"What is correct?" she said tongue-in-cheekily.
Anyone else think that looks funny?
I'm in one of those quandaries that's really just a timewaster, and it's making me glum.
You know the kind.
~The perennial prologue debate. (Agents say they hate 'em, yet they're in almost every recent book I pick up.)
~That that thing. (Five SIX(?) in this post. I think that they're all okay. Except the one I just typed to make my point.)
~Show, don't tell. But please, tell me how to REALLY do this. Better yet, show me!
~To exclamation point or not. (I kinda liked the one in that last point. I also like parentheses. But for the sake of publication one day, I leave them out when I'm not blogging. I snuck ONE set of parens into my manuscript sneakily last night, and boy, did I feel like I was living on the edge.)
~Unfortunately, I must also mention the overuse of adverbs.
But, today's quandary: Asked vs. said.
(Which leads to the whole dialogue tag discussion, but I'd prefer to stick with this one today, thanks.)
Ray Rhamey over at Flogging the Quill mentioned in a flogging today that "____ asked" is irrelevant if you've enclosed a question in quotation marks. You can go ahead and say, "____ said."
But, I googled it a little (for extra points,what are the two glaring errors in that phrase? Wait, three.), and found conflicting advice. We were not surprised.
It's a wonder any of us get to the point where we actually query a manuscript. Hmm, I wonder if it's a conspiracy.
If we build more rules, only the truly diligent ones will come.
Or ... maybe the brave ones. The ones who throw caution to the wind and exclaim mightily, "Pick me! Pick at my prologue! Pick at my dialogue tags! Pick at whatever you like, but, please, pick me!"
posted by Julie Kibler @ 3:40 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
See, I've always been of the school that if what is said is a question, then it's asked and not said. I see it a lot in children's books and I always think someone was asleep at the wheel.
Kinda like parenting. When I ask my kids, "Did you clean your room?" I'm asking them a question and therefore deserve a response, right? I'm not just saying something for the sheer pleasure of hearing my own voice, am I? Yes, probably I am.
It's funny because I have the draft of a post about all of the "DON'Ts" that we all here all the time. Let's see: adverbs, prologues, dialog tags, passive voice, exclamation points...did I miss any?
Frankly, I think most of these rules have been given far too much weight out here in our online world and probably for good reason. Influential voices (like agents) seem to rail against the overuse and incorrect use of many of these things because they see a huge amount of dreadful writing.
But -- you're a good writer and so you are able to make informed decisions about the proper use of the questionable things. You can even (gasp) effectively tell and not show when you feel like it!
Personally, I have an aversion to all dialog tags and I try not to use them at all when I can get away with it. I'm not critical when I see them (as long as they're used sparingly), but unless there are lots of characters in a conversation, it seems pretty easy to eliminate most, if not all of them. But again, I think that's just a matter of personal taste.
Pamela,
If, when you ask your children a question, you are not doing it for the sheer pleasure of hearing your voice, you're wasting your time. LOL (Just like, if a tree falls and there's no one there to hear it, does it make any noise?)
Yeah, in spite of my tongue-in-cheekily written post, this one threw me a bit.
Lisa, I'm not much of a fan of dialogue tags either. If I can get away without them, I try not to use them, but there are those spots in my WIP where they're needed, and then the question of asked vs. said becomes relevant. I think I'm just leaving them alone, though. I did a find on my MS today, and I found (haha) that I had done both--said or asked--depending on the sound of the sentence without even realizing it! That seemed to answer my question.
On "show" and "tell"--if it's any help, I did a post on that which a number of people have found useful. Go to:
http://www.floggingthequill.com/flogging_the_quill/2006/02/how_to_show_whe.html
For what it's worth.
Hi, Ray, thanks for stopping by, and I hope you took my flack in the silly spirit in which it was intended. :-) (The spirit of exhaustion. Heh.)
You have great advice on your blog, and I follow it pretty faithfully. I have, in fact, read the post you linked to here as well as most of the others.
I just keep thinking I've figured it all out, and durnit, something else comes up.
Just chiming in here with my "reader" hat on, rather than writer. If the writing is good, I don't notice any of these technical issues, because I'm carried along by the story. I think that's the key, as Lisa said. Good writing covers many a technical sin . . .
I agree with the other commenters. It really doesn't matter as much as you think. Let me rephrase. It matters. Every word matters. But dialogue tags will not be the reason you're accepted or rejected or readers love or hate your book.
Personally, I use "ask" when it's a question, and if it feels too stupid, too redundant to have the word "ask" after a ? then I add some character action with the dialogue: Sarah fidgeted in her chair. "Where's the bathroom?"
Then there's no need for the tag.
Yes, too much obsession with the "rules."
Here's the only one I follow: Use whatever makes your story most effective--and don't use anything that detracts.
(And BTW, in my upcoming novel, I use parentheses!)
Yay, Therese! Go, parentheses!! Heh.
Thanks for stopping by, and looking forward to the new book. I might be going to the UK soon and I might try to find it while I'm there to sneak an early read.
Still got you on my list for a blog interview, but am scheming how I'm going to do it... unique-ily. :)
Do look for REUNION while you're there--but be forewarned, I'll have made some changes and the US edition won't be an exact match.
Nothing major--just some refinements that didn't make it into the UK edition because of the earlier deadline.
Re: the interview, I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
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