Okay, so I just got into an online war (that’s an exaggeration) over something that should be common sense, but isn’t. Naturally, it’s about dialogue tags.
EXPRESSIVE DIALOGUE TAGS
Now, I’m not going to get into the fight over literary dialogue (he said, she said) versus descriptive dialogue (he breathed, she sighed), because that argument is stupid. Write it however you want; I don’t care. No, this is about one specific dialogue tag and about what one particular professional editor said on YouTube, and that is…
“RIGHT THIS WAY,” HE SMILED.
This fight was over an expressive dialogue tag, something that, apparently, traditional publishers and editors have never heard of. If you’re an indie writer like me, you may use these all the time—I don’t know—I just know that I do. An expressive dialogue tag is not an error in writing…It is a personal preference in writing that enhances the description of the character speaking the dialogue rather than the dialogue itself.
WHAT IS AN EXPRESSIVE DIALOGUE TAG?
An expressive dialogue tag is, to put in simple terms, writing something like “he smiled” or “she nodded” instead of writing your basic literary dialogue of “he said/she said.” This differs from a normal descriptive dialogue tag such as “he sighed” or “she breathed.” Something like “he sighed” describes the action of speaking itself, NOT the actions of the character speaking. Describing the actions of the character speaking is where an expressive dialogue tag comes in.
AN EXPRESSIVE DIALOGUE TAG IS NOT AN ERROR
Okay, so this particular editor on YouTube said something like (and I’m paraphrasing) don’t use dialogue like, “You look good tonight,” he winked, because, and I quote, “You can’t wink speech.”
Okay…Durrrrr…Of course, you can’t wink speech. Is your reader seven? Is your reader mentally handicapped? Did your reader down a fifth of moonshine and then take a sudden blow to the head?
The reader is not stupid. The reader knows you can’t wink speech, you can’t nod speech, and you can’t smile speech. That is not the purpose of an expressive dialogue tag. The purpose of an expressive dialogue tag is to show an expression of action during the dialogue. The reader knows what the dialogue tag means because…wait for it…the reader is not stupid.
If I write, “How was your day?” he smiled, and you say “You can’t smile speech,” that is an insult to the reader’s intelligence and an insult to me as the writer. It’s not rocket science, Einstein. Figure it out. You’re not seven…unless you really are seven, in which case, it’s past your bedtime. The adults are talking.
THEIR FIX IS JUST AS ANNOYING…
So, the fix that some people proposed was to write the so-called “standard fix”—spoilers: it doesn’t need to be fixed—that goes something like this: “How was your day?” He smiled. Or better yet: He smiled. “How was your day?”
So what’s wrong with this “fix.? When you write, “How was your day?” He smiled. , these are two separate sentences. One is dialogue and the other is not. The other sentence is basic character action. By “standard” English rules, these two sentences should be in two separate paragraphs, so this “fix” doesn’t actually work.
WHY USE EXPRESSIVE DIALOGUE TAGS?
Using expressive dialogue tags is simply a shorter way to write out the expression. Basically, it adds variety and efficiency. You could write “Have a nice day,” he said with a smile., or you could write “Have a nice day,” he smiled. Both have the exact same meaning.
I use descriptive dialogue with descriptive and expressive tags because it adds a level of detail to dialogue that is lacking in literary dialogue. It’s fine to use “He said/She said” all of the time, and I won’t knock that, but I prefer more detail in my dialogue.
For one thing, dialogue consists of the actual speaking part in quotations, such as “Have a nice day.” Technically, this is all you need if there’s only one character in your story, but the reason we have “he said/she said” is so that we can identify who is speaking. Except for using the basic word “said,” the tags are entirely optional anyway, so telling people they can’t use a tag is just downright stupid and insulting.
BREAKING DOWN DIALOGUE
Here’s an example of dialogue without identifiers or tags:
“How was your day?”
“It was good.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah…Why?”
“You seem a little down.”
“Eh, it’s nothing.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
As you can read above, we can see one or more people talking, but we don’t know who is talking, and that’s a problem. This could be one person talking to themselves, two people talking, or even three or more people talking. We don’t know, so we need to add in identifiers.
Now here’s an example of dialogue with identifiers but no tags:
“How was your day?” Maria.
“It was good.” Bob.
“Are you sure?” Maria.
“Yeah…Why?” Bob.
“You seem a little down.” Maria.
“Eh, it’s nothing.” Bob.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Maria.
Now we know from the example above that Bob and Maria are having a conversation. Now let’s try this again with more than two people:
“How was your day?” Maria.
“It was good.” Bob.
“Are you sure?” Steven.
“Yeah…Why?” Bob.
“You seem a little down.” Susan.
“Eh, it’s nothing.” Bob.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Maria.
In this example, our identifiers tell us that four people are having a conversation now.
What does all of this mean? It means all you really need for dialogue is the dialogue in quotes and an identifier to identify who is speaking. The tags are entirely optional, so they can be whatever the hell you want them to be. The tags are put in as a formality, not a necessity, so descriptive tags and expressive tags add flavor to the meat of the dialogue.
True, the word “said” and anything that replaces it is a verb, but the action of speaking has already been shown within the dialogue itself (that which is in quotations), which makes that verb a formality, and better yet, allows us to use something called a metaphor.
WE DO THIS ALL THE TIME
It’s called a metaphor. Here are some examples:
He wolfed down his food.
He danced through the gunfire.
He cooked Steve in basketball.
So now it’s my turn to be a giant idiot and complain:
“He can’t turn into a wolf and eat his food.”
“No one can dance through gunfire.”
“There’s no way he killed and cooked Steve somehow during a basketball game.”
“You can’t smile speech.”
Okay, so I threw in that last one, but you get the point.
YOU DO NOT OWN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
The English language is held together by some basic rules that we all agree on (mostly). It’s when we get down to the fine details that the wars begin.
My philosophy is to write however you want. You’ll eventually figure out whether it works or not, and people can warn you not to do something, but what they can’t do is tell you you can’t do something.
For example, I really dislike 1st Person Point of View. I don’t like writing in it, and I don’t like reading it, but I don’t command people to not use 1st person POV. That’s ridiculous. If you like 1st person POV, then go write in it and go read it as much as you like.
Remember, you do not own the English language, and neither do the people telling you you can’t write a certain way. You can give people advice, but you are not Caesar, so you can’t make them do whatever you want.
And that is my writing rant #1. Agree with it or don’t. At this point, I don’t care. I’m going to write however I want.
Writing Rant #1: Expressive Dialogue Tags Copyright © 2024 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
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