Stylistic note to Eliezer: you frame 98% of your dialogue with “X said” or “said X”. This is usually inconspicuous when there is action or reflection to break it up, but in chapters like 47-48 that are full of back-and-forth it can suddenly jump to your notice—and once it does you cannot stop looking at it. More attentive/pedantic readers than myself may well have caught on it earlier.
I would encourage you to mix it up a little with the dozens of options available : blurted, replied, retorted, acknowledged, asked, mused, told [him/her], asserted, stated, questioned, countered, suggested, mumbled, declared, urged, pushed, pointed out, etc.; I’ve seen some writers overdo this, but a rough 1:1 ratio of “said” to everything else should be fine and make dialogues feel perceivably more alive.
(Not sure if this type of comment is appropriate for the thread, but I’m sure Eliezer reads it as much as he does the FF.net reviews, and I wouldn’t want to pass on the chance of being corrected or supported by LW readers)
Harry placed the hat on his head, as he’d done during the sorting ceremony. “You should remember our earlier conversation,” Harry reminded the Sorting Hat.
Err… didn’t Harry/Eliezer have some arbitrary ethical problem with creating temporary conscious beings like that? If I recall, he made dramatic oaths about not doing it again and probably swore people to secrecy on the subject.
It’s fairly common writing advice that you should do your best not to use any other verb than ‘said’ to carry on a conversation.
To put it simply, most people simply ignore the repetitive nature of ‘he said’, ‘she said’. Therefore, conversation flows fairly smoothly and naturally. Constantly injecting synonyms for ‘he said’, ‘she said’ is a sign of a new writer.
Naturally this doesn’t mean “never ever use anything else besides ‘said’ to mark the dialogue”. However, the alternatives should be used only in places where they fit exceptionally well and not just for variety’s sake.
Disclaimer: This should not be taken as a definitive opinion on the subject since there are writers out there who will agree with you. I’d say, however, that the consensus is on the side of “use said as much as possible”.
There is also the option of dropping “he verbed” entirely.
This can cause problems. Sometimes when I read a lengthy dialogue in this style, I read a line which seems to me much less likely to by said by character whose turn it is to speak, and I have to go back to the last anchor point where it was made explicit who was talking, and carefully keep track of it. In some cases, after doing this, I have wondered if the author lost track.
Being clearly understood is more important that avoiding the appearance of redundancy.
I confirm that Grautry’s answer is the conventional one, and that I often worry that I am overusing adverbs or verbs that are not simply “said”, which is what we are told to worry about.
Yeah, after seeing this responses I did a bit of looking around and I acknowledge that it is apparently quite frowned upon, at least in English prose (to the point of having a name: “said-bookisms”).
No matter how many compared examples I read, after trying hard to “blank” my mind beforehand, I still find myself liking the “exorted/rebuffed/pressed/” version over the “said/said/said” more, so I’m probably just a statistical anomaly.
Another way to check would be to see whether there are well-loved stories which engage in said-bookism.
The idea that authors ought eschew synonyms for “said” might merely be a theory which works fairly well, but doesn’t reliably cover the range of what people like in their fiction.
That comment was based on CS Lewis’ An Experiment in Criticism—the argument is that any fiction which attracts devoted rereading has something going for it, and it’s better to evaluate fiction by the sort of reading it gets rather than evaluating readers by whether they like the right fiction.
This was published in 1961-- I think the idea of dethroning official lists of Great Books was more revolutionary then.
See also his High and Low Brows, which argues that the only reliable difference between high and low status art is that high status art is more difficult to appreciate, with the clinching argument being the likes of Shakespeare, Dickens, and Mozart becoming high status as they become less accessible.
He further argues that both high and low status art have good and bad features and should be evaluated by the same standards.
I’ll support grautry position too. The content of the dialogue itself should indicate a musing, a question, a counter, an apology, a suggestion, an urging—using the superfluous words “mused”, “asked’, “questioned”, “countered”, “apologized”, “suggested”, “urged” is very very clumsy.
And some of your other suggested words like “stated” instead of “said”, and “retorted” instead of “replied” don’t even seem to be trying to indicate anything other than the desire to use a synonym. In which case the story is no longer about communicating anything, or depicting a scene, but instead a game of how much of a thesaurus you can use.
This is the sort of suggestion that I’ve seen the fanfiction.net forums actually give out to writers—new writers actually go there and say “I want more synonyms for the word ‘said’”!
And the people there instead of saying “No, you don’t, you need less synonyms”, actually do offer suggestions for more synonyms. It’s just horrid horrid advice.
Stylistic note to Eliezer: you frame 98% of your dialogue with “X said” or “said X”. This is usually inconspicuous when there is action or reflection to break it up, but in chapters like 47-48 that are full of back-and-forth it can suddenly jump to your notice—and once it does you cannot stop looking at it. More attentive/pedantic readers than myself may well have caught on it earlier.
I would encourage you to mix it up a little with the dozens of options available : blurted, replied, retorted, acknowledged, asked, mused, told [him/her], asserted, stated, questioned, countered, suggested, mumbled, declared, urged, pushed, pointed out, etc.; I’ve seen some writers overdo this, but a rough 1:1 ratio of “said” to everything else should be fine and make dialogues feel perceivably more alive.
(Not sure if this type of comment is appropriate for the thread, but I’m sure Eliezer reads it as much as he does the FF.net reviews, and I wouldn’t want to pass on the chance of being corrected or supported by LW readers)
Reminds me of Tom Swifties. For instance:
Harry placed the hat on his head, as he’d done during the sorting ceremony. “You should remember our earlier conversation,” Harry reminded the Sorting Hat.
Heh, took me a bit to get that one (for those as dense as me, the pun is in “reminded”).
“Upvoting both joke and explanation”, he remarked.
Err… didn’t Harry/Eliezer have some arbitrary ethical problem with creating temporary conscious beings like that? If I recall, he made dramatic oaths about not doing it again and probably swore people to secrecy on the subject.
Yeah, it’s just a joke (more specifically, a pun (more specifically, a Tom Swifty)).
Comment on material of instantiation orthogonal to joke concept.
Well then, I’d be happy to correct you.
It’s fairly common writing advice that you should do your best not to use any other verb than ‘said’ to carry on a conversation.
To put it simply, most people simply ignore the repetitive nature of ‘he said’, ‘she said’. Therefore, conversation flows fairly smoothly and naturally. Constantly injecting synonyms for ‘he said’, ‘she said’ is a sign of a new writer.
Naturally this doesn’t mean “never ever use anything else besides ‘said’ to mark the dialogue”. However, the alternatives should be used only in places where they fit exceptionally well and not just for variety’s sake.
Disclaimer: This should not be taken as a definitive opinion on the subject since there are writers out there who will agree with you. I’d say, however, that the consensus is on the side of “use said as much as possible”.
I agree with the first, but not the last. There is also the option of dropping “he verbed” entirely.
This can cause problems. Sometimes when I read a lengthy dialogue in this style, I read a line which seems to me much less likely to by said by character whose turn it is to speak, and I have to go back to the last anchor point where it was made explicit who was talking, and carefully keep track of it. In some cases, after doing this, I have wondered if the author lost track.
Being clearly understood is more important that avoiding the appearance of redundancy.
In some case, I have confirmed that the author must have lost track, and have had to make a guess as to where the mistake is.
I confirm that Grautry’s answer is the conventional one, and that I often worry that I am overusing adverbs or verbs that are not simply “said”, which is what we are told to worry about.
Yeah, after seeing this responses I did a bit of looking around and I acknowledge that it is apparently quite frowned upon, at least in English prose (to the point of having a name: “said-bookisms”).
No matter how many compared examples I read, after trying hard to “blank” my mind beforehand, I still find myself liking the “exorted/rebuffed/pressed/” version over the “said/said/said” more, so I’m probably just a statistical anomaly.
Another way to check would be to see whether there are well-loved stories which engage in said-bookism.
The idea that authors ought eschew synonyms for “said” might merely be a theory which works fairly well, but doesn’t reliably cover the range of what people like in their fiction.
That comment was based on CS Lewis’ An Experiment in Criticism—the argument is that any fiction which attracts devoted rereading has something going for it, and it’s better to evaluate fiction by the sort of reading it gets rather than evaluating readers by whether they like the right fiction.
This was published in 1961-- I think the idea of dethroning official lists of Great Books was more revolutionary then.
See also his High and Low Brows, which argues that the only reliable difference between high and low status art is that high status art is more difficult to appreciate, with the clinching argument being the likes of Shakespeare, Dickens, and Mozart becoming high status as they become less accessible.
He further argues that both high and low status art have good and bad features and should be evaluated by the same standards.
I’ll support grautry position too. The content of the dialogue itself should indicate a musing, a question, a counter, an apology, a suggestion, an urging—using the superfluous words “mused”, “asked’, “questioned”, “countered”, “apologized”, “suggested”, “urged” is very very clumsy.
And some of your other suggested words like “stated” instead of “said”, and “retorted” instead of “replied” don’t even seem to be trying to indicate anything other than the desire to use a synonym. In which case the story is no longer about communicating anything, or depicting a scene, but instead a game of how much of a thesaurus you can use.
This is the sort of suggestion that I’ve seen the fanfiction.net forums actually give out to writers—new writers actually go there and say “I want more synonyms for the word ‘said’”! And the people there instead of saying “No, you don’t, you need less synonyms”, actually do offer suggestions for more synonyms. It’s just horrid horrid advice.
Disagree. “Said” is punctuation, easily ignored. Anything else will only pull me out of the dialogue.
I think JK Rowling was famous for this as well.