Little Random Crumbs About Writing

Middle Tag as a Beat

When we're writing dialogues, we could easily hear the correct pacing of their lines. The little pauses in between. The sighs, the shrugs, the crunching of their faces. Ba naman, galing kasi iyon sa utak natin.

Pero ang mga readers natin, hindi.

Let's use this dialogue from my story, Martyrs of the Modern Era:

"Well, uhm, ginamit ko ang aking natural detective skills. Joke! Tinulungan ako ni Mads, 'yung IT na friend ko."

If you have a good ear (like me, char), you would notice that the placing of the word 'Joke!' is a bit out of place. Medyo mabilis siyang nai-deliver.

There should be a beat in between.

This is where the middle tags come in.

Middle tags can be classified into three:

1. Dialogue tag

2. Action

3. Narrative

Dialogue tags are those: sabi niya, sagot ko, tanong nito, aniya, and the likes, that usually comes after a dialogue to indicate who's speaking.

Action is of course, action. A display of what the character is currently doing. Naglalakad ba siya? Sinipa ba niya sa itlog 'yung kausap niya?

Narrative is more like the telling. Like, ilang oras na ang lumipas, or naging boring na ba ang usapan, gano'n.

Any of these three could be used as a beat in the middle of the dialogue.

In that case, it could be like this:

"Well, uhm, ginamit ko ang aking natural detective skills," sabi niya nang may pinadudulas na darili sa kanyang ilong. "Joke! Tinulungan ako ni Mads, 'yung IT na friend ko."

Notice how there's a half-a-second transition bago mabanggit iyong next line?

That's how some of the dialogues (mostly long dialogues) are broken into two. May middle tag na ini-insert sa pagitan nila. This helps in painting a vivid picture in the reader's mind, to help them visualize the scene effectively.