Tag! You're it!

[crystalwizard]

No, I'm not playing a game with you. I'm talking about tags after dialog.

Something like this:

'Hi, welcome to Long John Silvers,' he said.

'Should I ask my mom before we go.' he asked

'he said' 'he asked' .... little tags that tell the reader what he or she already knows. They serve no purpose other than to add to the word count.

Now if the tag was something like this:

'Hi, welcome to Long John Silvers,' he snarled.

ok, that adds a visual effect.

The second one, it can be argued, is showing the reader a question is being asked.

Well...yes, but we know that. The phrase 'should I' indicates that a question is being asked.

Instead of adding the tag onto the end, there's a perfectly good bit of punctuation called a question mark which should be used in place of the .

Like this:

'Should I ask my mom before we go?'

How often do you go back through something and find your story's been playing tag with you?

[darkbow]

Lately I've been trying to do away with as many tags as possible. I don't kill all of them, but during rewrite I've learned I can get by without half of the ones I use during first write. Of all writers, I actually started noticing this with Dan Brown. While he's not a favorite of mine, I do think he does an excellent job of keeping pace going by cutting back on dialogue tags.

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[Firlefanz]

I try to use tags sparingly, because they do get old quickly. Yet sometimes it's important to make sure who is speaking which line. I hate pages and pages of plain dialogue because I easily get confused on who says what. I also believe this ties in with the 'beat' discussion we had in another thread. Tags break up dialogue and give readers a breathing space.

So, I add little actions that 'work' like tags, but also add some movement or 'life' to otherwise stark dialogue. Like this:


'Oh, yeah?' Laura idly twisted a lock of her hair around her finger.

'Yes! It's driving me mad!'

'Yeah, sorry about that.'

'You're doing it again! You're just not listening!' Karl balled his fist and banged it on the table.

- Call me Firle.

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[Ropespor]

Crystalwizard, I'm glad you brought this up, because it has been the biggest change in my writing of late.


I never took much notice of dialogue tags; I did without them when they weren't necessary,included them when it would otherwise be unclear who was speaking. But a friend read through a recent story of mine that needed to be cut. He pointed out many tags that could be excised by doing exactly what Firle suggests.


I used towrite (to use Firle's example): "Oh, yeah?" Laura asked,idly twisting a lock of her hair around her finger.


Now I'm consciously using action tagsif I need to indicate who's speaking.So it would now read as Firle wrote it: "Oh, yeah?" Laura idly twisted a lock of hair around her finger.



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[Jeff Stehman]

Said tags don't bother me, provided they're needed. It's one of the few words that doesn't echo for me. I try to avoid using other tags or tacking on adverbs. I don't add beats just for the sake of removing tags, sticking to those that seem to flow naturally from the story. Actually, in editing, I find beats are a lot like adverbs; I use too many of them in the first draft, having written what I was seeing in my mind's eye, and I need to cut a bunch of them so they don't distract from the dialogue.

--Jeff Stehman

[darkrosedreams]

I actually had an editor tell me I should use more tags (at that point my work was pretty much void of them). I do what a lot of you are saying, adding actions of the talker to the statement.

Now I'm confused......

~*~ Tales From a Girl (http://gloriaweber.wordpress.com) ~*~
(My Offical Writing Site/Blog)

[Jeff Stehman]

Gloria Weber said...
Now I'm confused......
Just remember, balance is the Way of the Writer.

(Yes, I've read Joel Rosenberg's D'Shai. Why do you ask? /emoticons/smile.gif)

--Jeff Stehman

[BethS]

[quote]

crystalwizard said...
No, I'm not playing a game with you. I'm talking about tags after dialog.

Something like this:

"Hi, welcome to Long John Silvers," he said.

"Should I ask my mom before we go." he asked

'he said' 'he asked' .... little tags that tell the reader what he or she already knows. They serve no purpose other than to add to the word count.

Now if the tag was something like this:

"Hi, welcome to Long John Silvers," he snarled.

ok, that adds a visual effect.

The second one, it can be argued, is showing the reader a question is being asked.

Well...yes, but we know that. The phrase 'should I' indicates that a question is being asked.

Instead of adding the tag onto the end, there's a perfectly good bit of punctuation called a question mark which should be used in place of the .

Like this:

"Should I ask my mom before we go?"

How often do you go back through something and find your story's been playing tag with you?I use basic tags (he said, she asked) only for clarity. To show who's speaking. If they can be dropped, I drop them. My favorite way to tag dialogue is to use action to identify the speaker. Because then it's characterizing and/or furthering the plot and functioning as a tag.
[quote]
[quote]I'll come back later when I have more time and post an example
[quote]~Beth

[Jordan Lapp]

For me, there's this ephermal little thing called 'flow'. Sometimes following a line of dialogue with a line of action is jarring, so I add the tag. Same with the 'beat' thing Firle was taling about.

Tags are basically invisible (the 'said' tag is, at any rate), but if ALL your tags are missing it's going to stick out like a sore thumb. A good mix is essential.

Jordan Lapp

http://jordanlapp.com/blog

[Stuart Clark]

I agree with Nicholas, having tags never hurts but if you can do without them then why not just cut them out, it just ups the pace of the story. Also, using action to indicate who is speaking is a good workaround, but again, used all the time it gets a bit tiresome. I try and find a balance in my writing, I'll throw in the occassional tag (usually at the start of a dialogue between characters to indicate who is the first speaker - after which, it's obvious who the reply is from and you can lose the tag for the next speaker) but I also use actions to break up the words of one character and then have that character continue speaking. For example:

Larry and Pete sat in the cold squad car, watching their breath plume in front of them. So far it had been a miserable night staking out the delapidated apartment building. Suddenly a dark figure emerged, moving quickly down the street away from them.
'Who do you suppose that is?' Larry asked.
'Dunno.'
Larry snatched the small pair of binoculars off the dashboard and attempted to scrutinize the figure further. 'Do you think we should follow him?'
'I guess,' Pete turned the keys in the ignition, firing the car into life. 'Captain's not going to be too happy if we lose our only lead of the night.'

For conversations between multiple characters, you may find you use simple tags more, just to indicate who is speaking. Not everyone is going to be doing something as they speak.


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[Christopher_Heath]

You guys are making me self-conscious now. I guess I'm doing okay on this front as an editor has never commented on my tags. I think I use a mixed bag, but don't give it a whole lot of thought (other than reduncies, when I edit, I'll look to see if I used 'said' two or three times in a row, and if so, make sure I break it up. I just go by how I think the story should flow.

Christopher M. Heath

"Azieran: Adairos" in Tower of Light Fantasy Magazine
"Azieran: Savior in a Flask" in Mages and Mechanica by Ricasso Press
"Azieran: The Travelers Four" in Black Dragon, White Dragon by Ricasso Press
"Azieran: The Breaking of Hell's Bones" in Black Sails by 1018 Press
"Azieran: Distilling the Essence" in Sails and Sorcery by Fantasist Enterprises
"Azieran: The Conquerors" in Chimaera Serials
"Azieran: Pawn of theSerpentine Witch" in Chronicles of Fantasy by ComStar Media
"Azieran: Sentinel of an Ageless Reign" in Chronicles of Fantasy by ComStar Media
"Azieran: The Lakeshorn Mirrors" in Chronicles of Fantasy by ComStar Media
"Azieran: Crestfallen in Mal'kyrrik" serialized novella in Forgotten Worlds


+ others

[ScrewMoonshine]

Chris, I just happened to have finished reading 'Azieran: Bound by Virtue' a few hours ago, so I gave it a quick look over. I must say I'm astounded at how few dialogue tags you get away with using. Did you not realize you were doing this, or is this story the odd dog in the pack?

Robert Orme

Out now:
'On the Tree Top' in Ultraverse vol.3 #5 (www.ultraverse.us)
'The Scab, the Man, and the I.V.' in Mount Zion Speculative Fiction Review #3 (www.mountzionpress.com)

Coming soon:
'More Than One Way to Protect' in Lords of Justice (www.carnifexpress.net/blogs/)
'And Afterward' and 'Candy Lover' in Flashshot, April 30 and May 23 (www.gwthomas.org/subscribe.htm)

[Anthony G Williams]

I rarely notice tags, as long as they are the simple "s/he said". But tags like "he snapped" or "she growled" are far more obtrusive and need to be used very sparingly.

OTOH, I do get irritated when a long piece of dialogue leaves me not knowing who is speaking, so I have to go back to the start and work through it carefully in order to figure it out. So I would say, when in doubt, add the tag.

The use of action points to indicate the speaker is good, but I suspect can again be overused.

So I guess my conclusion is the same as that of others - omit tags when the speaker is clear, and mix up tags and action points as needed.



Tony Williams
Scales (2007)
The Foresight War (2004)
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