Saturday, April 14, 2012

“YOU’RE IT!” HE SAID TOUCHINGLY


USES AND ABUSES OF DIALOGUE TAGS

    The Butler’s Revenge
He hopped into the kitchen—obese, leathery, smelling like scum.
And he’s like, “Take me to the Princess!”
I shook my head, “Sorry. This ball is formal.”
“But she promised I could sleep with her!” he croaked, angrily.
“Welcome to the club,” I sympathized. That little bitch.
I picked him up and put him on a silver tray.
Said I, schemingly, “I’ll present you.”


The above story, a very short scene based on an old, archetypical fairy tale, needs work in the area of dialogue tags. Let’s do the work together.

Line 2 has what I consider an abomination, a speech pattern perpetrated on the English language by the young. Young people have been polluting our language ever since I became an intolerant old fart. Substituting “he goes” for “he said,” or “she’s all” for “she said,” or “I’m like” for “I said.” They make my eardrums ache. Okay, okay, it happens and I should just get over it. But consider the context here. This is no busboy or scullery maid speaking here. The narrator is the butler. The butler would not say, “And he’s like…”

For that matter, there’s really no need for a dialogue tag in this line. The line of dialogue might work a lot stronger without a tag.

Line 3 has a silent tag. The shaking of a head does not make a sound, unless perhaps you’re wearing a hat with bells on it. Other often used (misused) silent tags are: grinned, glowered, etc. The easiest way to fix this is to use a period instead of a comma: “I shook my head. ‘Sorry…’”

On the other hand, the tag’s unnecessary anyway. We know who’s talking, and the word “Sorry” is all it takes to indicate refusal.

Line 4. We have an animal noise in a dialogue tag. Wait a minute. This animal tag, “he croaked,” is used correctly, because it’s a croaking animal (a frog) doing the talking. Okay, so that line’s fine. But in general, be careful of animal tags. They tend to be cartoon writing: “He snarled,” “she purred,” “She hissed,” “she chirped,” “she roared,” “he bellowed.” Use these sparingly, if at all.

Line 5 has a highfalutin substitution for the word “said.” The longer, unnecessary word “sympathized” isn’t really offensive, but it errs on the polysyllabic side. Other highfalutin substitutions for “said” include “She opined,” “he articulated,” and “I improvised.”

Besides, “sympathized” is unnecessary. “Welcome to the club” says it all.

Line 7 contains the dreaded LY adverb modifying the word “said.” “Schemingly,” which my spellchecker doesn’t even recognize, is unnecessary and therefore offensive. “‘I hate you!’ she shouted angrily” is an obvious example. These LY adverbs are noxious weeds. Get rid of them. If you think need to modify “said” with an adverb, then your line of dialogue needs to be written stronger.

And while I’m on Line 7, let me point out that the double reverse order of words, “said I” instead of “I said,” and putting the tag before the line of dialogue makes this line sound artificial and coy. Not that can’t get away with reversing word order sometimes, but be careful and make sure you aren’t just being cute.

I'll wrap this up by paraphrasing what the great Elmore Leonard has said, echoing what the great Raymond Carver said: You can usually get away without dialogue tags, although now and then it's good to use them for rhythm.

Now I’ll rewrite "The Butler's Revenge" using the lessons we just went through. I think it will work a lot better. You be the judge:


The Butler’s Revenge
He hopped into the kitchen—obese, leathery, smelling like scum.
“Take me to the Princess!”
“Sorry,” I said. “This ball is formal.”
“But she promised I could sleep with her!” he croaked.
Welcome to the club. That little bitch.
I picked him up and put him on a silver tray.
“I’ll present you,” I said.

16 comments:

  1. Too fun!
    Spending my days around college students, I understand all too well what you're talking about. Sometimes, you don't even get words - LOL isn't just something young people write; they actually say it as well!

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    1. I think it happens in every generation, Bill. Young people invent their own language to set them apart from their elders. It happened when I was young, although I now try to forget some of the stupid things we said, Daddy-Oh.

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  2. Loved the post. It is really easy to hear too many dialogue tags when listening to books. They get obnoxious! I prefer to be a woman of action...
    Wendy
    W.S. Gager on Writing

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    1. You're right, Wendy. When you listen to a book, you're listening to the narrator as well as the speaker of each line of dialogue. It gets confusing.

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  3. Said beats all, I agree. I especially find it grating when supposed communications professionals produce news releases and say So-and-so stated as opposed to said. Brings out my homicidal instincts.

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    1. I agree, Melanie. Your point is well said (not stated).

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  4. All good points and I completely agree. Something I find almost as bad is an author using no "he said, she said" at all. I hate getting lost in dialogue, having to go back and re-read a page because I've lost track of who is speaking.

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    1. Right, Pat. The writer should avoid confusion and make writing clear and easy to follow.

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  5. The invisibility of all these mechanics make for a great read. When I'm captivated by the story I don't get caught up in the tags. Course work, experience, a good ear and lots of reading help. Having outside readers look at my work helps the most. I am often, unfortunately, blind to many of my own errors. As always, another thought provoking post, John. I'm going back to my ms!

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    1. Theresa, I agree with you about the value of outside readers. We're all a bit blind to our own errors, perhaps, and I've found as a free-lance editor that the better the writer, the more grateful that writer is for a second opinion.

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  6. Terrific post, John! As a reader, the fewer tags the better. Sometimes the character can perform an action, as simple as a smile, to indicate who's talking. I mean as a separate sentence.

    I/Fred/he smiled. "Did you really mean that, John?"

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  7. Like, cool post, you know?!

    Madeline

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  8. Good lesson, John. I keep a file just on "dialogue" and just talked on the subject in one of my fiction/nonfiction workshops. "Said," I said. "Nothing else!" I also handed out copies of Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing and read a few paragraphs from his work. He's a true writer's writer, bless him.

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  9. Thank you John this is very helpful

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