He Said, She Said

Speech tags are quite the troublesome creatures. Some people say not to use them at all; some say to only use "say"; some say to use whatever as long as you don't add adverbs.

I'm still a little conflicted on this point myself. I would do a study of books I read to see what techniques they use, but... I've never actually noticed. I don't know whether that means it's the right way of doing it or it just doesn't matter to me as a reader, though.

Although I do admit I have somewhat of a stance. I don't remember what story it was, but some time ago I decided to never use the word "said." Not by replacing speech tags with more sideways attributes, but by using "growled," "muttered," and so on. That did not go well. I agree with the idea that these sorts of tags should be used sparingly, and only if the tone of the speaker isn't obvious in the words themselves. Sometimes I have to debate between using such speech tags or using italics, exclamation points, etc. in the quote. I'm still not sure how to resolve those.

I don't like the idea of never using speech tags, though. I do try to avoid them sometimes, when I'd rather break up some dialogue ("I don't know." He leaned back, his head thumping against the wall. "I've just about had it, myself."), but I don't think this needs to be a golden rule. It's nice to have "beats" like that, as I've heard them called, but sometimes it leads to noting every time someone rearranges his legs or something, and it's just a lot of words without meaning. I'd rather throw a few "say"s in there than put out such boring beats all of the time.

How about you? Do you take much notice of speech tags in your reading or writing?