As I help our 13-year-old granddaughter with a book she is writing, I find myself harking back to my teaching days and have been explaining dialog tag “forms.”
In my first dialog article, I discouraged tags—the “said Josh” type thing. If you have not read that article, click here, as I am not encouraging replacing said Josh with murmured Josh. No-tag writing does not use said or any of its Hardy Boys cousins, retorted, spoke up (or down?), or blurted out. These tags are telling us who said what. Remember the first rule of writing: Show, Don’t Tell.
There are times when we want the reader to know Josh is shouting or whispering, and tags can do just that. When there are multiple characters in a scene, sometimes “said Joe” is best. In keeping with that thinking, there are three main forms of tags: Pre-Tag, End-Tag, and Middle-Tag.
Pre-Tags are useful if Josh is particularly long-winded. This helps the reader be sure who is speaking without wondering while reading a long quote. The examples below are from a school dance scene in Members of the Cast. (MOTC) Because of a larger group of characters, tags can cut down on confusion. In the first, Sharon gives a quick report, bringing Margo up to speed.
Sharon said, “I know you’re dying to know. That was Bonnie Douglas. She asked him. I’d say he didn’t take the bait. He’s back with his basketball buddies, and Bonnie has charged into the bathroom with a bevy of friends.”
End-Tag has the tag after the dialog: “Let’s go,” said Josh. (Unless it is crucial to you for Josh to “retort.” I don’t remember ever having a character retort.)
Use said most often if you can’t resist telling us Josh is “the one who said.” The correct form is: comma • quotation mark •space • said• Josh • period. In this example from MOTC, Jimmy is mumbling. He is slow dancing with Margo because Sharon told him to, Margo’s taller than Jimmy, and he is nervous. He tries for conversation:
“So—I guess you’re new here?” Jimmy mumbled.
“Yes, Wisconsin.”
“Oh.”
Note that I refrained from writing: “Yes, Wisconsin,” Margo replied. Jimmy is dancing with Margo, and she is new to the school. The new paragraph signals Jimmy is done talking. No tag is needed.
“Oh.” in a new paragraph shows we are back to Jimmy. He replied, and readers can pretty well bet Jimmy is still mumbling or murmuring, or even “murmuring uncomfortably,” so I don’t tell the reader.
The Middle-Tag puts the tag in the middle of the dialog. Alas, searching every character in Members of the Cast, I could not find an example of a Middle-Tag. This example is from The Ship from Wolfskill, which is in revision, so this tag may not survive.
“Perhaps the battery’s spent,” Finn said. “It may revive if we let it rest.”
This form has a period after said and capital “I” in the next quote.
A variation on the Middle-Tag infers a comma in the dialog, and I did find an example in MOTC.
“Hey,” Tommy said, “the skit was great.”
In this variation, the comma after Tommy said indicates that the comma after the word “Hey” is a comma in his dialog. The comma after Tommy said makes “Tommy said” exclusionary, and there is no capital in the next quote. In the scene, Tommy said: “Hey, the skit was great.” Not sparkling conversation, but he is nervous about what comes next.
I hope these forms help, but please use said and asked like salt on the food of a person with high blood pressure. Reading too many substitutes tends to give me high blood pressure. *smile*
If you must “play tag,” please consider not using too many alternatives. I don’t know about you, but “Do you know the safe’s combination?” Janet queried, sounds stilted.
Link to Members of the Cast. Get your copy today. (Hopefully, you won’t think I used too many tags.)
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