he said...she said...dialog attribution

Action tags?

AllHorses wrinkled his nose. 'Ewww attribution!'

As for how long - it really depends on the distinctiveness of the voices and what they are talking about. But with only two people present, um, how long is a piece of string? The rule of thumb is 'attribute before the reader gets confused', which kinda depends on the reader

The best way to solve this problem is really to read more and see how successful authors do it. It's writing without clarity that is your problem.

And if it happens a lot when you're reading books it could be you are reading the wrong books.

Funny this should come up now. I skimmed through a Tess Gerritsen book earlier. At a random page, I read a conversation between two people that had almost no attribution. It worked due to the dialogue and characters. Even without reading the preceding chapters, I knew who was speaking after the first line of the scene. It worked perfectly.

How many people are speaking? If it's more than two, nearly every line needs to be attributed. Mix "he said, she said" in with action tags ("I hope you die!" Mary made a cutting motion across her neck.). I wouldn't worry about overdoing it. I seriously can't recall ever making the comment "You have too many dialogue tags," (though I can imagine such a situation) while I've often made the comment "You have not enough dialogue tags."

EDIT: If it's only two, and they trade back and forth, you don't need to worry as much. Readers should be able to follow. You should be putting in some action every once in a while anyway (I love dialogue, but pages with nothing else tend to wear readers down), and you can throw in a ("he said") near any action blocks.

AllHorsesPost said:

Got some feedback on my manuscript from a beta in regards to the reader getting lost in dialog without attributions. I find this happens to me also a LOT of times when I'm reading books.

Seems like there are several ways to fix it.....

1. direct attribution (which gets tiresome for everyone after a while)
2. attribution by name of other character in 2-person dialog i.e. "Sue, you know that I've wanted to kill you for years."
3. Attribution by context - i.e. character talking about how he wants to kill Sue "I think that slow poison would be the most pleasureable."

What else? And, is there a rule of thumb on how long you can go with a dialog without attribution? Seems like it's pretty dependent on the reader.

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I don't know about anybody else, but when authors do #2, it makes me want to throw things (like the book). My best advice is to mix tags with action, so that sometimes you have 'she said' while others times you might show what's she's doing while she says it. Personally, I wouldn't go more than four lines without some kind of tag.

KyraDune said:

I don't know about anybody else, but when authors do #2, it makes me want to throw things (like the book). My best advice is to mix tags with action, so that sometimes you have 'she said' while others times you might show what's she's doing while she says it. Personally, I wouldn't go more than four lines without some kind of tag.

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Why such a strong reaction over using a name in dialogue?

AllHorsesPost said:

direct attribution (which gets tiresome for everyone after a while)

1. direct attribution
2. attribution by name of other character in 2-person dialog i.e. "Sue, you know that I've wanted to kill you for years."
3. Attribution by context - i.e. character talking about how he wants to kill Sue "I think that slow poison would be the most pleasureable."

What else?

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4. By the use of 'beats', or snippets of action that are going on at the same time as the dialogue. eg.

"In the meantime, I'm going to make coffee." He took the beans from the cupboard.
He looked up from the bloody corpse. "Looks like she's been dead for less than a day."

AllHorsesPost said:

So I guess you are saying #2 is #2......?

I think it can work as long as it's not overused and it is like a natural dialog. When most people are talking to someone else they might use the name if they want to get someone's attention or emphasize a point.

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It works fine, especially when used sparingly in long pieces of dialogue, especially in heated discussions. That's how people talk at times.

Susan Littlefield said:

Why such a strong reaction over using a name in dialogue?

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If I may answer, because it's unnatural. People rarely call each other by name in the middle of dialogue. ETA because we cross posted. Sparingly. Yes.

A good guideline for attribution is the reader should be able to follow who's talking, and it shouldn't be tedious.

Using names in dialogue is fine as long as it sounds natural:

"Mary Sue, you come back here, now!"

People don't usually use names in casual conversation especially between two friends: "Mary, don't you look lovely today."


But if you do that a lot and only for attribution purposes, then no:

"Mary Sue, how are you today?"
"I'm doing great, Gary Stu. And you?"
"Not bad. Here comes Joe Average."
"Hey, Joe, it's a great day, isn't it?"
"It sure is, Gary Stu."


Back to the OP... if you write the character and dialogue right, often you don't need tags or attributions. We gather from the voices and context who is saying what. When more than two characters are speaking, seldom do they take equal turns talking, so the occasional tag is fine. You can also use action. I'd suggest keeping the "name" thing to the minimal.

dangerousbill said:

4. By the use of 'beats', or snippets of action that are going on at the same time as the dialogue. eg.

"In the meantime, I'm going to make coffee." He took the beans from the cupboard.
He looked up from the bloody corpse. "Looks like she's been dead for less than a day."

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I'll add:

5. By making each character's dialogue, inflections, and word choice as unique as possible (without overdoing it). Real people don't speak exactly the same, so your characters shouldn't all sound alike.

4 and 5 are my favorites.

Last year I read a debut novel by someone who ran an unrelated-to-writing forum I enjoy. I loved the setting of her novel, and thought it would be a fun read. Several times I had to stop and reread pages because it wasn't clear who was speaking. One time the back-and-forth had gone on for so long without attribution that I had to actually COUNT to figure out who was talking.

I finished the book, but I won't be buying another. It bugged me that much.

rainsmom said:

4 and 5 are my favorites.

Last year I read a debut novel by someone who ran an unrelated-to-writing forum I enjoy. I loved the setting of her novel, and thought it would be a fun read. Several times I had to stop and reread pages because it wasn't clear who was speaking. One time the back-and-forth had gone on for so long without attribution that I had to actually COUNT to figure out who was talking.

I finished the book, but I won't be buying another. It bugged me that much.

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That was me reading Angela's Ashes. Great book, lousy dialogue attribution.

AllHorsesPost said:

Makes me wonder what the editors are doing.

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It's an editor's job to point out the flaws and make suggestions on changes.

It's the author's job to actually implement those changes in the manuscript.

It does make me wonder why the author insisted on writing pages of dialogue without any attributions.

AllHorsesPost said:

Isn't this a flaw in a manuscript? If the reader can't follow the dialog?

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Absolutely. It's possible that the editor pointed this out to the author as an area to fix. But authors don't have to take every single suggestion that an editor makes, and sometimes authors ignore things that really will make a book better.

My point was that we can't always blame the editor for a poorly edited book, without seeing the work the editor actually did and comparing it with what the author chose to listen to. All we see is the finished product.

AllHorsesPost said:

Thanks for clarifying.

When I was a journalist the editor's word was law.

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No problem. Publishing is an odd little world, especially fiction.

It does make me wonder why the author insisted on writing pages of dialogue without any attributions.

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In this case, I'd guess it was to foster a quicker pace and sense of urgency. They were trying to solve a murder. Clock was ticking.

I can see the point -- writing rapid-fire sentences without attribution or action *does* make for faster reading. But clarity is king, in my opinion, and I think the work could have stood to have a couple of short actions like "He leaned forward" (or other things people do when having intense conversation) just to keep the speaker clear.