someone in a writing discord asked if said/says is distracting. i announced that i had an answer, but it was a long one.

so. dialogue attribution. HOW DO

in this essay i will

1. said or says is largely invisible to the eye. BUT. It is highly audible to the ear. if you are writing something that's going to audio format, you don't want to pepper your pages with said like you're trying to rescue a bland piece of chicken.

2. you can get away with a few instances of words like muttered or whispered or opined. a FEW. Much fewer than your instances of said. but they can get real corny real fast.

3. you can use action tags, like "Muriel paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. 'What do you mean, Netherfield is let at last?'"

action tags are really good, because you can use them to slide in subtext, emotional texture, and good things like that. but again, while they show character, you don't want to weigh down your pages with too many, or it'll be like too much stage direction.

4. an excellent choice is to deliberately and consciously cultivate character voice, so most of the time, the reader already knows intuitively who is talking by the way the character is saying it--

"The time? It's fourteen twenty seven."

"not sure. I reckon it's about 2:30."

"do i look like an information booth to you?"

and the answer is - use all of these. but if you can only use one of these techniques, go with 4. every time.