Too many instances of 'said' in my novel

Said tends to be invisible, so the saids might not be what the issue really is. People giving critiques can give useful observations "this bit's flat" but not necessarily identify the correct cause. If the problem is there are too many dialogue tags, deleting some of them usually fixes it. If the issue is that it's a bit too much like "talking heads" (i.e. disembodied heads in a blank space just talking) then you do need to pad it out with more action beats and details of what's going on and things characters are doing besides talking. You might end up removing some of the saids to keep it smooth while doing this, but the saids weren't cause of the problem.

Adding adverbs to said can be useful if you need to clarify how something's said, but so can changing the verb. For example "he said quietly" versus "he whispered" - these don't mean exactly the same thing so "he said quietly" may be the better choice, other times "he whispered" may be. Personally though as someone who used to **massively** overuse adverbs that start with d and imply sadness/hopelessness in dialogue tags... "he said despondently" "he said dejectedly" "he said despairingly" etc etc I tend to avoid using adverbs to convey emotion in dialogue unless there's no way to show it and no other way to convey the precise meaning. There's nothing wrong with using this technique sparingly though. But first be sure that you've correctly identified what's causing the bits in questions to be a bit flat. If it's more a talking heads problem then you want more action beats and other details, not fancier dialogue tags.

This is, I think, a pretty common issue that authors deal with. You've already touched on one alternative--to intersperse dialog tags with beats.

One of the problems you'll run into is that different people have different opinions about how this subject should be handled. Some authors think that you should always just use 'said', as it becomes invisible in the story. Others disagree. It's also possible to take it too far in the other direction, with characters that growl, bark, snarl, and whine.

And if you use more beats, you have to watch for characters that grin, shrug, roll their eyes, and cough too often.

And just to add to the confusion, the ideal mix is different for audio than for text. John Scalzi has commented on this, in that he is one of those authors who only ever used 'said'. But in audio, 'said' does the exact opposite of becoming invisible. After a while, 'said' reaches out from the speakers and slugs you in the nose every time it's used.

Of course, if you have a good narrator who uses different voices, you don't need as many tags or beats, because the voice will identify the speaker.

Ultimately though, unless you are explicitly trying to convey emotion with the tag or beat, the whole point is just to identify who is speaking. So giving different characters different voices (in the literary sense) will help. Keeping the number of people in a conversation down to two whenever possible will help.

In the end, you'll come up with a strategy that works, given your writing style and intended medium. My strategy is to leave this particular consideration until late-alpha editing. Once you've got the story essentially all written, you can start going in and tweaking who is saying what, and how.

What do the other beta readers say? Do they have similar comments about a particular section feeling flat? That is generally the takeaway I get from beta readers, since trying to tailor your story on an individual basis to the response of each reader is a fool's errand.

Setting a specific number of uses is ridiculous. If a particular section is coming across as flat, I doubt that it is _just_ the use of said that is causing it. But again, what do the others say?

This seems like it could easily be an issue of a reader being correct that something is wrong but is wrong about the solution (a la the Neil Gaiman quote). But now I’m curious myself about how many saids I have. I’ll check when I get home later.

What about picking a segment that the beta reader identified specifically, and putting it in SYW? I can't think of a quicker way to determine if it's dialog tags or something else. You've got the numbers for it.

I just checked "We are Legion." 91 saids.

Never looked at this in my writing before, but I just checked. In a book I self-published last November, I had 420 uses. It was 56,000 words...so a little less than 1%.

Pick a trade published novel that you personally really love. Pick a chapter with dialog. Count the saids. Count the words in that chapter.

What's that ratio look like?

JJ Litke said:

This seems like it could easily be an issue of a reader being correct that something is wrong but is wrong about the solution (a la the Neil Gaiman quote). But now I’m curious myself about how many saids I have. I’ll check when I get home later.

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297 instances (87,000 words total, and still in revision).

If somebody says something in excitement, you can say "They ejaculated".

That is my contribution to the discussion.

I've got 494 saids in my 88500-word WIP, which is 0.55%.

For what it's worth, I have 200 in 59,063 words. .33%. It has a cast and a lot of dialogue.

I mainly use the word to identify a speaker if identification is needed and there's no other means of identification. Sometimes it might just be for flow.

If used out of habit and not choice, I can see how it might catch someone's eye.

Patty said:

I currently have about 650 instances of the word 'said' in my 100K novel (0.65%). She suggested axing that down to 200 or so (0.2%).

I've looked at the first 32,000 words of The Sorcerer's Stone (it's available as text online) and Rowling has 320 instances of said (which equals a nice, tidy 1%).

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Dennis E. Taylor said:

I just checked "We are Legion." 91 saids.

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Patty said:

Bless you, that's good to hear about We are Legion (86K words.)

.

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LJD said:

I had 420 uses. It was 56,000 words...so a little less than 1%.

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JJ Litke said:

297 instances (87,000 words total, and still in revision).

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Ellis Clover said:

I've got 494 saids in my 88500-word WIP, which is 0.55%.

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Bufty said:

I have 200 in 59,063 words. .33%

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OMG, you people are mathing saids. That is so weird. Stop it!

No one's mentioned it yet, but I think a huge factor of this is simply how dialogue-focused the novel is. Obviously, the more dialogue there is, the more usage of "said" would be necessary/acceptable.

I've got 689 "said"s in about 96k, but it does have a lot of dialogue.

lilyWhite said:

No one's mentioned it yet, but I think a huge factor of this is simply how dialogue-focused the novel is. Obviously, the more dialogue there is, the more usage of "said" would be necessary/acceptable.

I've got 689 "said"s in about 96k, but it does have a lot of dialogue.

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^^this.
Another factor is how many characters have speaking roles. If you're tightly focused on one or two characters, most tags will be unnecessary, once voice is established. If you've got a larger cast, more tags (and imo, the plainer said instead of descriptive beats) will be necessary for clarity.

In my WIP: 111 in 70,000 words, 0.16%--this will almost definitely increase for the sake of clarity during revisions.

Interesting.

In my now being beta-ed story I have 98 saids in 68,000 words.

Patty said:

"You're coming with me," he said

, I might write ​

"You're coming with me." His breath fell on my face, warm and rank.

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It sounds to me like "said" is not the issue, per se, so much as the lack of descriptives bits that surround the dialogue, which would include internals and meaningful action. The sentence quoted back above is a good example of meaningful action, because it conveys emotion and tension.