Author Confessions: Attributions in Dialogue

When an author is writing a story he will often include dialogue and there are two ways to give information about not only the tone of the conversation, the activiting surrounding it, and the person speaking.

Dialogue Attributions

When referring to who is speaking it is called a dialogue tag. An example might be: “Welcome to my party,” Meghan said.

If it were a question it would be written perhaps something like this: “Are you coming to my party?” Meghan asked.

There are some uses of a tag within dialogue as well. For instance: “The car lights,” she explained, “aren’t bright enough to drive at night.” These should be used sparingly because they slow the reader down.

There is a debate amongst some who say that you should only use said (or perhaps asked if it’s a question) for a speaker tag and nothing else. I personally disagree. The speaker tag can give so much more information when used appropriately. I have a lot of different images I’ve collected over the years on my Writer’s Toolbox board on Pinterest and I invite you to check them outas some pertain to this topic but don’t translate well to posting here.

There are a lot of other words that can be used to describe what is going on in a scene using dialogue tags.

“How dare you?” Harry threatened.  This says a lot more than said would have done, right? You get a different feel for what’s going on between the characters in a scene by the change of one simple word from said to threatened.

“Why won’t you come over?” Sarah pleaded. This has a different tone than simply asked.

There are over 190 different words to use as tags instead of said.

Having given that information, it is not necessary to put a dialogue tag on every instance of diaglogue when characters are conversing. This can be a bit of an art. As long as you can’t lose track of who is talking it isn’t necessary. If someone refers to the other person by name, for instance, as they talk, we know who is and isn’t speaking. Sometimes too many tags can drag the conversation down and we don’t want the reader to become frustrated.

Action Attributions

Another way to give information about a scene and to keep the reader informed is through an action attribution or tag. Sometimes this is good because we don’t necessarily want them to be stagnant as they converse, even if they are on the phone someone can cough, or rustle papers, click a pen, take a sip of coffee.

For example: Jill twirled around the room, and expression of pure bliss on her face. “I love French toast.”

Or: “If you don’t  get this thing out of my face…” The corner of Gary’s lip pulled back in a sneer.

Both of these examples not only tell you who is speaking but some action and adds a depth of emotional color to the scene for the reader to enjoy.

Beats

I was confused when I first heard an author use tags and beats when referring working on edits to a story. I had no clue what she was discussing. It took some time before I began to understand that she was going through and doing the attributions. Whether it was going to be action or dialogue tags she was considering the “beats”, or rhythm or pacing of the story and how best to keep it moving forward during those scenes with speaking. The author doesn’t want to drag down the reader with too much action or description and definitely don’t want to detract from the content of the dialogue when giving attributions.

Caution

I’ve done this more than once where I put an attribution before a dialogue. For instance, this would be wrong.

Percy yelled, “Hey, get out of there!” Why is this wrong? Because he hasn’t yelled yet.

The better way to write it is: “Hey, get out of there!” Percy yelled.

What do you think? Should a writer only use “said” for an attribution in dialogue, or do you agree with me that the variety can add so much more to the telling of the story if the writer can use those skillfully?