Guest post: Tag or No Tag? Showing Not Telling by crime writer and reviewer Graham Smith

Tonight’s guest blog post, on dialogue tagging, is brought to you by crime writer / reviewer and interviewee Graham Smith.

Tag or No Tag? Showing Not Telling

Graham SmithWhen writing every author will have their own opinions as to the presence and effectiveness of dialogue tags. Nobody is right and nobody is wrong. However with every word counting on the page there are different schools of thought.

Stephen King says in ‘On Writing’ to only use said.

Others will use dialogue tags very very sparingly or not at all. Stuart MacBride is an advocate of this and his books rank very highly among my favourites.

Yet again other authors will use all kind of different descriptive tags such as answered, snapped, asked, howled and so on and so on.

Personally I now try to use as few dialogue tags as humanly possible with said being the only one I will use. My train of thought is that the character’s voices should be strong enough to denote the speaker. This for me is an extension of showing as opposing to telling. Different emphasis on certain words can change everything.

Take for example the three passages below which all have exactly the same dialogue.

Passage A

‘Go away,’ yelled Susan

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ snarled Brian angrily, ‘you cheated on me. Why should I leave?’

‘Please calm down,’ cried Susan.

‘Why should I be the one to leave?’ Brian repeated.

‘I haven’t got anywhere else to go,’ sobbed Susan.

‘And I have?’ asked Brian.

Passage B

‘Go away.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Brian, ‘you cheated on me. Why should I be the one to leave?

‘Please calm down.’

‘Why should I be the one to leave?’

‘I haven’t got anywhere else to go,’ said Susan.

‘And I have?’

Passage C

‘GO AWAY BRIAN!’

‘I’m not going anywhere. You cheated on me Susan. Why should I be the one to leave?

‘Please. Calm down.’

‘Why should I be the one to leave?’

‘I haven’t got anywhere else to go.’

‘AND I HAVE?’

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For me Passage A is tagged to death and I would not enjoy reading anything which was written in this way. Also I hate seeing the word “asked” right after a question mark. The question mark itself shows that something is asked.

Passage B is the middle ground and is indicative enough to identify the speakers without intrusion. This does tend to be the norm in most of the books I read and said become background chatter which is easily ignored.

Passage C is in my humble opinion the strongest of the three and says so much more than A or B because it treats the reader as an adult.

If the author were to have Susan move behind a table or shrink back from Jason in the narrative then it will show her fearing him. Or Brian could throw something across the room. It would be showing not telling, which every decent author always promotes.

We all have an opinion on this. Please share yours.

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Morgen: One of my tips on https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/writing-101 is about tags and follows this theme and it’s always interesting to see other writers talking about it. I also write dialogue-only pieces (no tags at all) every Thursday for https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/5pm-fiction. It’s great fun. Thank you, Graham.

Harry Charters ChroniclesGraham Smith is married with a young son. A time served joiner he has built bridges, houses, dug drains and slated roofs to make ends meet. For the last eleven years he has been manager of a busy hotel and wedding venue near Gretna Green, Scotland.

An avid fan of crime fiction since being given one of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books at the age of eight, he has also been a regular reviewer and interviewer for the well respected review site Crimesquad.com for over three years.

He has three collections of short stories available as Kindle downloads and has featured in anthologies such as True Brit Grit and Action: Pulse Pounding Tales as well as appearing on several popular ezines.

You can find Graham via…

And his books via…

Anthology Entries

Graham is also running ‘Crime and Publishment’, a fantastic weekend of crime writing courses (I can say that because I was at the first one last March). 2014’s author tutors are Chris Ewan, Zoe Sharp and Michael Malone. Darren Laws of Caffeine Nights will be teaching attendees how to pitch to a publisher and will also be accepting pitches. More information on Crime and Publishment can be found at http://www.crimeandpublishment.co.uk and https://www.facebook.com/CrimePublishment.

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9 thoughts on “Guest post: Tag or No Tag? Showing Not Telling by crime writer and reviewer Graham Smith”

  1. Pingback: Guest post: Tag or No Tag? Showing Not Telling by crime writer and reviewer Graham Smith | geraldineevansbooks
    • morgenbailey says:
      Reply

      Thank you very much, Gerrie. Great to see you here. Editors are vital. They are going to be the biggest expense for independent authors but the writers I help say it’s worth every penny / cent, and I feel the same about my editor.

      Like

  3. Yvonne Hertzberger says:
    Reply

    I think it also depends on genre. I hesitate to use capitals and too many exclamation marks as they seem to take the reader out of the flow. They are too jarring. But I do agree that too many descriptors also slow things down. In the end I do think individual style will determine, at least in part, how far we take this idea.

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  4. Ian Miller says:
    Reply

    My view is B is the best. I think capitals should be restricted to the beginning of names, sentences, etc, and using capitals to indicate shouting is simply bad writing. I also do not like italics unless they are to indicate an emphasis that would not normally be expected. Also, if you do not like “asked” straight after a question mark, try “Brian asked”. I also think there should be occasional tags, so the reader can easily keep track of who is saying what. This is particularly the case if the conversation is not exactly inspired. I recently reviewed a book (because I had promised to) where I had to go back and reread from time to time to try and work out who said that line. It did not put me in a generous mood later.

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    • morgenbailey says:
      Reply

      I’d go somewhere between B and C. It’s recommended that you have some kind of tag every sixth line so the reader doesn’t get lost, but it doesn’t have to be connected with the speech itself but a way out is to have some action. Have Brian kick the chair, or Susan throw a mug. I’m also really not a fan of ‘said’ and then the name. We wouldn’t recount a tale to someone verbally saying ‘said Sarah’, would we? To me it’s like lazy (no offence, Graham!) rhyming poetry where words are inverted to make the rhyme.

      Thank you for your comments, everyone… and for Graham, of course, for writing this piece.

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  5. Graham says:
    Reply

    Thanks for all the comments everyone.

    My usual writing tends to include actions as Morgen so wisely says above, to demonstrate emotions than capitals or italics. The examples above are merely extremes to demonstrate my point.

    While everyone’s points are valid I still believe that the character’s voices should be identifiable enough. Also actions inserted into the dialogue further the showing not telling of the story.

    Thanks again folks

    Graham

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