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TIL the word 'said' barely shows up in famous opening lines
I was killing time last night and looked up the first sentences of like 30 classic novels... turns out almost none of them use 'said' or any dialogue tag at all. I found this stat on some writing stats blog, apparently only 3 out of 30 open with direct speech. It's making me rethink how I start my own prompt responses, I always default to someone talking... but maybe the quiet ones hook better. Has anyone else noticed this in their favorite books or do you actually like dialogue-first openers?
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danielowens12d agoMost Upvoted
Did your friend try switching to action first?
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