Did you use parts from someone's story here on fictionpress, or did you come up with the dialoge yourself as an example? If you used someone else's, please tell me you asked them for permision. It realy bothers me when people bash other's work without them knowing, even if they are trying to be helpful.

This is very informative. I only wish that you could have done it without sounding like you are bashing the people who dont have the same level of writing skill as you.

Thank you so much! :D

This should be made required reading for everyone in Fictionpress, haha.

Great tips, I'll need to look back on this.

Found this whilst looking for a synonym for "said quietly," ha!

Nice writeup, definitely. Though "talked to" *can* work even without an "about" - "At the party, she talked to her friends for a while, then chatted with strangers, and finally was asked to dance by the princess. Perhaps this would be a good evening after all!"

Now, back to finding something besides "murmur" for this sentence! I overuse "murmur" by inclination and need to break myself of the habit. _

-ABeth.

Thanks for the tips about tagging the dialogues, they were really handy.

I personally use 'he said softly/shyly/[insert word]' more often than 'he whispered', because I think it adds some description to the dialogue. For example, in my own story the main character is really shy. Besides actually saying that he's shy I make him say the things he says in a shy way, by putting it in the tags. But I guess that it's debatable whether it's a good or a bad thing.

The only other thing I noticed was in the end of your essay, where you said that 'talked to' didn't exist. I might be wrong here (English is still my second language after all), but I thought the sentence: 'I talked to my dad about...' is grammatically correct.

THANK YOU! :))

hi !

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Thank you, I will definitely be thinking about these things when I write. I really like you show examples of the same dialogue and point out what is wrong with each one and then show an example of how it could be better.

I've learned more about "tags" from this post than I did in both, my creative writing and fiction writing classes. This is awesome! I love the concise manner in which you explained the topic, and the accompanying examples. And I appreciate the other advice as well. I give you 5 stars for this article! Will you review my story, JUMP TO IT? I'm pretty sure I've broken quite a few "tag" rules. :) Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for writing this. It's really helpful for writers who wish to improve.

-Sam

Interesting, and very helpful :)

I agree with you about dialog. I tend to tag the first two lines and avoid an overuse of adverbs/adjectives when writing dialog.

Wow, this tip is very helpful! I used to write dialogues like that, but now I know that I'm in the wrong. Thanks a lot for this very helpful essay!

I admit, I have a problem with having 'said' too much in my dialogues. Sometimes I don't notice it, but most of the time I know there is something wrong. Now I know more of what I'm looking for.

I like how you didn't make it seem like people who did those things were stupid. I enjoy learning new things about writing, but I don't enjoy it when people make me feel dumb while reading it.

Thank you for this enlightening whatever you want to call it.