Quick Tip: Dialogue Tags

One thing that drives me crazy about children's books is how often they use the word "exclaimed." The other is that no one ever "says" anything. If they aren't exclaiming it, they're shouting it, or whispering it, whining it, declaring it, stating it, demanding it, groaning it or--my personal pet peeve--smiling it. (How the heck do you smile dialogue?)

The bigger problem is that we start off reading books like this, and sometimes those dialogue tags continue into our adult writing. Simple is better.

The point of dialogue tags (he said, she asked) is to make it clear who is speaking. It's not so we know how the character says something. That's what strong dialogue and actions are for. So use said and asked only, or nothing at all. Don't use a tag if you don't need one--slip in a beat (bit of action that will tell us about your character more than the dialogue tag will) instead. The dialogue should be able to stand up on its own, and if it can't, it's the dialogue and not the tag that needs editing.

When you go through your novel, give yourself $2 in quarters. Every time you come across a dialogue tag besides said or asked, or find a qualified said (said stiffly, said angrily) take away a quarter. Do you still have a few quarters left when you get to the end? If not, go back and beef up your dialogue and make sure that you can justify each of those fancy tags.

Links Tent: Market Directories

Are you looking for a home for you writing? Here are some great online resources to help:

WritersMarket.com, the online home of Writers' Market,  is a subscription based site that offers searchable listings for both fiction and non-fiction, a "MyMarkets" function that allows you to bookmark the markets you're most interested in, and an online writing community.

Peter's Place of Freelance Journalism has a huge database of Canadian markets, photography markets, American magazines, book publishers and more.

Duotrope's Digest has a database of fiction markets, searchable by genre, pay rate, length, etc.

The Writer Gazette has a Call for Submissions page that brings you over 600 paying markets for your work.

Places for Writers offers a listing of markets and contests.

Need more? About Freelance Writing offers these 5 Blogs with Writing Markets, Not Gigs. Check them out!