Friday, November 7, 2014
She said. He said. I said.
I recently read an article on writing in deep point of view. I always wondered what this meant. Among other things, it said that in deep point of view dialogue tags are replaced with action, body language, voice description or emotion. Replacing the tags makes your story feel more real.
That got me started on my little tangent of finding and replacing said's in my manuscripts.
Of course, you can't take away all of them. Tags serve the purpose of: identifying a speaker, preventing reader confusion, making long dialogue sections more digestible, and they provide opportunities to insert action or description - thus becoming an action or description tag.
Then there are adverbial tags. I try to avoid these - she said quickly, he said coldly, she said angrily.
These words can make a tag seem more obvious and remind them that they are reading a story instead of experiencing it. Don't be lazy, let the person's dialogue and/or actions show that they are angry.
Last night, I took on the task of finding all the said's in a Middle Grade manuscript I had written. I deleted over 100 of them!
About a week before, I had checked another Middle Grade manuscript I had written. I didn't notice how many I deleted in that one, but it was quite a few.
In case you are wondering, here is one other way to help create deep point of view in your manuscripts:
Get rid of thought words/sense words, such as felt, heard, realize, look, decide and saw.
Why? Because these are telling words that you tack onto the start of a sentence that show the world as it is filtered through the character's eyes.
Instead of saying, "he felt the hot rays of the sun on his body," say "the hot rays of the sun beat down on his body." I know that's not a very good example, but it gives you an idea of what I mean.
So, give it a try. Like me, I bet you will find a lot of dialogue tags and thought/sense words you can get rid of - and it won't hurt your manuscript a bit. In fact, it will make it better.
Anyone else have thoughts to add to this conversation? If so, tell us in your comment.
Happy Writing!
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I am getting ready to do a major revision of my middle-grade and this is very helpful. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHi Rosi. Thanks for your comment. We think we are done revising, but it seems like there is always something else we can do with our manuscript.
DeleteThese are both points I regularly make while critiquing for other authors. Immersive writing is what you want, where people forget they're reading a story, and that only comes about by putting them right in the character's heads.
ReplyDeleteUnleashing the Dreamworld
thanks for your comment, Crystal. You are so right. It's taken me a while, but I'm learning more each day on how to make a manuscript shine.
DeleteVery good tips! Another thing to watch for can be too many words used in place of said (exclaimed, declared, and all that). My daughter once had a teacher who assigned the class to write stories and gave them an entire list of synonyms for "said" and said (haha) they could only use "said" twice per page. She was in 5th grade and knew very well this was wrong. One has to wonder if the teacher actually paid attention when she read published fiction.
ReplyDeleteThat's right, Marcia. I can't enjoy reading a book where everyone laughed, cried,grunted, etc. their conversation. I also don't like it when they use the adverbs such as quietly, excitedly, loudly in their dialogue tags.
DeleteGreat post! This is something I have been working on. I used to include too many dialogue tags. I definitely see that less is more. :)
ReplyDelete~Jess
Hi, Jess. I'm still taking out the dialogue tags in my manuscripts. I think it sounds so much better without them - just so long as you can tell who is doing the talking.
DeleteSometimes - especially if the dialogue is really important - I like to emphasise it by removing all dialogue tags and action. For a short exchange, it can work pretty well, especially if the dialogue is snappy - with long sentences, the reader might get confused as to who's speaking. It can also work for impact if you just have a single line of dialogue standing alone as a paragraph.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, nice post!
Thanks, Ann. I agree.
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