You may also notice that the capitalization changes when the line ends in an exclamation mark. We’ll look at different ways to say “said” in writing and other words for “said” when writing story dialogue later on in this article. Used in this way, a well-placed dialogue tag can communicate something a lot bigger about your story. You’d have to find other places to sneak in the background information they needed to understand the dialogue’s subtext. If you were to just use “said John” as your dialogue tag, the reader could imagine several different scenarios. The dialogue stays exactly the same, but the context and the relationship between the two characters shifts because we’ve used a different dialogue tag. “You’ve had a lot of luck this evening,” said John, grinning. “Look at that!” he said, spreading his cards out on the table. Here are a few examples of effective dialogue tags: Instead, use tags only when needed or when they add another layer to the characters speaking.ĭialogue tags also give us a way to break up long stretches of story dialogue, to add movement to the scene, and to reveal something new about the character. Using too many can weigh down the actual dialogue and distract from the story. Punctuating dialogue with too many tags is one of the common mistakes new writers often make. However, be mindful of using repetitive dialogue tags. At this point, you’ve broken their connection to the story. When this happens, they need to stop reading, go back to the top of the conversation, and count each line to try and remember whose turn it is to talk. If your on-page conversation goes too long without a dialogue tag, your reader can lose track of who’s saying what. We use dialogue tags and speech tags in a story to clarify who’s talking so that the reader doesn’t get confused, as well as to give more depth and context to the words that are being said. Why do we use dialogue tags in fiction writing? They both appear on the same line in the story. ![]() Here, “‘I made some coffee’” is the dialogue, and “said Julie” is the dialogue tag.
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