FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING "said" is NOT DEAD. It's okay for things to just be said. They don't always need a fancy synonym, and the more of them you chuck in there, the more juvenile your writing seems. Idc what your English teacher told you. It's okay to just use "said."
I’m not sure who wrote this, but the word “said” in prose is functionally invisible. If you start getting carried away with alternative verbs for saying things you wind up with “Holmes ejaculated!”
(Yes, Conan Doyle did write that.)
I've seen the quote, but I cant tell you who said it. I prefer to use adverbs or action tags, like "said meekly" or "he punched the table to punctuate his statement" or whatever so I don't end up with embarrassing things like that.
I think - it’s been a while - King gets into in “On Writing”, that any adjectives or adverbs you could replace “said” with should already be understood by *what* is being said and the context and therefore be unnecessary.
So true!
My rule of thumb is never use anything but said/asked unless there is a purpose for it. And "to mix things up" is never a valid purpose.
Also, for most conversations between two people, it's usually obvious who is saying what even with short stretches of no dialog tags at all.
That seems to be what people mean when they go off on "said" (or at least in the rants I've seen).
It's about dialogue tags, full stop. It's amazing how rarely we actually need those at all. I love writing that dispenses with them.
I mean, I've gone so far as to write a bit where one character hits the table, followed by dialog with several exclamation marks and some obscenities in his native language. I think it's pretty clear in there who's speaking, and what his tone is.
Do you want characters' speech to be memorable, or the way you describe their speech to be memorable? BTW, read only the dialog tags aloud. If it's lots of breathing, shuddering, hissing, you're overdoing the tags - put interesting stuff IN the dialog. Use: said, asked, whispered ~ 85% of the time
