Writing Mistakes You're Making

Dialogue: Tags (What? Where? Which?)

Tags are the “he said” and “she replied” at the end of a line of dialogue. They are not “he smiled” and “she smirked.” It is only a tag if it is directly stating the manner in which the dialogue was stated. “Said,” “yelled,” “screamed,” “hollered,” “responded,” “replied,” “answered,” “whispered,” etc. Tags are strictly for clarification purposes, and almost never offer something to the story besides that (i.e., having lots of totally radtastic tags will not make your story any better). 

First off, if you don’t need a tag, don’t put one. If you can read it and it’s easy to know who’s talking, leave off a tag. What’s the point? It’s uselessness that distracts from the conversation. If you’ve got a lot of tags and you need to add another, why not have a sentence after the speech that mentions the character? It serves as a tag because having it after the speech tells the reader who just said something, and it also allows you to add action (readers like action). 

Example: “I don’t understand,” he said. This sounds better as: “I don’t understand.” He went over to the couch and sat down, burying his face in his hands.

Side Note: It's important to make it very extremely super duper obvious who is speaking at any given moment. The reader should always know who is speaking, even if there is no tag. Any instance where confusion is likely should be avoided by adding a dialogue tag. 

Example: “You never want anyone's help!” Amy tried to slam the door behind her but Becca caught it and came storming in after her. 

“You can't do anything without someone writing down every breath you should take!”

“Better to be dependent than a loner,” Amy said, clenching her teeth. 

“Oh get a better vocabulary; I'm not by any standards a loner.” 

“I don't care what Webster has to say about the manner, unless you're talking to me you haven't a friend in the world! I'm surprised Joseph is even interested in such a hermit, and I'm even more surprised I tried to help you two!” 

Becca let out a half-scream and slapped Amy across the face. Neither spoke for a minute after that; they eyed one another, breathing heavily from their efforts. Suddenly the mood shifted into something much more somber. 

“I’m sorry I slept with Vivinchy.” She ran out of the room. 

So while that's all fine and good (I don't know the rest of the story but I'm hoping Vivinchy is a respectable fellow), there is just a little problem in that we don't know who slept with Vivinchy, and that's a rather important bit of the tale.

“I’m sorry I slept with Vivinchy,” Amy said finally, and ran out of the room. 

There we go. Amazing how adding a few words can make a world of difference!  

Now, when do we use “fancy” tags instead of the plain old, “said”? Well, when we read, we are so accustomed to “he said” that our eyes literally skip over it and we continue with the talking. This is why it’s much better if you want the flow of the dialogue to go well to have “he said” as a tag and leave it as that. If you want to break up the dialogue, add in actions instead of “fancy” tags. Do not, however, put “he replied angrily” or “she exclaimed with passion” every chance you get. The words they just said should tip the reader off to their particular emotion, and if it doesn’t, why not show what they’re feeling with an action instead of telling the reader point blank? 

Example: “You are so annoying,” she said with furiously extreme anger. Turn this into: “You are so annoying!” She turned away from him and began chopping the meat into thick, bloody chunks, refusing to turn around and look at him. (Note: This is where the imagery adds to the emotion. Notice how I said, “bloody chunks.” You’re not exactly thinking of happy butterflies when you hear that.)

It’s okay to have “he replied” on occasion, if you feel the urge to break up the “he said,” but don’t do it too often. “Replied” and “answered” work, but do it too frequently and the flow is broken, because our minds pay attention to these tags, unlike “said.”