Mark Rubinstein's Blog - Posts Tagged "dialog"
More About Dialogue
Picking up where I left off in my last post, there is something else about dialogue that can be tricky--the use of "tags."
When I began writing fiction, I used tags frequently, and learned from my editor that they were completely unnecessary.
An example of a "tag" is, "Don't go there," Mary said angrily.
Generally, they're descriptive terms such as "angrily" or "sadly" or other such adverbs that are unnecessary if the dialogue is powerful and well done.
Another way of saying this is: Let the dialogue speak for itself.
If Mary is angry or sad, let those feelings come through in the words themselves or in the physical description of Mary as she utters the words. There's really no need to append the adverb to the description of Mary's words. Often, in a back-and-forth conversataion between two characters, there's little need to add, "she said" (another form of tag) since the reader can follow who is saying what to whom.
A good deal of dialogue in a novel is self-explanatory, and it can be written as though it's a play. You don't have to feed the reader the feelings; they should be evident based on the situation and words themselves.
When I began writing fiction, I used tags frequently, and learned from my editor that they were completely unnecessary.
An example of a "tag" is, "Don't go there," Mary said angrily.
Generally, they're descriptive terms such as "angrily" or "sadly" or other such adverbs that are unnecessary if the dialogue is powerful and well done.
Another way of saying this is: Let the dialogue speak for itself.
If Mary is angry or sad, let those feelings come through in the words themselves or in the physical description of Mary as she utters the words. There's really no need to append the adverb to the description of Mary's words. Often, in a back-and-forth conversataion between two characters, there's little need to add, "she said" (another form of tag) since the reader can follow who is saying what to whom.
A good deal of dialogue in a novel is self-explanatory, and it can be written as though it's a play. You don't have to feed the reader the feelings; they should be evident based on the situation and words themselves.
