dustofwarfare-blog:

flowersforone:

hel-z4:

thebananafrappe:

9differenttypesofcrazy:

helly-watermelonsmellinfellon:

love-bookswillbetheendofme:

I like the top list best! Although, nefarious should be on there as well!

Interesting considering in a Facebook AO3 group I’m in, someone professing to be an English Major was criticizing people for using anything other than the word ‘said’ around a month ago. They kept saying that it was the only proper way to explain someone speaking and people need to stop using things like ‘admitted’ or ‘revealed’ when ‘said’ is the only right way. He said they were making things unnecessarily complicated.

They got buried by the backlash btw. Even other English Majors disagreed.

So, note for those who are not English Majors, and even those who are, just because one person says that one way is the right way and no other way can be as well, doesn’t make that true. Teachings vary as much as opinions.

@skelitzel this may be helpful

The rules may say that what’s said is “said”… but rules were meant to be broken~

@killyourstarlings

IMO if you rely too much on alternatives to “said” you starting bringing too much attention to the dialogue tags and risk telling instead of showing. I’ve stopped reading a few books because the author kept using alternatives to “said” and nothing else. On the other hand “said” is invisible, but it can get boring and come off like it’s just a pair of talking heads and it can ruin the pacing. You’re supposed to have a balance and action tags are really effective, because the quotation marks make it obvious it’s dialogue and bringing in the characters actions while they’re speaking makes it more dynamic.

just to add that most professional editors will tell you to keep it simple and keep it “said” with a few exceptions here and there – it’s a word that most readers will find “invisible” which is a *good* thing, because they’re focusing more on what’s being actually, y’know, said. Not that you *can’t* use a different word, but for the most part, yeah, they’ll want you to just use “said” for ease of reading.