“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 :).