On writing dialogue

[donutsweeper]

When you have a scene with several characters in it I feel I a little more careful making it obvious as who is saying what.

Sometimes I manage this by using the character's movements:

"I don't know, Jack." Owen put his feet on the desk. "Seems to easy to me."

But a lot of the times I am stuck with:

"So what's next?" Jack asked.

"We could cross reference the new data with information from the archives," Ianto suggested.

"I can run another scan," Tosh offered, "See if I missed anything?"

"We order pizza. I'm hungry," Owen said.

etc, etc.

Do you find that annoying? Is it worse or better to use 'said' over and over or would you rather the word varied? Is there another way to do it?

Comments

[tintop-lizzy.livejournal.com]

So flippin soddin' obvious that I didn't see how to do it myself. Hate it when people write the young man, the old man etc in TW fic because the age gap personally creeps me out. I need more dialogue solutions, tell me more!

No seriously, do a fanfic basics five pointer full of obvious stuff because I NEED THIS. Thanks C'bdgexx

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I try to avoid epithets at all costs. "The Welshman pondered at the tension between the former police woman and the enigmatic captain as they questioned their Asian comrade." That sort of stuff just annoys me to no end.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with "said" even though it feels boring when writing it.

With several different people speaking at once, "said" flows if you have to work too hard to indicate speech. I do like using movement to indicate who's speaking.

With two people, I think the tone should be obvious enough to let it ride a bit more.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Two people, or even three sometimes, tends to be much easier and you only need the occasional speech marker to remind readers who is who.

That's a good point about using said though.

[stackcats.livejournal.com]

I prefer 'said', to be honest. And sometimes it actually doesn't matter if it's not 100% clear who's saying what, like if it's a suggestion that's quickly turned down, or a minor plot detail that you just need to throw in.

Oh, and it can help the pace of the paragraph if you don't always put the 'Jack said' part on the end, i.e.

Jack leaned forward and studied Owen's expression. "I'm not sure I believe you," (he said.) optional 'he said' on the end, there.

Although maybe that should be two paragraphs. Slight brain fart on that. Let me think.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Jack leaned forward and studied Owen's expression. "I'm not sure I believe you."

Oh yes, the 'he said' is optional there. I don't think it should be two paragraphs though. Since the subject (Jack) is the same in both pieces. Otherwise, it's possible for the reader to wonder if the subject changed and Owen was the one speaking (not likely, but possible)

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

I have experienced that problem, too. When I'm reading, though, I think of "said" as the invisible speech marker. If I were paying attention, it might start to feel repetitive, but I'm never paying attention to the speech markers unless they are unusual and awkward in some way. And I don't think "said" is awkward. Using other speech markers just for the sake of not being repetitive can actually get noticeable, though other fairly neutral ones like "offered" and "suggested" are fine as long as they're actually appropriate to what's being said. That's it, I guess, it just needs to be appropriate - "yelped" is good if that's what the person did, but if they didn't yelp and all you want to communicate is the person's words, then "said" is fine. (That was rambly. Sorry!)

I was thinking torchwood_meta had a post about this, but it's not really what you're asking. Though I found a comment thread that's related, I think.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

ooh, reading material, thanks.

I hadn't really thought about it, but you guys are right. Said is just breezed over by the brain. I know what you mean about replacing it with ones that wind up being clunky, there was a DW book I read where the Doctor continually "enthused" (used instead of 'said') and it always made me burst out laughing.

[aeron-lanart.livejournal.com]

Indicating by movement is good, I tend to devolve to 'said' or alternatives due to lack of brain. It's really annoying at times as I can write a whole bunch of dialogue with me knowing exactly who says what, but then I have real problems trying to make it clear to everyone else! Which takes absolutely bloody ages!

The only epithets I tend to use at all are in relation to Methos and I possibly would with the Doctor (I can see myself referring to the Doc as The Time Lord even if I've never written enough Doctor related fic to do so).

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I swear sometimes I spend longer on the speech tag than on the dialogue itself. *headdesk*

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

It's one those things where you need to find your own balance that avoids the sins of epithetitus and repetition. The more characters in the dialogue, the harder. Hopefully the individual voices tell half the story. (Owen's dialogue should sound different than Tosh's.) I'd rather use "replied, asked, wondered, stated" etc than multiple uses of "said," but not to the point where it becomes really overt.

I love that you're asking the question and people are giving it serious thought.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the voices should be different enough to hopefully tell the reader who is who, but I'm loathe to rely solely on that.

Finding your own balance is probably one of the best pieces of advice to give any writer because if they are not comfortable with the style it will show in what they write.

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

I personally try not to use anything but said unless it's really redundant, or required to get your point across. I believe the idea is that the writing should be interesting enough that when you're really into it, you don't notice how many 'saids' there are. And you can break them up with action, too.

"So, what's new?" Jack said, putting his feet up on the desk.

Tosh looked down at her PDA. "We have Rift activity on Made-Up Street," she said.

Like that. My beta calls me on 'sparse' dialogue a lot, so it's good to throw in a few descriptions here and then to keep it from being 'he said, she said'. If you look at the Harry Potter novels, the author very rarely uses anything but 'said', but Twilight (which I consider really amateurish writing) never uses said, ever. I think it's a sign of lack of confidence on the part of the author that she feels she needs to use something else to show what the characters are feeling. It should be obvious from the dialogue/action whether your characters are answering, yelling, exclaiming, etc.

It's the same problem I have with Firefly fics, there are nine characters and they all need to be doing something. angiepen wrote me a really great response (http://awanderingbard.livejournal.com/15010.html?thread=128930#t128930) to a similar dilemma at my own journal awhile back.

You always post such thoughtful discussion questions. I love the whole 'mechanics of writing' stuff.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

I think I tend to be sparse on everything, dialogue, exposition, description- using just enough to get my point across. But you are right, breaking up the saids that way really makes a difference.

Glad you're finding these discussions interesting, I'm finding it very helpful to work out the various issues in my own brain as well as shedding light on how others feel about it.

[secbeth.livejournal.com]

I try to mix it up!!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Using movement sometimes or just different speech tags (said, pondered, asked, etc.)?

[unfeathered]

I think 'said' is more or less the equivalent of using people's names - it goes unnoticed.

But as with most things, variety is the key. Have some 'said's, some other descriptive alternatives, and some movements that show who's talking - and, as someone said below, put some of those before the dialogue to break up the monotony. :-)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

A little bit of everything and everything in moderation. *nods*

[pointytilly.livejournal.com]

I mostly indicate who's saying what with action...not just motion, but what's going on, who's doing what and where. Who's talking to whom can hint, ie "Oi, Jack, what's next?" is a good clue the next speaker is Jack. People don't say each other's names that often, though, so WHAT is being asked is a help too.

I just checked the latest short I wrote, and there is not a single dialogue tag, said or otherwise. Dang. When I do use them, I heavily favor the use of said along with other commonplace things like replied/asked.

My least-favorite dialogue (and action) issue is pronouns when I have a group of characters mostly/all one gender interacting. It's HARD to not use their names incessantly, and epithets are usually worse.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

That's a good point, you can also use the parts of the dialogue itself to suggest things.

Epithets are a blight upon fanfic *nods*

[xanthelj.livejournal.com]

In my view "said" should be used most, and then occasionally use "asked", "commented", "murmured" etc etc just to break things up. But most people's eyes slide over "said" and it isn't irritating when used a lot. It IS irritating when people try too hard and use a different word each time instead of "said" - that can get really hard to read!

And I'm so with you on "the other man", "the older man", "the younger agent" etc etc. I used to use that far more when I first started out but have found it's barely necessary nowadays. You can use their actual name or "he". This was something of a revelation to me *g*.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Murmured instead of said is good, because it goes for tone. I think you're right about people's brains ignoring said though, I won't worry about overusing it anymore.

Epithets! Annoy me SO much. Why people insist on referring to Tony as the Italian or Gibbs as the silver haired man I shall never know.

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

(http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v32/AWanderingMinstrel/LJ/?action=view&current=valentined2.png)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

*twirls you* Thanks so much!

[the-dark-side.livejournal.com]

I definitely like variation, but sometimes too much variation is just distracting. There are certain points in a story where you either can't really use that kind of thing or it would just take away from the important aspects of the scene to do so. It's on reason I really don't like writing dialogue.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

That's why I tend to tweak the dialogue to show who is talking. But my tactic ("Jack, have you seen the whatnot?" "Sorry, Owen, I haven't") only works with two people or three max. *sigh*

[rabecka.livejournal.com]

I'm not a writer (well, OK I am a tech writer), so I have no experience writing dialogue. I do, however, read plenty of it. I'd say that I pretty much ignore said, when the dialog is longer. In a very short back-and-forth, like you have above though, I do find it somewhat distracting. Personally, I prefer to leave the person unidentified if there's anything in the dialogue that gives it away. In the lines above, I'd assume it was Ianto was suggesting the archives and Tosh the scan. If it was the other way around, I'd say they'd need to be identified. Also, it's possible to identify the speaker in dialogue that takes place afterwards. Obviously, like character motions, that doesn't always work, but it's another possibility.

Ex: -------
"So what's next?" Jack asked.

"We could cross reference the new data with information from the archives."

"I can run another scan. See if I missed anything?"

"We could order pizza. I'm hungry"

Jack glanced at him. "We're trying to locate an alien artefact Owen, not lunch."