12/26/2023 0 Comments Good dialogue tagsAn alternative exists! A better way! Action Beats rise victorious! The struggle to stave off boredom is the same for readers of short stories and novels. I’m tired of sweeping up after you both.” Perhaps you’ve struggled to stay awake as a friend recounts an incident that goes: Let’s look at how dialogue tags are to blame. The sum of all the parts of this ban is that we have descended into a black cave of sensory deprivation. Writers have been told such words doom us to be known as amateurs. Plus, this problem is exacerbated, brought to a head, by editors, publishers, and others who ban the slightly more interesting tags such as exclaimed, commanded, and preached. I say, “Who cares!?! They’re both as boring as a cheese-only pizza.”Īnd like a sprinkle of cheese that adds little flavor to a platter of dough, dialogue tags fail to add value to a story. Yet, however innocuous that makes them, lively debate exists over which comes first. The only job of a dialogue tag is to identify the speaker. In simple terms, an action beat identifies the speaker in ways that allow for elimination of the dialogue tag. Most every writer knows the purpose of dialogue tags, but action beats are more elusive. I mean, NO! One way to create a brisk pace packed with emotion and action is to win the battle of Dialogue Tags vs Action Beats. Today’s readership craves stories with an emotional impact and a brisk pace, even if the story is about strolling along a slow-moving, gently curving stream under a perfectly cloudless sky.ĭoes this seem to be a contradiction? Yes!
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