Appreciation post: My buddy swore I was overcomplicating dialogue tags

He said just stick with 'said' 90% of the time and save the fancy stuff for action beats. I tried it on my last short story and the beta readers actually finished it without complaining about the writing for once. Anyone else get stuck trying to make every line sound unique?

3 comments

3 Comments

caleb_bell51d ago

Oh man, I did the exact same thing. I was using all these fancy tags like "he mused" and "she countered" until someone told me readers barely notice "said" and that was a huge lightbulb moment for me.

the_betty19h ago

Doesn't this apply to so many things in life though? I notice the same pattern with my neighbors who just moved in. One guy talks nonstop about his home renovation plans but never actually does anything. The other one quietly fixes one thing at a time and his place looks amazing. Sometimes the less you draw attention to the mechanics of something, the better the result. Your buddy was onto something real with that advice.

ryan_hart3819h ago

Your buddy was right. Readers skip right over "said" like it's invisible. Threw "he retorted" into a scene once and my critique group laughed at me.