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.

Subject-Verb Agreement, Part Two: Collective Nouns

Last time, we discussed a few common things that cause writers to make mistakes with their subject-verb agreement. Today we’ll discuss a few more.

Collective Nouns

A collective noun is a word that defines a group as a single unit—words like team, family, staff, crowd, audience, band, and so forth. Technically speaking, such nouns are singular and can be pluralized like any other noun: teams, families, etc.

When it comes to subject-verb agreement, however, collective nouns don’t always act singular. Take these two examples:

     The jury is delivering its verdict.

     The jury are taking their seats.

In the first example, the word jury is singular; in the second, it is plural. Why the difference? Well, in the first example, we’re referring to the jury as a single unit doing one thing—we’re focused on the action of the group, and not the individuals in the group, so jury is treated as a singular noun. In the second example, we’re thinking of the individuals within the group—several people taking several seats, rather than one unit taking a seat. In this sort of usage, it is acceptable to treat the collective noun as a plural. Here are some other examples:

     The audience is losing its energy.

     Remind the audience to look beneath their seats to see if they won a prize.

     The class is behaving well today.

     The class are preparing their presentations for tomorrow.

Now, if the examples of collective nouns used as plurals seem odd, that’s because they are—in the United States, at least. Many of them would sound more natural if an actual plural noun were substituted for the collective noun:

     The jury members are taking their seats.

     The students are preparing their presentations for tomorrow.

Proper collective nouns

A proper noun is a name or title of some sort; a proper collective noun, therefore, is a name or title that refers to a group.

Bands and other musical groups: Generally, musical groups should take the form of verb and pronouns that suits the form of their name.

     The Red Hot Chili Peppers are amazing in concert.

     Queen is still my favorite band.

Companies and other organizations: The names of companies should generally be treated as singular.

     Marvel has announced its next few movies.

     General Motors hasn’t sold as well as expected.

Note, however, that it is not uncommon to use plural construction with companies whose name is a series of names (with or without a word like “associates” at the end).

     Williamsen, Ovard, and Associates have had a great year.

Sports teams: Generally speaking, sports teams are treated as plurals, no matter the form their name takes.

     The Utah Jazz have been performing well since they changed their lineup.

But when we refer to a team by the location where it resides, however, it usually takes the singular:

     Chicago is just destroying anyone that comes against it on the court.

(Note that these guidelines are for US usage. In the UK and many other places, it is more common to use the plural whenever the actions of a group are being described.)

Also note that these guidelines are for existing collective nouns; if you're writing speculative fiction that delves into the notion of collective in a far more literal or complicated manner, then you're on your own when it comes to figuring out how to properly determine where to use the plural or the singular. Good luck.

Subject-Verb Agreement, Part One

On the surface, subject-verb agreement is a simple topic: almost every sentence requires a subject and a verb, and that verb (and everything else in the sentence) should be properly conjugated to match the subject. In other words, if your subject is singular, your verb should be singular; if your subject is plural, your verb should be plural; if your subject is first-person, then your verb should be first person; and so on.

     INCORRECT: My brother are ski instructor.

     CORRECT: My brother is a ski instructor.

     INCORRECT: My sisters is detective.

     CORRECT: My sisters are detectives.

     INCORRECT: I are a writer.

     CORRECT: I am a writer.

Ninety-five percent of the time, subject-verb agreement is just that easy—you have a subject, you properly conjugate its verb without even thinking, and you move on. Every now and then, however, complications creep in. Usually, these difficulties arise because of a long or confusing sentence structure has made the subject of the sentence unclear.

     As I watch, a strange blue substance full of floating, glowing spheres spread across the window.

I’ve italicized the verb in that subject, but where is the subject? It’s not spheres—the glowing spheres are inside the subject, which is the substance. Substance is singular, not plural—so it doesn’t spread, it spreads.

     As I watch, a strange blue substance full of floating, glowing spheres spreads across the window.

Another frequent cause of subject-verb disagreement is compound subjects—when more than one subject is performing a single action in unison. Compound subjects are treated as a plural subject, even if the individual subjects are singular:

     INCORRECT: My father and mother tells me to behave myself.

     CORRECT: My father and mother tell me to behave myself.

Note: A compound subject will always be two or more subjects joined by the word and. If the subjects are joined by a phrase such as together with, as well as, or along with, then the first subject determines the conjugation of the verb:

     My wife, together with her sisters, is going on vacation.

     My wife and her sisters are going on vacation.

The conjunction or also doesn’t create compound subjects; if two potential subjects are paired using the word or (or nor), the verb should agree with whichever subject is closest to it:

     Either my cousin or my friends are going to pick me up after work.

     Neither my friends nor my cousin is going to be able to pick me up.

So remember to keep an eye on any particularly long and complicated sentences and any sentences with compound subjects to be sure that the subject-verb agreement is intact. Next week, we’ll cover other situations in which problems with subject verb agreement commonly arise.

Avoiding Over-Capitalization

A few weeks ago we discussed proper capitalization, and I mentioned that I would discuss the capitalization of words you make up for your story. These could be devices or technologies that you thought up, magical spells or items, or fictional illnesses and conditions. They could be unusual offices in a fictional government, brand names from a science-fiction universe, aspects of an alien culture, or places in another world.

The majority of words that require capitalization are proper nouns—names, titles, and the like; and, in most stories, the majority of made-up words will also be proper nouns. This means that a particularly complex science fiction or fantasy story can often end up with a high density of capitalized words.

Now, many experienced writers and editors advise that you avoid having too many made-up words in your story (I gave you that advice in this post). Unfortunately, one of the easiest and most common methods of avoiding made-up words is to take a common English word and capitalize it to show that it is significant. So instead of calling the council that rules your fictional society the Shoraki, you might call it the Council. Thus, while this method does avoid creating extra made-up words, it doesn’t cut down on the number of capital letters. This can sometimes lead to paragraphs that look like this:

     Thuum reached into the Golden Cask and removed the Sword of Ramunothet, grinning from ear to ear. When he presented this to the Council, everyone would see that he was the greatest of all the Hunters. And best of all, Norrikis would be forced to serve him as his Du’Shan.

     Cradling the sword in the crook of his arm, Thuum turned to leave and paused. Standing in the door to the Temple was a black-shrouded figure—an Ayelet Assassin. The man raised a gloved hand, revealing a Zurasha Gem in his palm. The gem began to glow as the Assassin focused his Mentalis within it.

Yeesh, am I right? That might seem like a deliberately exaggerated example, but it’s not—I have in fact encountered similar paragraphs in the wild.

There are many ways to avoid excessive amounts of capitalization: you can re-word a title or sentence to remove the need for a capitalized word; you can insert more action in order to further space out any capitalized words; or you can just decide that this is your world and these are your made-up words, so you can just not capitalize them if you don’t want to. It’s up to you, after all, to decide whether your made-up words are proper nouns that require capitalization, common nouns that don’t, or once-proper nouns that have reached such a level of ubiquity in the culture that they no longer require capitalization.

Here’s what that example might look like after some toning down:

     Thuum reached into the golden cask and removed the Ramunothet’s sword, grinning from ear to ear. When he presented this to the council, everyone would see that he was the greatest of all the Hunters; and best of all, Norrikis would be forced to serve him as his du’shan.

     Cradling the sword in the crook of his arm, Thuum turned to leave and paused. Standing in the door to the temple was a black-shrouded figure—an Ayelet assassin. The man raised a gloved hand to reveal a Zurasha gem in his palm, which began to glow with focused mentalis.

We’ve gone from twenty-four capital letters to ten. Hopefully, we can all agree that the second example is much more pleasant to look at and feels a little less like an over-done cliché. So keep an eye out for over-capitalization—remember, neither everything of significance in your story nor every word that you make up needs to be capitalized.

This is more or less pertinent to the article, right? Eh, close enough.

"Looking With Eyes"—Avoiding Redundant Description

(A busy day cut down on my available writing time, so I'm afraid I have to post my first-ever rerun today. There'll be a new post up Wednesday.)

Here are some sample sentences from works I've edited:

1. Derek surveyed their surroundings with his cloudy gray eyes.
2. She kissed the envelope with her full lips, leaving a bright red lipstick mark behind.
3. He grasped the sword hilt in his shaking hands.

What's the problem here? Take a moment to look again.

The problem is that each of these sentences contains an awkward, redundant phrase. In example one, the phrase "with his cloudy eyes" is unneeded—how else would someone survey their surroundings, after all? In the second example, of course she kissed "with her full lips." That's the body part that kisses. In example three, we already know that he's grasping with his hands, so telling us that is redundant and unnatural.

So why do writers do this? If you'll look at our example sentences, you'll notice that each of the named body parts is preceded by an adjective: cloudy eyes, full lips, and shaking hands. These adjectives are the reason the authors included the redundant phrase. 

In example one, for instance, Derek is being introduced to the audience for the first time. The author wanted the readers to know that his eyes were a cloudy gray, but didn't simply want to say "Derek's eyes were a cloudy gray."  And that was a good goal—this is a more interesting way to find out what the character looks like—but you can usually do better than an otherwise-redundant phrase.

Here are some examples of how these sentences could be reworked.

Make the body part the subject of the sentence: Just about every sentence needs a subject, after all, so it's unlikely to be redundant.

1. Derek's cloudy gray eyes surveyed the surroundings.
2. Her full lips kissed the envelope, leaving a bright red lipstick mark behind.
3. His shaking hands grasped the sword hilt.

Give the body part something else to do: Add a phrase or sentence that further describes the action of the original sentence.

1. Derek surveyed their surroundings; the blinding light made his cloudy gray eyes water.
2. She kissed the envelope. Her full lips left a bright red lipstick mark behind.
3. His hands shook uncontrollably as he grasped the sword hilt.

Try to work the adjective in somewhere or somehow else: This can be the trickiest solution, but also often the most subtle and graceful.

1. Derek surveyed their surroundings. Lina studied his eyes; they were intense and focused as he searched, the same cloudy grey as the water beneath the boat.
2. She kissed the envelope, leaving behind full red lipstick marks.
3. He grasped the sword, trying to keep the point from wavering. It didn't work.

P.S.

Remember that specifying that a character performed an action "with" something is fine if it wasn't clear how the action was performed. For instance:

     He sliced the steak with a worn shark-tooth knife.

This is a perfectly acceptable way to describe the knife. It's not redundant because there is more than one tool for slicing steak, so it's natural to explain what the character is using to slice.

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.

Some Thoughts On Thoughts

One of the greatest advantages that print mediums like novels or comics have over many other story-telling methods is an unparalleled ability to get into the heads of characters, to hear their thoughts and understand their reasoning and their view of the world. In more visually oriented mediums such as film or video games, the most common method of sharing the thoughts of a character is by means of narration or voiceover, both of which can slow the pace of the story and detract from the action. In comics, on the other hand, thought bubbles can be given equal prominence with dialog bubbles; used sparingly, they can convey thoughts without slowing the story.

Moonstone from Thunderbolts gives us a an example of good use of the thought bubble.

But it is in prose that thoughts can really shine. In prose, the audience can spend the entire story in the mind of the perspective characters. Characters’ thoughts and emotions are readily available, often acting as a filter through which the entire story and its world are related.

We’ve already discussed how a perspective character’s personality, education, and background should influence how the story is told. But we haven’t really discussed thoughts—how should you format a phrase that the character thinks, but never voices?

Option 1: No Formatting

Your first option is not to format a thought any differently than anything else—simply set it apart with some variation of the phrase, “she thought.”

     “I’ve sketched out the runes properly, but I still can’t get the spell to work,” Santtu said. “Your spellbook must not have the spell right.”

     No, you’re just an inept and arrogant idiot, Pinja thought. Out loud, she said, “Well, let’s try it together, then.”

In this example, the thoughts are simply conveyed in the same manner as dialog, but without any quotation marks.

Option 2: Italics

Italics are my preferred method of formatting thoughts, as they help the lines stand out a bit more from the surrounding prose and dialog. I particularly recommend italics if you’re writing a very thought-heavy story. When you have long passages of internal monologs, it can be easy to lose track of where the thoughts begin and end if they’re not set apart by italics. Italics also make it easier to have lines of thought without tags:

     “I’ve sketched out the runes properly, but I still can’t get the spell to work,” Santtu said. “Your spellbook must not have the spell right.”

     No, you’re just an inept and arrogant idiot, Pinja thought. Out loud, she said, “Well, let’s try it together, then.”

     “I already told you, it doesn’t work.”

     Neither do you. Pinja knelt and began sketching out the runes.

Not An Option: Quotation Marks

I’ve seen quite a few people format lines of thought with quotation marks, just as they would dialog:

     “I’ve sketched out the runes properly, but I still can’t get the spell to work,” Santtu said. “Your spellbook must not have the spell right.”

     “No, you’re just an inept and arrogant idiot,” Pinja thought. Out loud, she said, “Well, let’s try it together, then.”

I strongly recommend against this practice, as it is needlessly confusing. You don’t want your character’s thoughts to get confused with what they’re actually saying to other characters.

Many people use both quotation marks and italics for thoughts:

     “I’ve sketched out the runes properly, but I still can’t get the spell to work,” Santtu said. “Your spellbook must not have the spell right.”

     “No, you’re just an inept and arrogant idiot,” Pinja thought. Out loud, she said, “Well, let’s try it together, then.”

This is less confusing, but it is also redundant. The italics already serve to set the line of thought apart from the rest of the prose, and they do a better job of it than the quotation marks, so don’t worry about using both.

The one exception to this that I’ve seen is if you have two or more characters who are capable of communicating telepathically. In this case, quotation marks can be useful to help set apart telepathic thoughts from normal ones.