He said, she said… adding tags (confused and researching)

One thing I am still struggling with is adding tags. The boring old after quote he said, she said routine. I’m researching better ways to identify the speaker than just saying the same thing over and over. I get conflicting opinions. Some say, “change the word said to something vibrant, such as ‘he shrieked’ etc.” Some say, that shows poor skills, always use say/said/says. I am unsure what the best approach is, but this is my mission this week, to find better ways to add tags.