He Said, She Said, They Said, We Said
This blog is going to start my series of "Writing 101" for the basic foundations of enhancing your writing. As you can guess from the title, we're going to start with dialogue tags. This is an incredibly important part of writing yet can often be overlooked or ignored entirely. If you're unfamiliar with the term, a Dialogue Tag accompanies a piece of dialogue to determine who is speaking and how they are speaking. The most common one is said, but there's a plethora of options to choose from. Such as:
Shouted
Cried
Groaned
Murmured
Whispered
Replied
Asked
I could go on and on. With each example, I'm sure something different came to mind. This is how dialogue tags are used to determine emotion. Writing "'I love you!' she shouted" vs "'I love you!' she cried" creates an entirely different scene. But why is it important when not every piece of dialogue is a revolutionary show of emotion? Well, let me show you a piece of text with no dialogue tags.
"I need you to listen to me."
"Why?"
"It's none of your business."
"Why are you being so difficult?"
"Stop trying to intimidate us."
With no dialogue tags, the conversation becomes almost impossible to follow. Are two people speaking? Three? The dialogue is essentially floating in space, with no character actions and emotions to guide it. Dialogue is an essential tool in writing, but it can also confuse readers if used recklessly. Read the passage again:
"I need you to listen to me," Marcus urged, fists clenched at his sides.
"Why?" Lee asked.
"It's none of your business," Nancy said to Marcus, pulling Lee away.
"Why are you being so difficult?" Marcus asked her.
"Stop trying to intimidate us," Nancy replied, head held high.
See the difference? Now you have a full cast of characters and get an idea of what the scene looks like with only a few lines of dialogue. Further, you can get a sense of the characters themselves. In just a few lines, you can tell Nancy is protective of Lee and Marcus doesn't like Nancy. Add in some more exposition to describe their surroundings and you have yourself a good start to a scene.
When we know who exactly is speaking, it makes the scene much clearer and that can make the difference if a reader is deciding whether or not to DNF (an acronym for Did-Not-Finish and is used when a reader doesn't finish a book for any reason). As I mentioned earlier, if dialogue tags are left out, the characters can feel like they're floating in space with no direction.
A goal in writing fiction in particular is to make your reader truly immersed in the world. The best way to do that is through your description, something I'll cover in the future, but dialogue tags can be an extra hook to ground the reader in what's happening in the scene. As you saw in the second example, it can also be a great way to add subtle characterization and description. Both of which will elevate your writing to the next level!
If dialogue tags are so important, why do they get missed? In my opinion, it can be easy to skip over them when writing because you become immersed more in what's going on than in how something is being said. This is what to keep in mind:
If there are more than three people established in the scene, make sure each piece of dialogue is given a speaker
Don't overuse 'said' as a tag, but don't feel like you need to pull out the thesaurus every time someone speaks
Can these rules be bent to your will? Of course. You are the master of your writing; however, keeping those two points in mind can add a lot of depth to your writing.
In the future, I'll talk about writing expressive and convincing dialogue. Because how something is being said is just as important as what is being said.
Originally published under R.L. Martin
Originally Published Jan. 26th, 2023
Updated Aug. 24th, 2025
