Controlling Your Dialog Tags

A while ago, we discussed the two prominent schools of thought regarding dialog tags; today we'll go over the kinds of dialog tags you should always avoid. These fall into three classes: grandiloquent, repetitive, and non-dialog.

Grandiloquent

Grandiloquent means "overly high-minded, pompous, or pretentious, especially in language," and it is a condition that afflicts many new authors. My preferred term for this behavior is highfalutin. 

The amount of grandiloquence you employ should vary depending on what you're writing. If you're working on a very flowery, "literary" type of story, then you'll want to be a little more eloquent, as florid prose is a hallmark of that genre. In any other genre, however, you'll generally want to ensure that your prose calls as little attention to itself as possible—you want your readers to almost forget that they're reading and simply absorb the story, which they can't do if they have to stop and think over highfalutin language.

Here are some grandiloquent dialog tags that I often see crop up in novice writing:

"Dialog," he opined. < Just use said.

"Dialog," she queried. < asked, unless maybe the character is a computer.

"Dialog," I ruminated. < reflected, remembered, or recalled could all work here. 

"Dialog," it pontificated. < said, lectured.

"Dialog," John soliloquized. < said or reflected, depending on the context.

The line between being precise with your word choice and being too highfalutin is very fine—generally, I recommend leaning toward simpler language if you're ever in doubt.

Repetitive

Novice writers have a tendency to repeat themselves, and one way that they do this is often in dialog tags. Take a look at the following example:

"Welcome to the Nodsdown Fair!" the young woman greeted.

Here, the tag greeted is redundant—the dialog itself already made it very clear that the woman is greeting someone. The tag is only there to let us know who is speaking, so said would be more efficient here. Some other frequently-repetitive tags are cursed, pontificated, lectured, rambled, hinted, joked, agreed, elaborated, and explained.

Now, you might have noticed that some of those words can be found on my list of possible tags from the last post. Sometimes these words aren't redundant, and sometimes they are. It's an even finer line to walk than the grandiloquent line. Just be on the lookout for any redundant tags in your writing, and when in doubt—err on the side of simple.

Non-Dialog

The final type of dialog tag to avoid is tags that don't actually describe the manner in which the dialog was spoken. Take this example:

"I think I can do that," John smiled. "Give me the stick."

Smiled doesn't actually describe the dialog—you can't smile words. This kind of construction usually arises from writers who are trying to cut out extra words and go a little too far. Cutting out excess words is good, as long as the remaining words still accurately state what they're intended to. Our example can be rewritten in several ways:

With dialog tags:
"I think I can do that," John said, smiling. "Give me the stick."
"I think I can do that," John said with a smile. "Give me the stick."

Without dialog tags:
"I think I can do that." John smiled. "Give me the stick."
John smiled. "I think I can do that. Give me the stick."

Some other words that I often see used as tags which don't actually describe the dialog are: nodded, shrugged, blushed, snorted, and ground (as in "he said while grinding his teeth").

(I'll also mention laughed, coughed, scoffed, chuckled, gasped, sobbed, grunted, sighed, and cried. These can be acceptable, as they describe the sounds coming out of a character's mouth simultaneous to the dialog. No, we don't actually laugh words, but we can speak while laughing. But try to use these sparingly.)


I also want to place special emphasis on my personal, most-hated non-dialog dialog tags:

"Dan here couldn't hit a baseball if it was the size of a pumpkin!" Mike jabbed.
"Maybe I should practice with your head," Dan returned.

I hate "jabbed" and "returned." Don't use them, not ever. They fall into both the repetitive and the non-dialog categories; what's worse, they always tend to be attached to back-and-forth teasing that isn't nearly as clever as the author wants to believe it is. Please do not use these words as dialog tags.

P.S.

Many authors use the word sang to mean "shouted jubilantly." While this usage is not uncommon, it can be a little confusing; after all, it is possible to literally sing words. I recommend avoiding it.

Crowed can be used to mean the same thing, and I don't like it. There's nothing technically wrong with it; that's mostly just me.

Punctuating Dialog: Here's How It's Done

I’ve read quite a few manuscripts of late that had trouble punctuating their dialog correctly, so let’s go over that very quickly.

1. You should always have some sort of punctuation immediately before your closing quotation mark.

It can be a comma, a period, a semi-colon, question mark, exclamation point, em-dash, or ellipses; it can be almost any form of punctuation, but there must be punctuation of some sort. What you don’t want to do is this:

     “I haven’t seen Aziz since class yesterday” Nora said.

There should be some sort of punctuation between yesterday and the closing quotation mark (a comma, in this case), and in all similar scenarios. There is almost no situation in which you’d be justified leaving out that closing punctuation.

2. If the dialog is followed by a dialog tag, then you cannot close the dialog with a period.

The dialog tag is that short little bit that identifies who is speaking: some variation of she said, he asked, I shouted, etc. If there is a dialog tag after your dialog, you cannot end the dialog with a period:

     INCORRECT: “I haven’t seen Aziz since class yesterday.” Nora said.

     CORRECT: “I haven’t seen Aziz since class yesterday,” Nora said.

Note that this rule only applies to periods. Other ending punctuation such as question marks and exclamation points should not be affected by the dialog tag:

     “I think Aziz has been kidnapped!” she shouted.

     “What makes you think that?” he replied.

Note also that exclamation points and question marks in dialog do not end the sentence, so the dialog tag is not capitalized—as discussed in this post.

3. If dialog is interrupted, end it with an em dash. If it trails off, use ellipses.

     “We don’t have any reason to think—” he began.

     “I just know something is wrong!” she interrupted. “He could be hurt, or . . .”

Ellipses in dialog is a subject more thoroughly covered in this post.

4. If the dialog tag interrupts a sentence, then it should end with a comma. If it comes at the end of a sentence of dialog, it should end with a period, even if it is followed by more dialog.

     “Nora,” Aziz whispered, “please come after me.”

     “I’m calling the police,” Nora said. “I don’t care what you say.”

You’ll find more on this topic in this post.

If you're wondering, Aziz was totally kidnapped, but Nora saved him in time.

Cleverly Avoiding Adverbs

If you were in a high school English class in the US in the last few decades, then chances are good that you’ve been told about two of the most hated and pernicious plagues of English writing: the passive voice and overuse of adverbs. We’ll talk about the passive voice another day; today we’re going to discuss adverb abuse.

First, to all of those English teachers who have spent decades trying to hammer this concept—that adverbs weaken writing and should be avoided—into the minds of their students: good job! To be honest, I almost never have a problem with the amounts of adverbs that I find in the manuscripts I’m given. My impression is that the current crop of would-be professional writers has learned this lesson well.

If you’ve never heard of this problem, here’s the breakdown: adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs (or even entire sentences). You can usually pick them out by the –ly ending.

Modifying a verb: He stumbled awkwardly up the hill.

Modifying an adjective: Ashley was overly cautious and tended to frustrate her friends.

Modifying another adverb: The quarterback was playing very poorly.

Modifying a sentence: Fortunately, we were able to get the car started again.

The problem with adverbs is that they can be redundant, can lengthen sentences to awkward proportions, or can be a crutch for lazy writers to lean on.  However, they aren’t necessarily as evil as your English teacher (and Steven King) might have made them seem.  They’re a part of the English language for a good reason, and they can be used to good effect—you just need to learn to use them well.  Here’s some tips:

Avoid redundant adverbs: This is one of the primary ways in which adverbs weaken writing—they tend to be repetitive and redundant. Here’s some examples:

     My stomach growled hungrily.

     She smiled happily.

     He stumbled awkwardly up the hill.

We don’t need to be told that a stomach growls hungrily—hunger is what the stomach growl indicates in the first place. Look how much stronger these sentences become without the adverbs:

     My stomach growled.

     She smiled.

     He stumbled up the hill.

Remember: longer or more complex doesn’t mean better. If an adverb isn’t adding new and unique information to the sentence, it should be removed.

Ask yourself—is this adverb the focal point of the sentence?  Even if an adverb isn’t redundant, you should take a moment to consider: do I really need it? The best adverbs are the crux of the sentence, conveying the information on which the sentence turns. For instance, from earlier:

     Ashley was overly cautious and tended to frustrate her friends.

The fact that Ashley is too cautious is the point of the sentence. Without that adverb, this sentence would be uncertain. Are Ashley’s friends appropriately-cautious people who are frustrated by her extreme caution, or are they frustrated because she is responsible and they are actually incautious? The adverb distinguishes the meaning of the entire sentence, and could be worth keeping.

Weird, right?

Avoid intensifiers: Most adverbs that modify other adverbs are intensifiers—words that add intensity. Very, extremely, and really are examples of intensifiers that are over-used. More often than not (but not always), they can be dropped without hurting the sentence.

Avoid coupling adverbs with “said” in dialog: I’d guess that four times out of five, when an editor gets annoyed with a writer’s overuse of adverbs, it’s because they did this:

     “No, I don’t want to,” she said quickly.

     “You’re wrong!” he said loudly.

     “Let’s get out of here,” he said quietly.

This formula (said + adverb) should be avoided. On rare occasions (very rare occasions), it will be the best way to get information across—the rest of the time, it’s just going to annoy any editors you submit to. Get rid of it wherever possible.

Variety in Dialog Tags: What to Avoid

We discussed the two schools of thought on dialog tags last time; today we'll go over the kinds of dialog tags you should avoid. These fall into three classes: grandiloquent, repetitive, and non-dialog.

Grandiloquent

Grandiloquent means "overly high-minded, pompous, or pretentious, especially in language," and it is a condition that afflicts many new authors. My preferred term for this behavior is highfalutin. 

The amount of grandiloquence you employ should vary depending on what you're writing. If you're working on a very flowery, "literary" type of story, then you'll want to be a little more eloquent, as florid prose is a hallmark of that genre. In any other genre, however, you'll generally want to ensure that your prose calls as little attention to itself as possible—you want your readers to almost forget that they're reading and simply absorb the story, which they can't do if they have to stop and think over highfalutin language.

Here are some grandiloquent dialog tags that I often see crop up in novice writing:

"Dialog," he opined. < Just use said.

"Dialog," she queried. < asked, unless maybe the character is a computer.

"Dialog," I ruminated. < reflected, remembered, or recalled could all work here. 

"Dialog," it pontificated. < said, lectured.

"Dialog," John soliloquized. < said or reflected, depending on the context.

The line between being precise with your word choice and being too highfalutin is very fine—generally, I recommend leaning toward simpler language if you're ever in doubt.

Repetitive

Novice writers have a tendency to repeat themselves, and one way that they do this is often in dialog tags. Take a look at the following example:

"Welcome to the Nodsdown Fair!" the young woman greeted.

Here, the tag greeted is redundant—the dialog itself already made it very clear that the woman is greeting someone. The tag is only there to let us know who is speaking, so said would be more efficient here. Some other frequently-repetitive tags are cursed, pontificated, lectured, greeted, rambled, hinted, joked, agreed, elaborated, and explained.

Now, you might have noticed that some of those words can be found on my list of possible tags from the last post. Sometimes these words aren't redundant, and sometimes they are. It's an even finer line to walk than the grandiloquent line. Just be on the lookout for any redundant tags in your writing, and when in doubt—err on the side of simple.

Non-Dialog

The final type of dialog tag to avoid is tags that don't actually describe the manner in which the dialog was spoken. Take this example:

"I think I can do that," John smiled. "Give me the stick."

Smiled doesn't actually describe the dialog—you can't smile words. This kind of construction usually arises from writers who are trying to cut out extra words and go a little too far. Cutting out excess words is good, as long as the remaining words still accurately state what they're intended to. Our example can be rewritten in several ways:

With dialog tags:
"I think I can do that," John said, smiling. "Give me the stick."
"I think I can do that," John said with a smile. "Give me the stick."

Without dialog tags:
"I think I can do that." John smiled. "Give me the stick."
John smiled. "I think I can do that. Give me the stick."

Some other words that I often see used as tags which don't actually describe the dialog are: nodded, shrugged, blushed, snorted, and ground (as in "he said while grinding his teeth").

(I'll also mention laughed, coughed, scoffed, chuckled, gasped, sobbed, grunted, and cried. These can be acceptable, as they describe the sounds coming out of a character's mouth simultaneous to the dialog. No, we don't actually laugh words, but we can speak while laughing. But try to use these sparingly.)


I also want to place special emphasis on my personal, most-hated non-dialog dialog tags:

"Dan here couldn't hit a baseball if it was the size of a pumpkin!" Mike jabbed.
"Maybe I should practice with your head," Dan returned.

I hate "jabbed" and "returned." Don't use them, not ever. They fall into both the repetitive and the non-dialog categories; what's worse, they always tend to be attached to back-and-forth teasing that isn't nearly as clever as the author wants to believe it is. Please do not use these words as dialog tags.

P.S.

Many authors use the word sang to mean "shouted jubilantly." While this usage is not uncommon, it can be a little confusing; after all, it is possible to literally sing words. I recommend avoiding it.

Crowed can be used to mean the same thing, and I don't like it. There's nothing technically wrong with it; that's mostly just me.

Variety in Dialog Tags: Two Schools of Thought

In this post, I discussed how synonyms can be used to avoid repetition and to add variety to your prose, but I also cautioned that too many synonyms can make your writing seem forced and juvenile. Nowhere is the need for this caution more evident than in dialogue tags.

If you have a moment, go take a look at these two stories on Tor.com: "The President's Brain is Missing" by John Scalzi, and "Firstborn" by Brandon Sanderson. Pay particular attention to the dialog tags in each story.

There are two general attitudes towards using synonyms in your dialog tags. The first is exemplified in Scalzi's story: although the story contains more dialog than Brandon Sanderson's, you might have noticed that the variety of dialog tags Scalzi used is much narrower than the variety Sanderson used. Many authors and editors prefer to use only a very few, basic dialog tags and let the dialog itself convey any necessary tone or subtleties. These authors pretty much restrict themselves to eight or so dialog tags:

"Dialog," he said.
"Dialog," she asked.
"Dialog," I replied.
"Dialog," it answered.
"Dialog," John continued.
"Dialog," Mary shouted.
"Dialog," they yelled.
"Dialog," we whispered.

These eight tags can conceivably cover a good ninety-five percent of the speaking situations that you'll put your characters into. For many editors and authors, any more variety in dialog tags than this will seem overdone and irritating.

As long as you're doing your best to follow my advice from this post, you will never go wrong using the tags I've listed above. They may seem boring or overly common, but almost no editors will be bothered by them.

The second school of thought is a little more liberal when it comes to the variety of tags they use, preferring to pick more precise and nuanced words for any given situation. For instance, the very first dialog tag in "Firstborn" was commanded, which was not on our earlier list. Here are some other tags you might see in the work of an author who belongs to this second school of thought:

"Dialog," he exclaimed.
"Dialog," she shrieked.
"Dialog," I mused.
"Dialog," it teased.
"Dialog," John grunted.
"Dialog," Mary hissed.
"Dialog," they growled.
"Dialog," he interjected.
"Dialog," she wondered.
"Dialog," I rasped.
"Dialog," it grumbled.
"Dialog," John pleaded.
"Dialog," Mary begged.
"Dialog," they began.
"Dialog," we gasped.
"Dialog," he responded.
"Dialog," she insisted.
"Dialog," I interrupted.
"Dialog," it cut in.
"Dialog," John acknowledged.
"Dialog," Mary sighed.
"Dialog," they breathed.
"Dialog," we cried.
"Dialog," he sobbed.
"Dialog," she added.
"Dialog," I mumbled.
"Dialog," it murmured.
"Dialog," John warned.
"Dialog," Mary cautioned.
"Dialog," they announced.
"Dialog," we wailed.
"Dialog," he commanded.
"Dialog," she ordered.
"Dialog," I muttered.
"Dialog," it demanded.
"Dialog," John noted.
"Dialog," Mary whimpered.
"Dialog," they bellowed.
"Dialog," we boomed.
"Dialog," he admitted.
"Dialog," she screamed.
"Dialog," I called.
"Dialog," John groaned.
"Dialog," Mary moaned.
"Dialog," they explained.
"Dialog," we scoffed.
"Dialog," he suggested.
"Dialog," she agreed.
"Dialog," I snapped.
"Dialog," it hollered.
"Dialog," John conceded.
"Dialog," Mary elaborated.

If you lean more toward the second school of thought, here are some cautions you need to consider:

Don't overuse synonyms: Although "Firstborn" did contain a larger variety of dialog tags, the vast majority of the tags in the story still came from our first list of basic tags.  Don't try to find an unusual word for your tag when said or replied would work just fine.

Make sure the word you choose fits the dialog: I've read many a manuscript where new authors misuse words from this second list. For instance, a character who has just been scolded might grumble in response or mumble in response. Which one you choose should depend on the character's attitude. Grumble carries a hint of aggression, of dissatisfaction and unhappiness, while mumble is more submissive. So if your character is not angry about being scolded, they should not be grumbling in response. If you're not sure that the word fits the situation perfectly, don't use it.


Whether you lean towards the first or second school of thought, there are some categories of tags that you should always avoid. Read about them here.

Using Actions to Avoid Dialog Tags

I told you here to avoid using any more dialog tags than you absolutely must. Here's another tip on how you can do that.

Often, your characters will be performing actions as they speak. For example:

"They can't have just disappeared," Jensen said. He peered at the dusty valley through his binoculars. "They're hiding out there someplace."

Having someone perform actions as they speak is natural and engaging—readers often have an easier time following dialog if they have a clear image of where the characters are and what they are doing while they speak. But having a character perform actions while they speak can serve another very useful purpose. Let's take another look at our previous example, but with the dialog tag removed:

"They can't have just disappeared." Jensen peered at the dusty valley through his binoculars. "They're hiding out there someplace."

See what just happened? Even though the text didn't explicitly state who was speaking, having Jensen perform an action in the middle of a line of dialog automatically implies that he was the one who spoke. This is one of the most useful tricks I know for avoiding dialog tags.

Look through your story for places where a dialog tag appears next to an action, and see if you can pare the text down to just the action. Sometimes you won't be able to—dialog tags can't always be avoided—but I bet you'll be able to cut out at least a few.

P.S.

As you're looking for places where you can apply this trick, keep an eye out for the words "as [he/she/they/it] spoke." New writers often use these words when they don't need to. Example:

The king took the sword and touched it to the shoulders of the knight as he spoke. “I dub thee Sir Gloudin of the Knights of the Broken Branch.”

Now, with the words "as he spoke" removed:

The king took the sword and touched it to the shoulders of the knight. “I dub thee Sir Gloudin of the Knights of the Broken Branch.”

If you place the dialogue immediately after a related action, readers will automatically fill in that the two are simultaneous. Neat!

Dialog Tags: When to Use

The noble dialog tag, always there to let your reader know who is speaking. "What do you want?" Jane said. 

Without tags, dialog can become a confusing jumble. But unfortunately, too many tags will render your dialog cluttered and annoying to read.  So how many is too many? Any more than the absolute minimum that is required for clarity.  Have some friends read through your dialog and highlight any spot where they were confused about who is speaking. If they were never confused, see if you can take a few tags out without causing confusion. Your goal should always be the smallest amount of tags that you can get away with.

If only two characters are conversing, you can usually skip quite a few tags without causing confusion, because of the back-and-forth pattern of conversation:

"When did you buy a porcupine?" Earl asked.

"Never said I bought it," Leo replied.

"What? You said you weren't going to steal any more!"

"Never said I stole it, neither."

Though the last two lines of this example had no tags, it was still clear who was speaking; Earl spoke first, so it was clear that he was speaking again after Leo. The final line was clearly Leo's, since he replied to Earl and there are only two characters in the scene.

If you have three or more characters in the scene, tags become more and more necessary to keep things clear—the more characters you have, the more tags you'll need.

For more tips on avoiding dialog tags, check out this post.

Dialog Tags: Periods vs. Commas

A dialog tag is the bit of prose that identifies who is speaking. Consider these two examples:

Example 1: "Eat some food," she said, pushing him toward the kitchen, "before you pass out."

Example 2: "Eat some food," she said, pushing him toward the kitchen. "I don't want you to pass out."

In example one, the dialog tag ends in a comma, while in example two, the tag ends with a period. Why?

Look at the dialog from example one without the tag: "Eat some food before you pass out." It is one complete sentence, and the tag was placed in the middle. When a dialog tag bisects a sentence, then it should end with a comma, to keep the sentence intact.

Example two, however, has a dialog tag between two complete sentences, so the tag ends with a period.

It is also worth noting that ending a dialog tag with a period is preferable whenever possible. Consider one more example:

Example 3: "Eat some food," she said, pushing him toward the kitchen. "Then get some rest."

This example could be written as one sentence in several different ways. "Eat some food, then get some rest," or "Eat some food; then get some rest," would both be as grammatically correct as "Eat some food. Then get some rest." But with a dialog tag, a period usually flows best, so go with it whenever you can.

Dialog Tags: Capitalization

A dialog tag is the bit of prose that identifies who is speaking. If the tag follows the dialog, it should begin with a lower-case letter, unless it is a title or name which is always capitalized. The punctuation of the dialog (i.e. whether the dialog ended in a comma, a question mark, or anything else) has no effect on capitalization.

Examples:

Incorrect:  “I’m doing fine,” She said.

Correct:    “I’m doing fine,” she said.

Incorrect:  “What do we do now?” The man said.

Correct:    “What do we do now?” the man said.

Incorrect:  “Hi there!” She said.

Correct:    “Hi there!” Sarah said.