A He Said, She Said Situation

“Here we go.” I said, typing the words to my next blog post.

“Hey, Jocelyn?” my sister called.

“What?” I asked.

“Dinner’s ready,” she said.

“Okay,” I replied, exiting out of my post.

Can any of you tell me what is wrong with those few paragraphs? What did I do that shouldn’t be done?

Anything stand out?

I bet you’ve realized that it doesn’t flow very well, right? Why is that? What common mistake did I make?

Well, that very mistake that so many writers make is what I will be covering today.

What is that mistake?

You could say it’s a "he said, she said situation".

Notice how after every single section of dialogue in the thread above, I put a “she said” or something that stated who was saying it? These are called dialogue tags.

See how they destroyed the flow of the words?

After every word said by the two people speaking—in this case, me and my sister—there was the annoying “she said”. It made the whole thing less pleasant to read, right?

But how do we avoid this?

You can establish the people who are talking.

While you are writing a conversation between two people, you can establish which people are talking so you don’t have to put “he said” or “she said” after the words the character spoke.

For example:

“Benny?” Amy questioned, peeking behind the pole to see the tiny child crouched there.

“Hi….” Benny said sheepishly, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

“What are you doing down there?”

“I’m talking to the plants.”

“The plants?” Amy raised her brows.

“Yes.”

Even though I didn’t use a dialogue tag after all of the words said by both Benny and Amy, you still knew who was talking, right?

That’s because I established the people who were having a conversation.

Every time a different person spoke, I broke quotations and went to a different paragraph.

By making a new paragraph with new quotations, I’m telling you that another person is talking. And since there were only two people in the conversation above, who we'd already established as Benny and Amy, you wouldn't have a problem knowing who’s speaking. In fact, you could bounce between them talking rather easily.

Let’s have another example:

“Julia?” Jessie asked excitedly.

“Jess!” Julia exclaimed, running over to her bestfriend. “I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“I know. Life’s been busy.”

Do you kind of understand what I’m getting at now?

When you’re writing a conversation between two people, you don’t need dialogue tags after every section of dialogue.

What else can you do instead of using dialogue tags to help people know who’s talking?

Notice on the first example with Amy and Benny how after Amy said, “The plants?”, she raised her brows?

That is the next technique.

Use actions before the words.

This is probably the most common thing I do in writing, and it's a great way to write as well.

If you write an action—the person who’s going to talk or just talked doing something—before or after the dialogue, it shows who just spoke or is going to speak since everything’s in the same paragraph.

Let me show you.

Josiah strolled along the boardwalk, hands stuffed in the pockets of his sweatshirt.

“Hey, Josiah!” A curly haired little girl bounced over to him, her red ringlets held back with a sparkly headband.

A reluctant smile made its way onto his face. “Hi, Lilly. How are you?”

"I’m exceptional!”

Josiah glanced up, seeing the little girl’s frazzled mom walking towards them. He turned back to Lilly. “That’s a big word.”

Her grin widened. “I learned it in school today!”

I didn’t use a dialogue tag even once in that. But you still knew who was talking the entire time.

Because I used actions.

Before or after each section of dialogue, I wrote an action including whatever character was speaking.

This is a great way to weave dialogue in with action so that you keep the story moving but help it move smoothly.

This also works well if you have more than two characters in a conversation.

Read this:

“But why me?” Addy asked.

“You have the necessary skillset for the job.” Autumn replied.

“And you’ve got the right look.” Dan said.

Now read it without the dialogue tags.

Addy frowned. “But why me?”

“You have the necessary skillset for the job.” Autumn handed her the papers containing all the information she’d need and she began scanning them.

Dan looked at her pointedly. “And you’ve got the right look.”

They both worked, right?

They both sounded okay.

But didn’t it communicate the storyline better and flow better when I took out the dialogue tags and instead added actions?

You need actions in the story to keep it moving along, and also to communicate how the person who’s speaking is feeling.

A good way to weave in actions is to put them before or after words as a way to tell who's talking. It can keep the scene in the reader's mind and help them remember what situation the characters are in.

But there’s something else you need.

You need balance.

Throughout a book, if you use completely the first technique, establishing who’s speaking with a dialogue tag and then not using one when it works, the book could become choppy or slow moving. Maybe it won’t communicate your story line as well.

We don’t want that.

But if you only use the second technique, your story will get wordy. With actions after or before every single section of dialogue said by a character, it will draw on and on.

That’s not something we want either.

There has to be a balance between the two.

Because I’m definitely not saying in this post that you shouldn’t use dialogue tags. I’m only telling you how to avoid overusing them, which is a common problem.

There’s another problem a lot of writers face.

That is the word "said".

It gets overused.

A lot.

If you want to learn tips on how to avoid overusing it and what to use instead, catch my post for next Monday.

If you have any questions or a subject you want me to give my take on, contact me in the contact bar below.

As always, happy writing!

-Jocelyn