Beat Those Stories

I got an email from a friend in a writer's group this week. Something she'd read in a how-to book on writing caused her enough concern that she sent out an email to the entire group. The tip said she should use "said" as a dialogue tag rather than  denote it in other ways, such as "implied,: "stated,"  "responded," or other synonyms.

This is true if you need to use a tag. Readers are used to seeing "said," and it doesn't cause them to stumble or stop the way other words for the same thing might. When an author writes in a way that causes the reader to pause and consider the writing, it pulls them out of the story. A good writer wants the reader to live the story with the characters and not be jerked out of it.

However, it's much better to use beats and not use tags at all. This is where a character's actions around the same time as the dialogue tells who's speaking. For example, "Linda crossed the room with a determined stride. "Why are you here, Paul?" The better writers use beats much more than they use drier tags. They're cleaner, crisper, and clearer. It's also more fun for the author and reader.

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