Don't be afraid to use the word "said"

I've seen whole MS's where the author did everything they could to avoid using the word "said". There is nothing wrong with this word. It's a perfectly acceptable word. People use it everyday and it's not in the least bit offensive.

According to Elmore Leonard, you should never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue at all. His rules state: “The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.”

Now, I wouldn’t go quite that far (which is probably he’s why been nominated for 3 Edgar Allan Poe Awards by the Mystery Writers of America and given the Grand Master Award, too, and I haven’t. Oh, and I don’t write mysteries. Maybe that’s my problem.)

Example

"I wish it were over," Clarabelle sobbed.

"It will be soon," Hildegard guaranteed.

"But I'm so sick of it," Clarabelle wailed.

"We all are," Hildegard established. "But we can't change anything."

"Are you sure?" Clarabelle asked.

"I'm sure," Hildegard confirmed.

"Really sure?" Clarabelle questioned.

"Really sure," Hildegard repeated…

You should let conversations take care of themselves. Unless you have a group of people speaking, there is no need to keep telling the reader who is talking, over and over.

Corrected:

"I wish it were over," Clarabelle sobbed.

"It will be soon.”

"But I'm so sick of it!"

"We all are," Hildegard said. "But we can't change anything."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure,"

"Really sure?"

"Really sure," Hildegard said…

Dialogue needs to walk a fine line between what you want your characters to say, and what people really sound like. You don’t want to your dialogue to read exactly like someone speaking, because people stop and start and um and ah and generally sound quite dorky if you’re writing their words down verbatim. Don’t believe me? Read a transcript of a recorded statement sometime. It’s terrifying.

Dialogue mustn’t sound forced, either, and the easiest way to make it sound forced is to add ridiculous modifiers to get your message across. Why do writers do this? Personally I think it's because they won’t be there with a baseball bat while their audience is reading their grand epic so they can bash them over the head with what they really meant.

Bottom line. You want to make your message clearer?

Write better, don’t patch up your shortcomings with adverbs, adjectives and a thesaurus.

My pet peeve is "he laughed". Ever tried to talk while you're laughing? Words come out all choked? Adding "he laughed" to anything more than, say, one word of dialogue is the author making absolutely sure you know the character is being funny. With that baseball bat you mentioned.

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