So…In Dialogue how does the writer say who said what with out saying: he said this, she said that?
I was homeschooled, so I’m sorry to say I did not have the best writing teacher (My mom). And she just went off what the curriculum said. What I was told was to change out the said for a different word. If I had a sentence like Sam said, “Where were you last night?” I was told to do change it like this “Where were you last night?” Questioned Sam.
I’m not sure if this is the right way to go about it. Just wondering your thoughts on it.
Thank you so much!!!
There could be a lot of answers to this question. I’ll give you a couple of good strategies to begin with.
1. Develop good character voices. If your characters are distinct, with the way they talk, the words they repeat, their tone, etc. then you won’t need dialogue tags, it will be obvious who’s speaking. This is developed over the length of a story.
For a simple example, if one character is long-winded, but the other gives very short, concise answers, the length of the response will give your reader really good clues as to who is talking.
As another example, if one character calls everybody “bro,” then when we see “Bro, why did you do that?” we’ll have a pretty good clue which character said that.
If one character typically uses really good grammar, but the other doesn’t, then when we see “I ain’t called’er in two years.” then we’ll know which character said it.
2. If you describe an action, your reader will assume that the dialogue belongs to the action taker.
For example:
“I never lied to you.” Nancy tucked a stray curl behind her ear and raised her chin.
Ben stared. “You lie every time you say ‘Good morning.'”
We’ll assume that Nancy gave the first line of dialogue, since there’s an action in the paragraph attached to her.
We’ll assume that Ben gave the second line of dialogue, since the action in the second paragraph is attached to him.
All without ever saying the word “said.”
There are many more strategies, but these are a couple to get you started. The best approach is to learn a lot of different techniques and then combine them so you have a good variety.
What do you like to read? As you read, try to look for ways that the author is clueing you into who the speaker is without saying “he said.” I think you’ll find a lot of good techniques to experiment with.
I hope this gives you a good start!
Thank you! That makes a lot of scene. It will be very helpful.