He Said, She Gasped, They Ejaculated: Dialogue Expletives
Ah, the sweet sound of dialogue, and of the many methods to present it in a lively fashion… What is it, then, that I see on the horizon? Is this the fear of using “said” too often, perhaps? Shall I replace it by more varied expletives?Although this is something I haven’t done too often when writing in French, I must admit that a few years ago, when I started to use English on the Web instead of only limiting myself to lessons and homework, I thought that all these expletives were great, that they added variety and flair to my dialogues. The simple “said” and “asked” words seemed too bland to my liking, and I was convinced that they could become boring way too soon, and should be replaced whenever possible.I think I was wrong.Right now, I remember this gem, coming straight from a published book, and that would make you wonder if someone hasn’t drunk a little too much on the day they were supposed to edit the manuscript:”I repeat”, he repeated.Proof that expletives can be pretty much useless, not to mention that such lines look stupid as well, and don’t guarantee that the style is good. And what about all of these “she gasped” and other words of the same kind? Whenever I see that in a text, I always stop to wonder “how the hell can she gasp a three lines-long sentence?” This is a sure way for the author to lose me. Heck, I lose myself in my own writing, when I happen to use such words by mistake!So what do I do? Present my dialog in a different way. If I do that well, I don’t need to use “said” after each line. If my characters are developed enough, they each have their own “voice”, and can be differentiated easily. If I find the right words, I can show surprise or excitement through an action, instead of having to rely on an expletive or an adverb that, in the end, seems to be a hack, an easy shortcut, more than anything else. Oh, of course, I do use adverbs at time; nonetheless, I do my best now to not place one every three lines, and if I do, it’s just so that I can go on without resorting to my dictionary, knowing that I’ll get back to change it later on when editing.Dialogue isn’t as easy as it sounds, but once one starts to understand how it works, it can be beautiful.
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Chris Howard
Great post, as usual. I’m about 8% into my NaNo project and I’ve only used “said” two or three times. I’m trying something new. I’m halfway through Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross (which is a cool story, but I keep losing the book around the house, or I’d be done by now), and one thing I’ve noticed with Stross is that he rarely uses “said” or anything else. In almost every case it’s something like–I’m making this up:”What do you take me for?” Ellen shifted in the seat to put her back against the door. “I’m not going…”Many authors do this, but I noticed the lack of “saids” with Stross. In nearly every case it’s Dialogue/Character performing some action/Dialogue. You know Ellen’s doing the talking because without a paragraph break you know she’s the one sliding against the door. I found this technique interesting and worth following.
Lee Carlon
Good post Yzabel.Some people do get carried away, and I love the example you provided.I often think it’s funny when there’s an excalamtion mark at the end of a very long sentence, nobody could exclaim that.
Yzabel
Ah, I’ve used “said” a little more than that, but I also have lots of dialogue (much more than descriptions so far, would I say).I like the method you mention. I indeed find it easy to know who’s talking in such cases, and as long as these are actions that the character can do while talking (no gasping here, hehe), they fit well. A good combination of this + the right uses of “said”/”asked” etc would already take an author far, IMHO.
Yzabel
Lee — That’s exactly one of the “funny” things one can find in dialogues too, yes. I try to not use too many exclamation points—like italics, I tend to find them distracting if used too often (or on lots of sentence for the italics). They work well only with short sentences.
Jennifer
My biggest pet peeve is BAD DIALOGUE. I HATE it. Dialogue is precious to me. I love writing it and I love reading great dialogue.And sometimes said is a GREAT word. Argued, yelled, cried, and every other word like that isn’t always great. Manytimes what’s the death of dialogue is tagging it after every single word muttered. The reader is smarter than you think!And don’t get me started on adverbs 🙂 I’m not a friend of them (most of the time). I think that though comes from when I first started writing one of the very first lessons I get hit with was get rid of the adverbs…
Yzabel
Indeed, the reader isn’t stupid, and cometo think of it, very seldom, in a book, do I stumble upon dialog which I’m confused with, and don’t know who’s talking (I can’t even remember any right now).”Argued” (as you gave it as example) is one of these words I don’t like at all for dialogue, because, if we think of it, why write “argued” when we have the tool that is dialogue itself to reflect an argument… It’s pretty much pointless to resort to it.
Jennifer
yeah all those words…argue…yell…cheered…screamed…Chances are if you need to use those to get the point of your dialogue across then you’ve failed. If can’t tell they’re screaming and arguing then the writer went wrong somewhere. The words should portray the emotion. Not the dialogue tag.
Yzabel
Aye, and that’s why I prefer focus on polishing my dialogues and crafting them well, rather than rely on the crutches of “witty” description words 😉