Writers: Just Use “Said”, Please!

Shortly after the end of spring semester, I started getting the fantasy itch - after all of the nonfiction reading I’d been doing, I needed something with orcs, elves, and swords. Along with installing Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2 on my PC³³, I picked up some books that take place in the Forgotten Realms setting³³. I picked up all three books of the Dark Elf Trilogy, by R. A. Salvatore, as well as the Annotated Elminster, by Ed Greenwood.

I’ve thus far finished the first book of the Dark Elf Trilogy, Homeland. It was a fun read, but it could have been better; there were some things in it that drove me a bit bonkers, to be honest. One in particular? Salvatore’s (over)usage of varied tag lines in dialogue. In a short guide for writing dialogue, the guide at fictionwriting.about.com wrote:

6. Don’t try too hard to vary your tag lines when writing dialogue.
Veering too much beyond “he said/she said” only draws attention to the tags. Readers tend to read over these phrases anyway, whereas obvious efforts to insert variety, through words such as “interjected,” “counseled,” or “conceded,” draw the reader out of the action. If the writer is doing his or her work, the reader is already aware that the speaker is interjecting, counseling, or conceding. The writer won’t have to say it again in the tag.

I’ve seen this advice elsewhere on the ‘net, and it’s true - while you’d think “he / she said” over and over would get old, it really doesn’t. We’re used to it, we see it, we skim it, it’s gone - all we’re really taking in are the words that the characters are speaking. This is infinitely better than the reader stumbling over different (and at times peculiar!) tag words repeatedly.

Salvatore’s evil dark elf characters “said” a lot, but they also “grumbled” and “mumbled” a good deal. The two tag words that topped the charts, though? Snapped and growled. While I’m sure my perception of them was exaggerated due to some mild frustration on my part, I would have swore that one of these words adorned every single page of the book. Had they been used once or twice in the whole book, they would have caught my attention and given weight to the dialogue. Instead, due to how often I saw them, I started to think - do dark elves have a bit of canine DNA in them or something? They sure do growl and snap a lot…

I’m 15 pages or so into Exile, book 2 of the trilogy; we’ll see if the growls and snaps scare me away. Please, future fiction writers - go easy on such things. ;)3

1. Yes, I’ve played these before. No, my love affair with them will never truly end 333
2. The Forgotten Realms is one of the Dungeons and Dragons settings. More info can be had here.333

3