Mike C

Oh dear. So it's fine to use dialogue correctly in 'classics', but you can get a way with any old shit in everything else.

I give up.I don't know why we ever discuss this anyway. From now on I'll encourage you and everyone else to make your dialogue tags as flowery and descriptive as possible. It's to my advantage; the less publishable your work is, the better my chances.

Truth-teller, I think if you refer back to your bible (On Writing by King, possibly the best thing he ever wrote, and possibly the best book an aspiring writer can buy) you'll find that his views on dialogue and mine are the same. And... do you ever read anything other than King?


Clancy, best pull out and let this thread die. There are others that know far better than us present. And Truth-teller, who can't even figure out which side of the discussion you're on!

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Mishki

It's not my intention to argue, but I'm genuinely interested in this issue and I've been puzzling over it for a while, because most of the books I enjoy, including classics, tend to have adverbs and dialogue verbs besides "said." I looked through a few classics on my shelf, flipped to random pages with dialogue, and found the following:

Eudora Welty almost always uses "said." But this is in The Robber Bridegroom, and anything else would seem totally out of place (as the story is a folk tale with very simple prose). I don't know about her other novels.

Chinua Achebe uses "said" most of the time, but breaks them up with "vowed," "continued," "concluded," etc.

Tess of the D'Ubervilles "says touchily," "says impetuously," "asks suddenly," "declares proudly." She often just plain "says" too.

Mr. and Mrs. K of the second story ("Ylla") in Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, in order: "cry," "murmur," "cry," "reply coldly," "cry," "remember," "reply, lying back," "object," "explain softly," "continue," "call quietly," "state patiently," "snap," "inquire," and "hesitate wildly."

Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim and Nostromo, respectively) uses words that are not "said" (and adverbs!) all the bleeding time.

Earlier in the novel, Marlow "remarks cheerfully" and "says" once, while Jim "says" once, then "directly adds," then "murmurs," then "blazes out"--all on the same page.

So... I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me that use of adverbs or dialogue attributors other than "say" make bad writing, because all but one of the classics I picked off my shelf at random had both.

I like the Victorian/early modern writing style, and it tends to have more adverbs and decorative prose in general, if I remember correctly. A good portion of my contemporary reading is historical fiction, and the trend in that genre seems to be more of an early modern style than the pared-down approach of most contemporary novels.

To conclude, I just can't buy that the writers quoted above are bad writers. Is it possible that most writers simply do not know how to use the adverb and dialogue attributor well? (I tend to think that most fiction writing with badly utilized adverbs is a failed attempt to add cadence.) Or these rules of writing are based on contemporary preference and style rather than innate qualities of fiction writing?

ClancyBoy

You make a very good point, and I can't argue with your examples. So let me refine my position

Not even Faulkner uses said all the time. When someone asks a question I can't think of anyone (besides me maybe) who wouldn't use "asked."

Still, I think most of the examples you posted (continued, concluded, added, etc.) are still just as neutral as "said" is. That is to say, they don't have any descriptive quality by themselves.

I guess the point is, and what I think Mike is trying to say, is that the texture of the dialogue should come from the story and from the dialogue itself, not from an adverb or a colorful dialogue tag. If you have to do that to make the intended meaning understood, you just haven't written it very well. (That, or you don't trust the reader to understand what it is you mean.)

Is Tess of the D'Ubervilles considered good? Because I can't imagine a universe where "declares proudly" wouldn't just suck the paint right off the side of a house.

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FantasyWitch

Umm... Being honest it is so *stops foot childishly*
if you think of the amount of critisism (god am I spelling that right??) Terry Pratchett recieved for not writing in chapters in most of his books. Critics are evil people.

It has to do with the uppity attitude of being correct ALL THE TIME. I'm sorry but not all novels are politically correct, not all novels are fabulous pieces of art and not all novels are perfectly grammatic or believable.

It's taste. I couldn't live without Terry Pratchett and David Eddings. I liked Harry Potter, wasn't fabulous but it wasn't terrible. I'd say it was literature.

ClancyBoy

Interesting, that's very similar to my stance on marijuana legalization.

The more stoned everyone else is, etc.

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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

ClancyBoy

*winces heartbrokenly*

No.

I agree. Just like there's no such thing as good kung fu and bad kung fu. It's all up to individual interpretation. If I fought Jet Li in a cage match and he kicked my ass all up and down the wall that doesn't mean he's better or he studied harder or he trained more or anything. Getting one's ass kicked is a legitimate kung fu style and should be recognized as such.

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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

FantasyWitch

*pouts*
That wasn't what i meant. I sense some sarcasm.
And i feel like Im annoying people after 4 posts or so Not what i mean to do but hay!

Writing and kung fu? Thats a stupid comparison really. I don't think after her success you can doubt JK Rowling for studying and trying hard to become a good auhor. You just can't say that.
That is like saying George Bush is a smart guy because he became president! Doesn't always follow through!

Faustling

Wait... what? Critics actually complained about the lack of chapters?

...

That is... stupid beyond words...

I once again use my amazing superpowers to take a thread further off topic. Don't care, so... meh.

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lin

Pretty much true. Think of it as the "default". An exception would be to repetitive a rhythm of them.

And the thing about using other verbs instead, if they aren't almost as transparent they cause problems. So stretching to far or clashing with the speech makes things bumpy and contrived.

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czarkastik

I realize this is somewhat OT, but it doesn't seem like anyone minds much so...yeah...

Do you think using words other than "said" really makes a big difference? Personally, I always felt it was a question of the authors style. Just because an author chooses more descriptive language doesn't mean their piece is written poorly.

Plus, I think everyone has their peeves. Maybe some people really do hate when people use other "less conventional" (for lack of a better term) language when writing dialogue. I squirm everytime I read/write the words, "that,," "there," "it," and "this." Still, although we may not personally enjoy the craft of some authors, that doesn't mean they're necesarily poor authors or that their work isn't literature.

Just my opinion, anyway.

ClancyBoy

I'm sorry. I just can't buy this theory of artistic relativism. By God there ARE such things as better and worse.

Why do people practice? Why do they study? Why do they work hard to refine their art over the course of their whole lives? If every style has equal value and it just comes down to personal taste, then there can be no such thing as improvement.

And if that's true, why would anyone use a forum like this? Who cares about peer review? Just squeeze out any bowel movement of a novel you like, slap a cover on it, and publish that mother.

I'll tell you why WF and other writing communities exist. Because for all the preadolescent whining and the "you can't say this isn't good, what gives you the right to say anything?", at some level people understand that good and bad do in fact exist and they want to improve themselves.

I'll tell you why flowery dialogue tags are bad writing. They're telling rather than showing. If you have to tell the reader that someone is being impatient, angry, subtle or vague, then you just haven't crafted either your scene or your dialogue well enough. If you choose your words carefully those modifiers will be completely superfluous.

For example, rather than writing "Jack said angrily," tell us about the throbbing vein in his forehead or the way his left hand is twitching. Instead of "Mary replied vaguely," have her say something vague. If you really want to compound the vaguery, have her bite her top lip and stare unfocused at the far wall.

Etc., et al, ad infinitum.

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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

Shawn

Absolutely, I agree.

The use of modifiers in dialogue is unnecessary because a successful writer (using dialogue) conveys their message without the use of exposition through description.

I read an interesting book called The Road. In it, the author didn't use quotation marks at all, but the dialogue in it read beautifully. I skipped right over where the author said, "the boy said" because nothing in it was unnecessary. Wonderfully minimalist, and I actually felt sorry for the characters.

I can't say that I feel sorry for fantasy writers that don't have the good sense to pick up a few tips on successful communication, which practically condemns adverbs.

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Mishki

Thankya.

True. In my own writing, I tend to throw in "continueds" and "replieds" much more often than colorful dialogue tags. I'm not a big fan of most dialogue attributors in and of themselves, but sometimes they just seem apt. Take "mutter," for instance. Is there any other good way to say it? Is it necessary to construct a whole sentence of description in order to convey outside of the dialogue tag that the speaker is muttering? I just cannot find it offensive, no matter how much I try.

"Muttered under his breath," however, sucks. It's redundant.

Yeah, I tend to agree. But I can't deny that many damn good books I've read, both classic and contemporary, do use them. Some very often, in the case of Joseph Conrad, Ray Bradbury, and Philippa Gregory. What I want to know is why their books are good and why other books that do the same thing suck. Are they good in spite of their "error"? Or are they adding something to the prose, and they just happen to be in a tiny minority that can use an adverb or dialogue attributor in a way which does not blow goats?

At the same time, I've read writers who try so hard never to use an adverb that thousands of unnecessary sentences and clauses are added to the text. And that sucks too. The writing is labored and clunky.

I know the prevailing attitude of the day is to use "said" and as few adverbs as possible (and I do agree with you, by the way, that there are definite "good" and "bad" books). I know that in order to be published, one had best follow these rules. But part of these same rules for publishing indicate using as many simple sentences as possible, and never a compound-complex sentence. How can this rule possibly indicate quality writing?

Yeah, Tess is a classic, by Thomas Hardy. It's on a lot of required reading lists. And I happen to like it very much.

Shawn

Because writing that sells is writing that's quality.

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Truth-Teller

People, people--let's not worry about superfluous shit like this.

The content of the dialogue is more important than any dialogue modifiers or adverbs.

There are writers who can't even write realistic dialogue, so I think we should learn to improve that area instead of nitpicking about minimalist techniques.