Noddies, Shruggies and Head Shaking

NOD: He gave me a 'thumbs up' sign. "You bet, man."

HEAD SHAKE: He stared at the floor. "I don't want to clean my room, Mom."

SHRUG: She cocked her head to one side. "Why would you want me to do that?"

As with everything, it depends on your characters, and what they would do. If you have characters who like to nod, shake heads, and shrug, that's what they're going to do. Ask yourself if there's anything else the character would do that's still in character but also gives non-verbal support to the spoken dialogue. Maybe instead of shrugging, she paces for awhile, considering the situation. Instead of shaking his head, he frowns, or glares at the person making him do something he doesn't want to do. Instead of nodding, she jumps up and down because she's so happy she's gotten her way.

I have the same problem; when I was editing the novel that is now making the rounds with agents, I found too many instances of characters shrugging, shaking their heads, sighing, and looking down at the floor. (Not all at the same time, of course.)

If your characters are doing some other activity while they're talking, it makes it easier. It also depends on the character. Other than that, I'm afraid I don't have much advice to offer, since I have the same problem as you.

I occasionally toss in a head that bobs back and forth.

I hit myself every time I overuse a nod, shake or shrug. By the time I finished my last book, I'd kicked the shit out of myself.

Any action you can use to bring the attention of the reader to the character who's talking is sufficient. It doesn't matter if he's flushing the toilet, tinkering with some doohicky, scratching his ass, juggling geese, aiming a gun, lighting a cigarrette, pruning a bush, swallowing some cereal, turning on his laptop, tying his shoe, grinning, getting something out of his eye, getting something out of his nose, picking up a box, cracking his knuckles, or doing a backflip. The point isn't to show some sort of preperation for them to about to speak, the point is simply to get the attention on the right person. The more relevant you can make it, the better, but usually you can trim your wordiness a bit by cutting out these little He nodded, tells and just go straight to He picked up the box, thing. That way you don't have to mention it later.

Personally, I have no problem with nods and shrugs. Are they done to excess? Because if you read most popular novels, they all use nods and shrugs.

In fact, watch people around you for a day or two and take note of how they talk. Everyone moves their head from side to side or nods or they wave their hands around. It's normal.

Do what feels right for you.

I find myself doing the same thing. I always go through on a seek and destroy mission eliminating all the shrugs, nods, and sighs, then add back in ones that really need to be there on a later draft.

If the character says yes or says no, why do you need to have him nodding and shaking his head anyway? Seems redundant to me.

Most nods, shrugs, etc. can probably go if your dialogue is clear enough. I usually only use them if the character doesn't say anything.

I'm always catching my characters nodding. It's like they're all listening to some really good house music I can't hear.

I don't have them go: He nodded. "Yes, I agree."

Instead, mine are more like: He nodded, then picked up the box. "I suppose I have no other choice."

jodiodi said:

Instead, mine are more like: He nodded, then picked up the box. "I suppose I have no other choice."

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I would even suggest cutting out the nod; it's stronger:

He picked up the box. "I suppose I have no other choice."

think of yourself as a director. Telling an actor to nod his head at a certain line is over directing. As a writer, you tell the character what to say and where to stand, even how to stand. But the nodding and the shrugging and the looking at the floor? thats up to the actor(Character) as interpreted by the author. That's how i approach it. The character says no. From how he says no, his intentions should be clear. After that, the reader can decide if the character is nodding as well. Or shrugging. Or blinking. We don't tell them when to blink. Unless its something really blatant such as picking his nose at a funeral (lol) I dont think we really need the minutiae. And even then, you can phrase it better than "he picked his nose.

Anyway before I totally ramble off, leave the minutiae to the reader. Give them the general blocking and the attitude in the words and let them decide if the character is a nodder or a not nodder. lol

People tend to be doing stuff in my scenes while they're talking -- mostly becuase, in real life, people are doing stuff...and even if they're not, the awkwardness of just standing there talking means they'll fidget at doing stuff -- so if I use action tags like that, it's just them carrying through with whatever they're doing.

Easy example: have them eating dinner. You have all sorts of stuff to bite, chew, swallow, take drinks, take second helpings of, etc, etc.

The best way to incorporate meaningful directions (instead of just nod, shake, shrug) is to give your characters something interesting to do. Put the conversation in an interesting location with something actually happening.

Conversations while sitting around the table sipping latte or during a car ride suffer from a lack of action. It better be a darn good conversation to carry momentum forward and hold readers interest.

ETA: cross posted with Pee Dee. I wasn't sniping at the meal suggestion. But you shouldn't talk with your mouth full.

jodiodi said:

I'm always catching my characters nodding. It's like they're all listening to some really good house music I can't hear.

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That's very easy to picture. Mine are the same way; so much so that I've added weeding out nods and shrugs to my "list" for the first editing pass.

I try to think of it in terms of blocking out a scene for theater. I wouldn't want to watch a play where people mostly stood around and bobbed heads at one another while talking. People fiddle with things, and twitch and shift around - especially if they're uncomfortable or upset, which my characters often are, 'cause I'm mean to them.

I usually have any nodding, shrugging and head shaking stand alone, because otherwise it's probably redundant with the dialog. Even though I do use those three, I usually try to find fresher actions.

Sighing, I avoid as much as possible. Yeah, I know people sigh all the time, but I think it's overused in fiction.

I love action tags, though. My all-time favorite is one of ShadyLane's: "Sash rubbed his sneakers together."

I have the same problem. I like narrowing eyes, waving something off with flippant hand gestures, grimacing, growling, grunting (though gotta make those their own sentence). I also like describing voices like squeaky or monotonous... I can just see my characters struggling to keep a neutral face during an emotional conversation, or falling apart at the seams if their voice cracks. That's just me though... I do have an overuse problem. I think lots of people do. It's something to fix in edits. I've been through mine several times and cut about 13k, but I know it still needs some stuff taken out.

I try to avoid sighing as much as possible too. There are good times for a sigh though, and I don't miss those opportunities just because sighing is overdone in other works.

Shane Fitzsimmons said:

I try to avoid sighing as much as possible too. There are good times for a sigh though, and I don't miss those opportunities just because sighing is overdone in other works.

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Nope, me either. I have two sighes in a 92,000-word MS. One of them is from a dog.

When I have several lines of dialogue in a row I avoid character movements & expressions in sequential lines. E.g. I'd never do this:

X smiled. "That's so kind of you!"
Y shrugged. "No problem."

I might do this if I was really pushed:

X smiled. "That's so kind of you!"
"No problem," said X, with a shrug.

But I'd probably go with this last one (assuming we know Y is speaking first.)

"That's so kind of you!"
X shrugged. "No problem."


I think the important thing is to continually shuffle and mix your tags and beats around so that subsequent sentences don't have the same structure with different words. It can be horribly distracting when you get an unintentional rhythm going. (And it's always, always better to get the mood across in the spoken part of the dialogue, rather than sprinkling pretty words in between to explain what you really meant.)

Garpy--I agree with previous posters. In your three examples, the dialogue expresses the feeling better when stands on its own. You don't need those tags at all.

But on the other hand, if you want the characters to emphasize their feelings more physically, you might consider building more meaningful action into the scene.

Examples (albeit exaggerated ones):

"No! Totally wrong." He grabbed the page from me and slashed angry red marks across it.

"Sheesh, I dunno...what do you think?" He swayed side to side, as if pulled by unseen forces. I felt almost seasick. Clearly, I had to make the decision.

"He stood up." "He sat down." "He pushed back his chair." "He slammed the door." "He stared out the window." "He lit a cigarette." "He picked up a box." "He ripped the box open." "He rummaged through the drawer." "He crumpled the letter." "He paced across the room." "He stirred the soup." "He sipped his coffee." "He dropped the wet towel onto the floor." "He lined up the pens on the desk." "He straightened the picture on the wall." "He raked his fingers through his hair." "He snugged up the knot in his tie." "He brushed imaginary lint off his slacks." "He tied his shoes." "He unzipped his fly." "He smashed his fist into the wall." "He turned to face her." "He dropped his gaze." "He glared at her." "He reached out one hand toward her." "He stroked her hair." "He wrapped his arm around her shoulders." "He backed away from her." "He raised one finger in front of his lips." "He hurled the ball." "He tightened his grip on the bat." "He rolled the dice." "He shuffled the cards."

I could go on for quite a while longer, but I won't. I came up with that list just about as fast as I could type. In an actual story, of course, the action needs to be in character and it needs to be appropriate to the scene.

Once in a while you do have to settle for merely identifying the speaker, but mostly try to make it do other work, as well. It can also characterize or describe the setting or advance the plot.

This is also one way to implement "show, don't tell". For example, instead of telling that there is a pot of soup on the stove, show your character stirring and tasting and adding ingredients while the conversation progresses.

My characters have picked up the habit of dropping their eyes whenever they talk about something they're having trouble with. "He dropped his eyes." "She sighed and dropped her eyes." I have this mental picture of them throwing their eyeballs like dice every time I see it.

Why have nodding when you can have headbanging?