Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo 14: Dialog Attribution

Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month

Coorlim’s Guide to NaNoWriMo is a multi-part series on writing, creativity, and the work-life balance throughout the month of November. Today we’re talking about dialog attribution

Always use “said.”

If all you take away from this topic, you’ll be doing good. The purpose of dialog attribution is simply to keep the reader straight on who is saying what. “Said” is a good word because readers are so used to it that they don’t really notice it. It’s invisible. They note who is talking, and move on.

The problem with “ejaculated”

Other words – exclaimed, whispered, muttered – have two problems. The first is that they slow the reader down, and slow your pacing down. We’re not as used to them. They’re empty calories; your context and dialog should be providing the reader with the scene’s emotional tenor. If you can’t tell how a line is being delivered without using some weird attribution, your problem is that you’re not getting that mood across sufficiently. Rewrite the scene.

The other problem is that with attributions like “hissed”, “laughed”, and “smirked” is that they’re not actually physically possible. Unless your line ends with an ‘s’, you’re not going to be hissing it. And while you can talk while laughing or smirking, the laughing or smirking is not the action that makes the words happen.

Good:

“You must be joking,” he said.

“You must be joking,” he said with a laugh.

Bad:

“You must be joking,” he laughed.

However,

“You must be joking.” He laughed.

works, because it’s two actions. That brings me to our next point:

Dialog tags

More interesting than just using “said” is the dialog tag. Your characters should not be just standing around, talking without doing anything else. That’s boring. It’s inefficient. You can show who happens to be talking by adding an action to dialog. Since there’s no paragraph break, the reader knows that the speaker is the actor performing the task.

It’s also a great opportunity to show descriptive details or characterization without resorting to telling.

“I need to take a break.” He got up and walked to the window.

“I don’t know, I’m just so tired.” Paul took the cigarette out of his mouth.

Callie brushed the aburn bangs out of her heart-shaped face. “It beats looking in a mirror.”

Use attribution sparingly

A little goes a long way. Generally speaking if a dialog is between two characters, readers will expect a general back-and-forth, switching off. You can reserve tags for moments when a character does something, or if something interrupts the order and you need to remind readers who is who.

“We’ve been reading for a long time,” Peter said.

Paul nodded. “Yeah, we’re used to the conventions of written prose.”

“You know who’s talking, cuz, like, there are two of us, and Paul spoke last.”

“Yeah, readers are pretty good at keeping track of that stuff.”

The pair stared off into the distance for several uncomfortable moments.

“Now you should drop a tag, just so we can confirm that I’m starting the conversation again,” Peter said.

It’s the last week of NaNoWriMo! Are you on track? In trouble? How’s it going? Let me know in the comments.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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