How to Use and Not Use Dialogue Tags in Your Fiction
By: Margery Bayne
Tags: The Short Of It, Writing, Fiction Writing, Creative Writing, Dialogue

How to Use and Not Use Dialogue Tags in Your Fiction

Photo by Adam Solomon on Unsplash

When it comes to fiction writing, there are a lot of rules and tips out there on how to handle dialogue tags. You know, the “he said/she said” attached to lines of dialogue. On the one hand, there are circulating lists of creative words to use other than “said”; on the other hand, there is plenty of advice telling writers to never use any other words than “said” ever, ever, ever or lest they been banished to the same circle of hell as writers who dare use adverbs. In other words, completely opposing viewpoints.

As with a lot of writing advice, the truth is somewhere down the murky middle. So here are some best practices when it comes to dialogue tags to cut through the confusion and give you some wiggle room for creativity.

Use as few as possible

Dialogue tags have a very perfunctory role in writing — clarifying who is speaking. If it’s not clear from context who is speaking, you need a dialogue tag. If it is clear from context who is speaking, you don’t need a dialogue tag. It sounds pretty straightforward when spelled out like that; however, of course, there are a lot of contingencies.

Why should you cut extra dialogue tags? One, space. When you are editing your draft down to make a word count limit, a lot of excessive ‘he said/she said’ tags can add up. Two, a cleaner, leaner manuscript overall. Three, because you may be using dialogue tags as an easy replacement for better writing choices.

Always make sure that it is clear who is speaking from the reader’s perspective and not just from your — the writer’s — perspective. Remember, you the writer always have insider knowledge. You don’t want readers to have to stop and scratch their heads in confusion because they can’t follow the conversation.

How to make your dialogue clear from context? Here are a few principles from basics to master level:

Make sure you are following the written (and unspoken rules) of grammar conventions in how dialogue is treated, such as starting a new paragraph every time a speaker changes and making sure action tags (see below) are aligned with the correct speaker. Give characters distinctive voices, cadences, turns of phrase, and even just strong personalities and opinions that it is obvious who is speaking because only that specific character would talk like that. Avoid ‘talking head’ syndrome. You do not want your story to read like two people talking at eat other in a blank white room. Do not just have two or more characters talking for prolonged periods of time with no action interspersed. Action doesn’t have to be a fight scene. It can be a tense dinner party, but people are still moving, interacting with the setting, etc., and so on. Always try to pair dialogue with characters actually… doing something.

Replace dialogue tags with action tags

An action tag is a sentence that is adjacent to a line of dialogue that has a character… doing an action. Action tags can go before or after the dialogue depending on the effect you are going for. Most of the time it will be after like dialogue tags are. If you are trying to create a pause or prolonged moment, putting the action tag before the dialogue is a useful trick.

So turn dialogue like this (dialogue tag):

“What do you think it means?” she said, lifting the pot to inspect it.

Into this (action tag):

“What do you think it means?” She lifted the pot, inspecting it.

Pairing action with dialogue can be a great way to reveal character, emotion, and even the inflection of the dialogue without having to state it explicitly. In other words, a great “show, don’t tell” strategy.

Consider (traditional dialogue tag with adverb):

“Why would you do that?” he yelled angrily.

Versus (action tag):

He kicked the door so hard the plaster cracked where the doorknob hit the wall. “Why would you do that?”

Action tags are great because they perform double duty. They give clarity to who is speaking while moving the story along with action.

A note of caution here… make sure your action tags and dialogue are properly paired together. One mistake I’ve seen in a lot of novice writing is putting someone else’s action tag in the same paragraph with a different character’s dialogue. The person who is speaking should be the subject of the action tag. Just as grammar rules dictate that you should start a new paragraph when a speaker changes, so should it change when the actor changes.

On another note, while action is more… active, “action tag” is just a convenient name for this way of pairing dialogue with a separate sentence with the speaker being the active participant. But it doesn’t have to be action. It can be introspection, memories, the character’s observations, or opinions on that matter…

Use anything other than “said” strategically

I am here to triumphantly tell you that you can use words other than “said” in dialogue tags, but that you should also put down the thesaurus right now. Do not get too excited to use every synonym for “said” you can find.

The argument against using any other would then “said” is that the reader’s eyes glaze over dialogue tags anyway, as they are just there as a clarity tool. That is true… to an extent. But these clarity tools can also be used to clarify how a person is speaking.

Some pretty safe alternatives to “said” include:

Questions and other conversation queues — asked, replied, responded.

Volume — shouted, yelled, whispered, hissed, mumbled.

But these should be used sparingly. In moments of necessity. For clarity. Because it can matter, and because it can add flavor to a story when a character shouts something rather than just says it. There is a different intensity there. Still, “said” should be your default.

Note, do not use verbs that are not something people use to speak as your dialogue tag verb.

Big offenders here are:

Nonverbal vocalizations/noises — yawned, sniggered, etc.

Facial expressions — smiled, frowned, sneered, etc.

People cannot “yawn” something. They can say something around the yawn, but people cannot talk with yawns. Similarly, people can smile before, during, and after talking. One can even poetically argue they can hear a smile in someone’s voice. But people cannot speak words with smiling.

Use adverbs with “said” sparingly

Adverbs in creative writing is a whole giant can of worms that cannot be covered in this article but the same rule applies to using words other than said. Use sparingly. Probably even more sparingly than even using words other than “said.”

If you are going to use an adverb to modify “said” (she said loudly, he said hysterically, etc.) please run down this check first:

Is it awkward? Some adverbs are just awkward-sounding inherently. In that case, you need to find a better word or a better way.

Is it needed? Remember, we care about clarity and context here. Remember, clarity and context. Is it clear who is saying the dialogue and how they are saying it without the dialogue tag? In other words, you don’t need to add a ‘he exclaimed’ after an exclamation mark.

Can the adverb-said pair be replaced with a stronger verb? (Such as turning “she said loudly” into “she yelled.”) And can it be changed without ruining your intended meaning? (As one famous Tumblr post says on the matter: “you can’t convince me that ‘she whispered’ has the same meaning as ‘she said quietly’” The Tumblr post is right because they don’t.)

Can the adverb he expressed in a better way? (Such as with an action tag or with a metaphor/description of the way a character is speaking that adds more layers of meaning.)

If you feel you can defend your adverbs use, that it is both necessary and that it is the best way to say it to get your intended meaning across, then right on you. Adverbs are another tool in a writer’s arsenal and should not be written off (no pun intended) entirely. Instead, like everything in writing, they should be used with intention.

Wrapping it up

In truth, there are no hard and fast writing rules. Any rule has an exception or can be bent. The same is true with dialogue tags. Nothing is forbidden, however, dialogue tags should be used in a way that best fulfills their function: Clarity. The clarity to who is speaking and — if necessary — how they are speaking.