8/31/2023 0 Comments Good dialogue tagsAnd, definitely, don’t show or tell what you’ve just shown within the dialogue (more of that in the post on punctuation within dialogue). Take Care: Make sure you show rather than tell whenever you use a dialogue beat. ![]() This acts both as a ‘speaker identifier’ and a way to show the tension between the characters. What’s the tool? Dialogue Beats … basically, this is where we assign an action to a piece of dialogue. The same tool also helps to ramp up the tension within a scene of dialogue … Too many writers make the mistake of thinking that the more descriptive a dialogue tag, the better.Īs well as dialogue tags, the writer has another tool to use to break up too many ‘he said/she said’ lines. A simple said is ample and more than enough. While repetition within narrative is frowned upon and best avoided, in dialogue tags repetition is actively encouraged. We use dialogue tags to identify the speaker to the reader, and a tag is an excellent way to avoid too much name dropping within dialogue (see my last post HERE). Top Tip: Basically, an attribution is what most of us call a dialogue tag. The above amusing quote comes from How to Write Amazing Dialogue by James Scott Bell. “It’s not complicated, but it’s important.” “I’m ready to listen!” the young writer asseverated. “I’ll tell you,” said the wise old writer. ‘ “So, what’s the deal on dialogue attributions?” the young writer asked. ![]() As the post title suggests, we’ll look at ‘tags and beats’ around dialogue today. ![]() Because this is such a large topic, I have spread the topic over a few posts. Today, I’d like to take another look at dialogue.
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