Not:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sonya laughed, \u201cSome part of Fred always hurts!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you aren\u2019t sure as you\u2019re writing, look at the dialogue in any novel you like, as long as it was published in the U.S. (Rules are different in the U.K.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are for clarity, which is the most important thing in writing, bar none:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Start a new paragraph whenever a different character speaks, even if neither says much:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d Jay asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere,\u201d Meredith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Start a new paragraph whenever somebody else does something or something happens during a dialogue passage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSomething fell on me, too,\u201d Sonya said, \u201cwhen I stood in the graveyard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fred rubbed his toe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sonya added, \u201cIt was after my great aunt\u2019s funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A wolf or something worse howled in the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m never going there again,\u201d Fred said. \u201cEverybody comes back maimed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Below is from my book, Writing Magic.<\/em> It\u2019s on dialogue, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Said<\/em> is a magical word. Boring, maybe, but magical nonetheless. It’s magical because it disappears. It becomes invisible. The reader finds out who\u2019s talking and moves on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I’m about to tell you may differ from what your teachers have told you. Your teachers may want you to use lots of variants on said<\/em> instead of said<\/em> over and over. The reason is probably that they want you to vary your vocabulary and not use the same word repeatedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s often fine advice, but not when it comes to said<\/em> in stories. Asked<\/em> is as good as said<\/em> if the line of dialogue is a question. Asked<\/em> also disappears. And so does added<\/em>, if it’s used when it makes sense and not used too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But you should almost never write,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“‘Where did you put the aardvark?’ she queried,”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“‘Don’t you hate aardvarks?’ he questioned.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Query<\/em> and question<\/em> call attention to themselves and away from your story. The reader saw the question mark and knows that the character is querying or questioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Same with exclaim<\/em>. \u201cWow!\u201d doesn\u2019t need she exclaimed<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Avoid other noticeable words, like affirm, allege, articulate, assert, asseverate<\/em> (a word I’d never heard of before I started writing this), aver, avow, claim, comment, confabulate, contend, declare, express, hint, mention, observe, opine, pronounce, profess, remark, utter, voice<\/em>. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t ever use these perfectly fine words. I just mean, don’t use them as a substitute for said<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Start with quotation marks, like this (double, not single): \u201cOuch! My toe hurts.\u201d Punctuation in dialogue, including exclamation points, question marks, periods, commas, belongs inside the quotation marks, like this: \u201cOuch! My toe hurts.\u201d It\u2019s called a speech tag when a speaker is mentioned by name or by pronoun, like this: \u201cOuch! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[291],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1788,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions\/1788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}