Check your dialogue tags—said, replied, responded, etc. How many of them are necessary?
Take the tags out and see if you can follow the conversation by adding details about the characters’ thoughts, movements or facial expressions. If your character speaks wryly or angrily or joyously, try to determine if the tone of voice is obvious from the character’s actions and words, and thus avoid adding the adverb after the tag.
Remember that “said” is considered an invisible word, one of the few that can be repeated without annoying the reader. Changing tags frequently—she asserted, she demanded, she cried, she queried—can actually be more intrusive than simply using “said” when necessary and letting the dialogue indicate tone of voice.
~ Jeannie Watt
Take the tags out and see if you can follow the conversation by adding details about the characters’ thoughts, movements or facial expressions. If your character speaks wryly or angrily or joyously, try to determine if the tone of voice is obvious from the character’s actions and words, and thus avoid adding the adverb after the tag.
Remember that “said” is considered an invisible word, one of the few that can be repeated without annoying the reader. Changing tags frequently—she asserted, she demanded, she cried, she queried—can actually be more intrusive than simply using “said” when necessary and letting the dialogue indicate tone of voice.
~ Jeannie Watt
4 comments:
So true!!
This is one of my weaknesses. I either have too much or not enough happening in between the dialogue.
I've heard that reading the scenes out loud helps, but I haven't quite gotten to that point yet.
The most annoying thing to me is when the author starts a dialog and it doesn't indicate who starts it nor is it easily inferred from whatever was said before. It means I have to reread to figure out who is saying what. I'd rather see she responded, he said or some other indication of who the speaker is.
Snookie--You are so right! It's very disconcerting to have no idea who'd speaking and then having to back track to make sense of the conversation.
Kristina--reading the scene aloud really helps. Having someone else read it helps, too.
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