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Say It
The simplest and best verb for dialogue attribution is said. Plain and simple, and — as I think I’ve mentioned here before — effectively invisible. Other verbs like replied, stated, mentioned,...
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One of Those Days
Every so often, a day comes along when absolutely nothing gets done. Today was a day like that. Well, I did make a beef stew and push on with the current editing gig, but as accomplishments go that...
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And Another Thing…
The only characters who should be allowed to “bark” their utterances are characters of the four-legged, canine variety. (And possibly drill sergeants, but no more than once per story in that case.)
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Who Said What When How?
I said I was going to talk about dialogue attribution. Right, then. By “dialogue attribution” I mean those “he said” and “said John Doe” and (less fortunately) “he...
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Peeve of the Day
On the subject of swearing, cussing, and general bad language in fictional dialogue: Profanity and obscenity have their own grammar, and if you don’t know first-hand how to deploy it, don’t try to fake...
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Another Thing Not to Do
If you’ve got a character speaking a line of dialogue and also performing an action, don’t get into the habit of always putting the action into a participial phrase tacked on after the dialogue tag:...
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On Writing Forsoothly
“Writing forsoothly” is the term we like to use around the house for all the different varieties of bad pseudo-archaic diction that infest modern fantasy — historical and created-world fantasy in...
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A Couple of Notes on Dialogue
Note the first: When you change speakers, you start a new paragraph. Seriously, they should have taught you this one in grade school, or high school at least. I’m starting to suspect that it gets...
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