An editor friend of mine was looking through my MS and I noticed she kept adding tag lines to it. Is it just my friend or do editors insist on every bit of dialogue to have a tag line? I noticed that published books don't and, IMO, it just sounds better when your dialogue isn't flooded with tag lines. So, how important are tag lines and how much is too much, in your opinion?
Tag Lines
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Do you mean stuff like "he said" and "she said" after the lines of dialogue? From the books I've enjoyed the most, I think such things should be present only when you really cannot tell who is speaking based on the words in the dialogue.
No, editors in general don't insist on all those tag lines. If they did, you'd see more tag lines in published dialogue.
Is your friend a book editor?
Direct attribution is almost a must for newspeople. If your friend is a magazine or newspaper editor, her instincts may not lead to a great dialogue. Writing dialogue for fictional characters is very different than reporting what interview subjects say, and most reporters and news editors have a hard time with the transition.
Direct attribution is almost a must for newspeople. If your friend is a magazine or newspaper editor, her instincts may not lead to a great dialogue. Writing dialogue for fictional characters is very different than reporting what interview subjects say, and most reporters and news editors have a hard time with the transition.
I try not to use TOO many of these, but I certainly do not omit them. Sometimes they simply feel necessary--to clarify, or to add tone to the character's words. In a book which tends to race through too quickly, generally fast-paced, there might be too few. But if it's very slow, though with much dialogue, there might be too much description attributed to the speech.
The editor of my YA took out several tag lines that were not necessary. The dialogue flows better without so many. Just make sure the reader knows who's talking. (I hate it when I have to go back to the first bit of dialogue to figure out who the speaker is, several lines down.)
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I think it's just your friend. My editor only wants tag lines if there are more than two people talking. Although . . . hmm. Could that be where your friend is adding them?
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Many dialogue tags are not necessary, especially if the dialogue is between two people. Tell your editor friend I said that.
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