Murmur for a beat in one smooth motion

Three words/phrases rampant in genre fiction (including my own):

Murmur. I can’t be the only person who sees this. Suddenly, everything is murmured. Matt murmurs. Christian murmurs. Male and female characters are murmuring everything everywhere. Why? “I don’t know,” he murmured. Murmur is a seemingly suitable stand-in for “said.” And it makes a nice change of pace. It conveys a softer tone, has a more thoughtful connotation. Doesn’t it? I remember reading King’s On Writing, in which he advises writers never to use any dialogue tag but “said.” I break that rule all the time. I do try to stick to said, but my runner up go-to tag is “murmured,” and I’m starting to realize that murmuring in excess is not good for a chapter’s tone or diction variation. In fact, it quickly becomes annoying and laughable. Note to self.

For a beat. We need new time markers. For a spell. For a space. For a moment. Oh, but they don’t sound as nice and contemporary as for a beat. He paused for a beat, then murmured, “You have a point.” But again, I need to challenge myself to find new ways to describe time lapses. If every pause is “a beat” please beat me. I’ll do the same for you. We’ll make a night of it. (And I know I’m not the only writer struggling with this issue, because I recently sampled a book and counted about 15 “for a beats” within the first 15 pages. No joke.)

In one smooth motion. Life in fiction must be easy. Everything is accomplished in one smooth motion. “He lifted me in one smooth motion.” “He peeled off my shirt in one smooth motion.” “He slid his cock into me in one smooth motion.” And no, I am not suggesting that we write more realistic erotica, because that would be depressing as fuck. (“He tried to lift me and we collapsed.” “He peeled up my shirt and it got stuck on my bra.” “He moved to slide into me but–”) (I leave the last example to your capable imagination.) Bottom line: I have no problem with the ridiculous ease of fantasy fiction, but I do have a problem with my penchant for writing the first motion phrases that come to my mind.

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M. paused for a beat and reread the blog post. “That’ll do,” the author murmured, and in one smooth motion moved to the kitchen to find some Pringles.