So if you’re tempted to use alternatives to “said,” ask yourself why. If that isn’t enough, then a character action or body language is much more effective and less cheesy-sounding. The words you choose to have your characters speak and how you put those words together should be enough to convey any emotion or tone a speech tag might add. There is one other issue with using a variation of “said” instead of that word: It can lead to weak dialogue. Here, Long wants his readers to focus on the conversation, not a dialogue tag, so he uses “said” and “asked.” If he’d had Jaylin proclaim or shout his lines, that would have taken away from the serious nature of their discussion and its impact on the story. That decision has a major impact on her character and the plot. This is the moment Zo decides to become a vigilante. Take a look at what these characters are talking about: Zo’s clairvoyance and how to use it. Have you ever visited any of the creeps?” (46-47) “Some serious damage is what to do with it. don’t know what to do with it once I do.” All the information is there: the victim, the way they die, and who kills them. Nevertheless, I scoured the first chapter of that book and found that in the main he still favours placing the verb after the subject.“It’s interesting,” Jaylin, a street friend of hers, had said, always curious about her clairvoyant abilities. Mick Herron has built enough trust with his readership with his brilliant Jackson Lamb series that no one will bat an eyelid when they read the following in Slough House: That focus isn’t serving a writer who’s trying to build their author platform. Instead, those with strong preferences focus on minutiae that challenge their expectations. When readers are presented with stories that break with convention, there’s a risk that the story’s no longer the standout feature. and it's the approach that mainstream presses tend to take. ![]()
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