why always “said”, but rarely “walked” ?
I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen this advice given to aspiring fiction writers:
“Use only said, avoid alternates as much as you can.”
So, you know, “John said x”, “Betty said y”, never “John groused x”, “Betty mumbled y”. I guess. I think it’s even in On Writing.
Yet, I’ve also seen it suggested that you should avoid adverbs to the same degree (no “John walked casually”) and attempt to get all that meaning from the verb itself (“John strolled”). These two points seem kind of at odds with each other. “Said” is most certainly a verb. Here’s a relevant quote from Annie Dillard, itself quoted in the useful and interesting essay here:
You want vivid writing. How do we get vivid writing? Verbs, first. Precise verbs. All of the action on the page, everything that happens, happens in the verbs. The passive voice needs gerunds to make anything happen. But too many gerunds together on the page makes for tinnitus: Running, sitting, speaking, laughing, inginginginging. No. Don’t do it. The verbs tell a reader whether something happened once or continually, what is in motion, what is at rest. Gerunds are lazy, you don’t have to make a decision and soon, everything is happening at the same time, pell-mell, chaos. Don’t do that. Also, bad verb choices mean adverbs. More often than not, you don’t need them. Did he run quickly or did he sprint? Did he walk slowly or did he stroll or saunter?
And, it seems like something like “I hate dogs,” mumbled John. actually tells the reader more than “I hate dogs,” said John. in the same space. In fact, you could argue it is more efficient – which is exactly one of you goals as a writer (unless you’re trying to be deliberately obtuse).
Now, I can see why you would want to avoid things like: complain, praise, mocked, etc. IE things that tell you the temperament that the authour should be showing you with their word choice and sentence structure in the dialogue itself.
Also, I find myself resorting to things like said slowly much more than things like walked slowly. I can establish the pace of movement with other contextual clues much easier than I can the pace of dialogue. Although I have been known to use a fuckload of ellipsis … indeed.
But I’m no longer convinced of the “Always use said” maxim.
Of course, this is all probably just a case of different advice givers at odds with one another – but it’s still working thinking about when you write – anything that keeps me analyzing my word choice is helpful :).
Wait, you actually have heard to use the word “said”? Because I think it was week two of fifth grade when Mrs. Jetton crucified an effigy resembling the word and told us we would fail all creative writing exercises involving its use. I personally cannot write dialogue with it and hate writing wherein it goes back and forth until everyone under the sun has had their say.
Yes, I have. I think it probably breaks down into stylistic differences I guess.
I know I hate seeing a section like, perhaps more than a chain of saids:
“”, x remarked
y replied “”
“” x commented
“” y interrupted
x laughed “”
etc.
I’ve been favoring “said” over other options lately, (other than the null option, which is actually my preferred choice and I use that whenever I can. Making the speakers obviously without tags seems preferable to me) and I think this is good for at least one reason – it makes me work harder. If I need a tag I go with said – but I try to manage without the tag.
Although, as I said, I’m veering back towards using some other options as well, but I’m trying to keep it to a minimum. Especially the terms I used above, I don’t like any of those.
Are you sure there’s anything more heinous and sophomoric than:
“__”, said Lyndsay.
“___”, Robert said.
“___” said Lyndsay.
“___” said Robert.
I will kill people. Starting with the author.
They both annoy me equally actually. I’d rather see a mix between those and no tags…something, anything. One looks pretentious (over educated) (usually the writer will use more loquacious words than I did) and the other looks under-educated.
Honestly, really, I wonder if something like Name: “dialogue” were acceptable in non-screenplays…man would that make things simpler. But, of course I suppose it would suck some of the artiness out of things….
Actually, my least favorite lines of dialogue EVER so far are in this obnoxious kids book we have. In there you have like:
“I can jump this high!” laughed rabbit A.
“But I can jump this high!” smiled rabbit b.
WHAT WHAT!?
I think that whatever least distracts the reader is the way to go. You should be focusing on what the character is saying instead of what language the author is using. You shouldn’t need to dress it up at all.
Um, the reader can’t be instructed to ignore the language of the author. It’s the language of the author that destroys the experience. If someone can’t write beautifully, why am I reading?
I think it’s possible to write beautifully without deviating too far from he said, she said.
Well, you know how I feel about flowery vs. functional language.
I like a nice medium personally.
And hey – I assume by now you’ve read some of what I’ve written, so you can see I’m no Maya Angelou of prose.
“i like this post,” she said with both thumbs facing upward.
HAH!
Found another post about this, this one by a YA writer:
http://naturalartificial.blogspot.com/2009/10/scarf-weather-answers-part-eleven.html
quote:
Of course, her target market is different than that dude who writes all those Zen books about repairing your motorcycle, but it’s always good to have variable input.
Please let’s take advice from YA writers. How bout please refrain from peppering your inane chatter with vampires.
Well, I think that anyone whose been successfully published has some valuable advice for those of us who haven’t.
Sure, you have to keep your target market in mind, but I assume those things go without saying.
And, unfortunately, vampires are kind of big with the pubescent ladies at the moment. Wait, I mean forever. Just more so now.
That being said, who doesn’t like vampires? I just don’t like them being done all glow in the daylight douchy… there will eventually be some vampires in my 1st series, if I ever get to book 4ish. I suspect…they will be highly amusing.
“Well, I think that anyone whose been successfully published has some valuable advice for those of us who haven’t.” – O_O You and I come from very different worlds.
Indeed. Note that I wasn’t talking about self-published people, or people who got published because they knew someone.
But, anyone who’s had to slog through the queries and rejections and edits and all that – they’re in the same arena as I am. Except that I haven’t got to that step yet. :P.
Reading through this book on self-editing, by employed editors, and recommended by an agent an editor, I come across a large section on said.
Excerpt:
Another handy tip:
There’s much more of course – using beats instead of tags, etc. Lots of good stuff so far.
Aaaaand Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.