Those Pesky Dialog Tags

Dialog is hard.  We all know that.  Not because it’s hard to write, but because it’s hard to tag.  You all know what I’m talking about.  “He said, she said, they said, we said, you said, he said,” over and over again is ugly.  Just like how single clause sentences over and over again are ugly.

After writing for some time, I've managed to break down dialog tags into a discreet set of facts, categorized by effect.  In order to explain them, I must first explain something about flow.  

Flow is that state in the reader's mind that is achieved when the words on the page disappear and are replaced by an inner "movie."  More accurately, a virtual reality that renders everything from smells to the pull of acceleration to wrenching emotional sadness.  This "flow," as I will call it, is the desirable state.  All books should aim to place the reader squarely in this state.  

When in flow, a reader does not read individual words.  He or she does not skim, either.  The reader in a state of flow absorbs information on the syntactical level.  Which is to say, they don't pick up words, they pick up sentences, and paragraphs.  Words become garnish along a two-dimensional plane.  I know you've had the feeling before.  When you're reading, and you're not picking up individual words, when you're looking at a paragraph and you see in you mind everything that that paragraph stands for at once.  That's the state of flow.  That's the goal that I believe writers must achieve.

Imagine for a second a piece of music.  Imagine that you're listening to it, and that you drift off into that space where your mind fills with the visions of that music.  Do you notice the A sharp at the third downbeat of the fourth 4/4 bar at measure 23?  Of course not.  You hear instead a modulation of the major chord progression into a minor one.  You hear the effect.  You don't hear the note.  Your mental image of the music gets gritty, dark.  A sense of pressing is imparted by the change to minor key.  

The same with words.

So what does this have to do with dialog?

Tossing aside the music metaphor in favor of straight mechanics, dialog has two jobs: communicate what the character says, and maintain the state of flow.  Pretty simple, right?  Well, let's consider this.  

You're coming out of a long paragraph filled with explosive action.  Your first spoken character rolls underneath a bunker, and sidles up to the second spoken character.  We'll call them one, and two.

One wants to deliver this line: "Get up!  Get up!  They're coming over the ridge!"  

Two wants to deliver this line: "I don't want to die!  I can't get up, they'll kill me!"

One wants to finish like this:  "You'll be worse then dead if you don't get up now!"  

So how to approach this scene?

Option one: use the "said" tags.  

One rolled down underneath the bunker, where Two huddled against a dark corner.  

"Get up!  Get up!  They're coming over the ridge!" One said.  

"I don't want to die!" said Two. "I can't get up, they'll kill me!"

One said: "You'll be worse then dead if you don't get up now!"

Did you notice what I did there?  There are three ways that tags--of any kind--can be inserted into a statement.  Let's play with that a little.  

One rolled down underneath the bunker, where Two huddled against a dark corner.  

One said: "Get up!  Get up!  They're coming over the ridge!"  

"I don't want to die!  I can't get up, they'll kill me!" said Two.  

"You'll be worse then dead," said One, "if you don't get up now!"  

Did you notice how the conversation flowed different?  Even the meanings change.  The tag in the middle of the third line of dialog casts One's words in a sinister light.  I feel like the exclamation point doesn't belong anymore.  Maybe One is threatening Two, instead of warning him, as in the first example.  

And all because the position of the tag changed.  Readers don't "see" these tags, per se.  Rather, they take them in like that A# inside of the C major chord progression, that single note that signals that something much bigger is afoot. 

Here's where the state of flow ties in.  Words, when read in a state of flow, are nothing but tags for mental images.  When in a state of flow, all writing reads like dialog.  We search for the tags between the information to tell us what's happening.  We don't read all of the information.  Just as, when you read dialog, you don't read each word.  You hear the word combinations.  The sentences spoken by the character.  And the tags keep you oriented.  They're like road signs.  

Incidentally, this is also why verbs are so important, and why it's bad to split your infinitives.  Tags need to be clear, concise, and close to the thing that they tag.  That's also why adjectives are not good in bulk.  Not because they're just 'bad', but because they push the tags apart from each other.  It's like stuffing.  Too little is bad.  Too much is bad.  You have to get things just right.  Maybe I'll talk about this at a later time.  

Back to dialog.  

There are actually two types of tags:  explicit tags, and implicit tags.  Now, to explain implicit tags, remember what I said before about flow: tags punch an image into the reader's mind.  If that tag is of the character that speaks, regardless of the action, and is not otherwise consumed in the flow of a motivation-reaction rhythm (more on this in another post), then that tag will perform the same job as a "he said:" that is, to punch the image of the character to speak into the reader's mind.  Do you see the difference?  Imagine explicit tags as a subset of implicit tags.  Explicit tags are tags where the character in question performs an action that could be called speaking.  (Talking, spurting, crying, sobbing, yelling, performing, are a few examples.  The fabled "other saids.")  Whereas, implicit tags are tags where the character performs any action.  

Note here that it's not the action that makes the tag.  A tag is a tag, regardless of what the character does.  There are implicit tags that mesh more with speaking than others, but that has to do with common association, as well as the flow of the conversation.  (Again, a topic for another post.)  Not whether or not the character speaks inside of the tag.  

An example of an explicit tag: 

Sheldon spoke.  "What is this?"

An example of an implicit tag:  

Sheldon pressed his finger down against the hard shell.  "What is it?"

This segues me nicely into my next topic of discussion.  Did you notice how there was a tension in that implicit tag example?  How it felt, wrong, somehow?  Well, you were right.  Implicit tags are implicit because they imply.  They imply a lot of things, as a matter of fact, besides dialog.  So, one needs to make sure that the tag implies the right thing.  How?  

Like this.  

Sheldon pressed his face against the glass.  

"What is it?"

Better, but not quite.  Let's try some more.  

Sheldon pressed his face against the glass.  

"What is it?"  

His breath fogged the window.  

There we go, do you feel the subtle tension forwards?  Do you feel that very slight implication that there is something after that last word, "window?"

Here, I'll make it more obvious.  

Sheldon pressed his face against the glass.  

"What is it?"  

He turned aside.  

Did you feel it?  That need to resolve the action?  That's good.  That's mechanical tension.  That is desirable.  

To review (TLDR):

There are three places you can place a tag: beginning of line, middle of line, end of line.  They all affect the dialog in subtle ways.  

There are two types of tags: explicit, and implicit.  Explicit tags are a subset of implicit tags that only tag dialog.  Implicit tags can add tension to conversations.  

There are two ways to separate tags from dialog: space-bar, and return.  Spaces force a slowdown.  The tag is less prominent.  They are good for simple explicit tags.  Indents require a quick eye movement to be made.  Thus, they imply motion.  They are a good tool in the finessing of tension.  Implicit tags work well with them.

More on Friday, perhaps an expansion on this topic, perhaps on some of the others I mentioned throughout the post. 

I hope you enjoyed this exposition on writing technique.

Leave comments below.  Ask for clarification.  I will gladly answer.