The Curse of Dialogue Tags

One of my Pitch Wars mentors told me in her rejection letter that dialogue tags were one of my writing weaknesses. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson. I thought I had—until one of my critique partners pointed them out in one of my chapters. I’d gone back through my manuscript after Pitch Wars and removed the ones that stuck out to me, but either I missed some or I’m blind to them until someone else points them out. A third option is that I have a dialogue tag curse that puts these things back into my MS when I close it for the night. Yes, true, that’s not likely.

Those of you who don’t write may be asking what a dialogue tag is. The explanation is simple. When a character says something, dialogue tags are what appear outside the quotation marks, like he said, she cried, I demanded, you told me, etc.

You might next be wondering what the big deal is. A quick answer is that when dialogue tags are used correctly, they give information the reader doesn’t already know or they blend in so well that the reader doesn’t even notice them. When I’m reading, my mind tends to skip over the he said, she said tags. A more in depth answer is…well, I don’t really know. I have issues with them, remember?

I think my dialogue tags issues are rooted in my middle and high school creative writing exercises. I remember one teacher emphasizing that you can’t always use he said, she said. She gave us a variety of other tags and made us use them in our writing. Didn’t this make my writing better? Yes and no.

Yes: Sometimes you need to say something other than he said. An example of this is if you want to give the reader some idea of the emotion behind what a character is saying—assuming it isn’t conveyed in the words.

No: The tags that aren’t he said stick out if they’re used too much or improperly. Sometimes the reader doesn’t need help getting the emotion behind the character’s words and he said works just fine. Another example is that if a character curses within the dialogue, you don’t add a dialogue tag that says he cursed.

No: Sometimes, the reader doesn’t need a dialogue tag at all if the reader can tell who’s speaking. Two characters can carry on a dialogue-tag-less conversation that lasts half a page if you tell the reader who says the first line. This helps the flow of the dialogue and sucks the reader into the characters’ words.

No: There are places were the dialogue needs something else, but not a tag. Sometimes, it’s better to show what the characters are doing or what’s going on around them.

I don’t normally do this—because for all I know, this is a BAD idea—but I want to show you an example. Here’s part of the scene from my MS where my CP pointed out my dialogue tags. I’m going to paste it twice—first, the way my CP saw it; second, the way it is now after my CP’s comments and my corrections. I’ve put the bad dialogue tags in bold.

“You aren’t going,” my father declared. I’d seen his stern face before, but there was something different, harder, about it this time. He snatched my sleeping bag off my bed and stalked into the hallway.

                “Come on, Dad.” I rolled my eyes. “Everyone’s going.”

                “And if everyone jumped off –”

                “Seriously?” I cut him off, anger springing into my voice as I wrenched my sleeping bag from his hand. “You’re going to try that cliché?”

                “Hazel,” he answered, his voice low and warning, “it’s not safe."

                “Safe? Safe! Dad, it’s not like there are going to be boys there. There won’t be any unprotected sex, I promise.”

                “Hazel!” he shouted, shocked.

 

              “You aren’t going.”

   I’d seen my father’s stern face before, but there was something different, harder, about it this time. He snatched my sleeping bag off my bed and stalked into the hallway.

                “Come on, Dad.” I rolled my eyes. “Everyone’s going.”

                “And if everyone jumped off –”

                “Seriously?” Anger sprang into my voice as I wrenched my sleeping bag from his hand. “You’re going to try that cliché?”

                “Hazel.” His voice was low, a warning. “It’s not safe.”

                “Safe? Safe! Dad, it’s not like there are going to be boys there. There won’t be any unprotected sex, I promise.”

                “Hazel!”

So what’s my point? Dialogue tags are important and I’ve gone back through my MS. But more than that, my point is that no matter how long I keep doing this, I learn something new ALL THE TIME—and I keep learning these things over and over and over again. First, my Pitch Wars mentor (who didn’t pick me) pointed out my dialogue tags. Then, one of my other CPs mentioned her Pitch Wars mentor (who picked her) wasn’t happy with her tags. And then, my CP commented on my tags in this scene.

Writing a novel and prepping it for agents (and ultimately publication) is a process. It takes a long time. There may never been an end to the changes you can make. Still, you keep going. You learn something, fix things, learn something again, and fix them again. It doesn’t matter how long it takes because it’s about getting there in the end—and I will get there.