And She Said, "..."

Dialogue is one of my favorite things to do in writing. It can reveal information on the surface. It can reveal information beneath the surface. It can rack up tension in a scene. It can reveal the inner workings of your characters' minds. There's so much dialogue can do that an entire book can be written on this topic alone. So today, I will be focusing on the things that accompany dialogue—dialogue tags.

Dialogue tags are simply words that describe how words are spoken and identify who is doing the speaking. The basic dialogue tags are said and asked, but there are more descriptive words like yelled, murmured, and whispered, which can paint a more vibrant picture for the reader. Of course, you can find even more colourful tags in the wild, but I'm an advocate for the use of plain and basic dialogue tags in writing. I believe these tags work best when they are invisible to the eye, because that means the reader can remain completely immersed in your book world.

Lest I go on a spiel about my love for using 'said' and 'asked', let's look at some basic guidelines regarding the use of the dialogue tag:

Dialogue tags are always accompanied by commas . . . except when the dialogue makes use of a question mark or the exclamation mark. I'll give a few examples to illustrate:

Adam said, "I won't let them escape."

"Where are you going?" asked Chisom.

"Stop right there!" yelled the police officer.

"Don't track mud into the house," Mom said.

In addition, because a dialogue tag is not a complete sentence, it cannot begin with a capital letter unless it is placed at the beginning of a sentence (i.e., before the speech comes along). You can see from the examples above that even when the tag followed a question or exclamation mark, it remained in lowercase. It's easy to make an error regarding this thanks to the auto-correct feature of word processors.

Dialogue tags can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. There's no specific rule regarding where to place your dialogue tags in different situations. That is up to you as the writer. However, if the reader is going to come across a long stretch of dialogue or lengthy speech from a character, it's a good idea to place the tag as close as possible to the beginning, so the readers can know right away who's speaking. Here are some examples with the tags in different spots:

She said, "Alex was supposed to bring the snacks."

"Alex was supposed to bring the snacks," she said.

"Don't worry," Mason said, "we have a stash somewhere in the kitchen."

Speaking of lengthy speech, if your dialogue exceeds one paragraph, the ending quotation of the first paragraph should be omitted, while the opening quotation for the second paragraph remains. As always, here's an example, albeit a short one, to illustrate:

"How long do you think we can stay like this?" Emmanuel asked. "The water we have will only last us three days, and that's if we ration it strictly. We have two sick people with us, and more might succumb to illness if we remain.

"We have to make the first move. The longer we hesitate, the less energy we'll have to do anything later."

Not every dialogue needs a tag. If you've ever felt like your use of dialogue tags became excessive, then you might be relieved to know this. One major use of the tag is to show who is speaking, right? So if you have a back-and-forth between two characters, and you've already established who and who is in the scene, you can spare yourself the repeated mentions of "Sarah said" and "John said". That would only weigh down the writing and dilute the effects of the dialogue, and those are not effects you'd look forward to.

Actions cannot serve as dialogue tags . . . but they can become action beats. One common error authors make is using a character's actions as a dialogue tag. Remember that speech tags should only ever describe the dialogue itself, and not the character. It is physically impossible to laugh and speak at the same time. Yes, you could intersperse your laughter with speech and vice versa, but you can't laugh out a word. So, something like this:

Dad laughed, "How is that possible?"

. . . is a complete no-go. If you feel tempted to use action as a speech tag, first ask yourself if it is possible to speak the way the action implies. Heck, you could even give it a shot! If the answer is no, then it's best to replace that comma with a full-stop. Doing so immediately turns that 'tag' into an action beat.

'And what are these action beats?' you ask. These are just brief descriptions of motion, and the best thing is that they can punctuate dialogue, show who is speaking, and add a bit of imagery to the speech. People hardly ever speak without doing something else. Whether it's avoiding eye contact, making facial expressions, pacing to and fro, or playing with their fingers, hair, or a napkin, there are tons of bodily gestures a character can make while they speak. I'll give an example:

"The mine suffered from severe damage, so the map given to us is not entirely accurate. Don't take any unnecessary risks." His eyes linger a second too long on you, and you blink. "We move in teams of two."

I recall reading about an author who hardly (if ever) used dialogue tags in this one novel of his—sadly, I can remember neither the name of the author nor the title of the book—and I believe the use of powerful descriptors, as well as action beats, let him achieve that. I also believe that was the moment I realised action beats were this cool and awesome thing. Do you also feel the same?

That's it for today folks. Got any questions? Just hop right into the comments!

Happy writing!

Your friendly neighborhood editor,

Chiedozi.