazing writing mentors. And I am grateful!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yes, agreed completely! Someone whose writing influenced me heavily a few years back (I can't remember who now, but maybe pir8fancier?) pushed me to try to eliminate dialogue tags as much as possible. I started doing it, and I was amazed how how much better the dialogue flowed. Now I try really hard to avoid tags and let the context tell the reader who is currently talking.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I know! I can't believe it. :-/

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

:-D

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

That's something I've been worried about, heh.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely. The flow of words is so much more important when they're being read aloud. One of my favorite children's authors is Kate Banks, and her writing is just stunning. The words flow out of your mouth like poetry, and you can't avoid reading them expressively. But not every children's book is so well written, sadly.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Ugh, JKR is really bad at this. I edit quietly when I read the HP books. :-P

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for the rec! I'll look for it. :-)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

It's been said elsewhere in comments, but the focus should be on the dialogue, and anything that distracts from the words the characters are saying should only be there if it's absolutely necessary. So a sparingly-used "whispered" or "shouted" can definitely be appropriate, because it will draw the reader's attention to the importance of that line. If it's done constantly, it just distracts from the main point, KWIM? In general, the reader can infer a lot from the context and from the words that are spoken, and I sometimes think writers underestimate their readers' ability to do that.

The other thing is that some dialogue tags don't make sense. For example, "grinned" or "joked". People don't grin out words, so it doesn't even make sense. If it's really important that the readers know a character is grinning at a particular point, then just say He grinned. Similarly with "joked"; It should be clear from the context that the character is joking. If it isn't, then the dialogue needs work.

[spinfrog.livejournal.com]

The characters don't have to grin, giggle, spout, smile, cringe, or laugh their words out.

OMG that shit used to drive me NUTS when I had to read it to kids! I would always be editing all that out and replacing it with "said" and other NORMAL actions normal non-psychotic people do.

[sciencegeek.livejournal.com]

1. I must admit that my first though was "is she reading Harry Potter?"

Also, my dad used to do the same thing when reading to me and my siblings re: editing, though I think it was mostly eliminating dialogue tags since he did different voices.

2. I can't believe he's 3 already! Time flies.

[starlitshore.livejournal.com]

You mean you don't want somebody ejaculating in your child's bedtime stories? ;)

I agree with this. I actually... may have acted a little butthurt a few months ago. I sent my BB first draft off to a friend for a read-through and she sent it back with a demand for more dialogue tags. D: I don't like dialogue tags. I've been wondering if I should go back and put more in, but it always feels so...stilted. :|

[helenadax.livejournal.com]

Yes, I see your point. And I agree that it's better if the writer doesn't use too many dialogue tags or those adverbs. But I also think that it depends on the laguage you're using; as I've said, in Spanish you must use other verbs besides "said", it's the right thing to do. Anyway, I'm glad to know that it's different in English; I don't think I'll ever dare to write my fics in this language, but if I try someday, I won't make that mistake ^^

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

To be clear, this isn't a "right" or "wrong" thing so much as a stylistic preference. There are plenty of books published by editors, in English, that use dialogue tags badly -- in my opinion, of course. Styles vary greatly between genres of writing, and part of what I'm complaining about here is how jolting it can be to be faced with something that is stylistically "bad" according to what I'm used to.

I'm sure that somewhere in the vast Spanish-speaking world, there are writers and readers who disagree with the standard view and hold other opinions about what is good writing and what is not. ;-)

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

Heh. This is a cute picture.

And yet...Why do I have no problem with this? I know people say this about Rowling, but I totally didn't notice or care. If anything, I probably found it charming. Is it because I draw and don't write fiction, so I don't think about word choice on this level and instead visualize the scene I would draw?

Or is it because what I read and write is so unbelievably boring and not fun to read that if Snape chooses to sneer something at Harry, I can't help but find this far more preferable than when I must suggest, indict, critique, synthesize, excoriate, or refute something?

Or is this all just a matter of style and taste? Is it really bad writing?

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Mwahahahaha! Didn't I always used to get on your case about adverbs?

My first drafts are always full of adverbs and silly dialogue tags. Then I go through and cut them out. Funny how I still have to write it that way the first go around, but at least I know to get rid of them.

[eskimosatan.livejournal.com]

In eighth grade, I had an English teacher spend an entire day making the class discuss other words you could use besides said. I remember thinking, "This is really unnecessary," and it's not that I didn't agree with her that sometimes the repetition of said can be annoying when your typing it out, but that doesn't mean you have to get colorful with it. If you don't want to use said, write the paragraph in such a way that it implies who's doing the talking.

As a reader, it's more annoying to wade through the water fall of dialogue tags that don't tell me anything I didn't already know. When I told her this, she told me that I could tell her how to teach her class when I'd published a book. In retrospect, it probably sounded a little disrespectful, but the point still stands.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

"Said" is beautiful because it's the background, the primer if you will, to showcase the occasional dialogue verb that really zings. Note I say occasional.

[lettered.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking so much about this recently!

I believe in the said rule, and the adverbs rule, so I thought that I followed them. (Though I have fudged on the adverb rule, because I have some excellent translations of Dostoevsky that use adverbs on "said" like no one's business, and they are so surprising. That one adverb will say more than the dialogue does, and change the whole meaning of a sentence. It's exciting and fascinating and probably has something to do with Russian, lol.)

But recently I read this story I thought was really excellent, so I mulled it over to find out why it was so great. And then I realized I could not find a single instance of anything but "said". So in the past week or so I have been cutting out all other dialogue tags besides said, and have been surprised by how clean everything feels. Plus, you start to realize so many places where you can leave out a tag altogether, letting actions or the characters' voice identify whose words are whose. It's kind of liberating, actually.

ETA: I forgot to stay, I stumbled in here because you friended me back after I friended you to read that fic. Anyway, hi, it's lovely to meet you.

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

I also sometimes edit when I read to my children. We have a board book that lightheartedly mentions children being given "tickle torture" by their parents before bed, and that sounds so disturbing to me I simply don't say it.

[karaz.livejournal.com]

This bugs me too!

[xenelle.livejournal.com]

I generally don't have a problem with use of said. In English class I used to just go and do conversations without anything but " " as the X said got to me after establishing the first couple of times who was talking with whom - I think I used to have a 'He/She said jokingly' or something in there to ensure that readers got what the tone of voice is supposed to be I def. don't remember being told that I used said too much, or that I didn't use it enough, I think I did get questioned a bit on why I was writing a lot in the Horror genre, though.