Attributives

Attributives identify the speaker.

“Your point is well taken,” Jack said.      The attributive here are the words “Jack said.” Some writer attach other words to the attributives, generally adverbs. For instance:

“There’s no point in going any further,” Jack said softly.  This is fine because the adverb softly tell that Jack wasn’t upset or that he was maintaining his cool. Be very careful in selecting adverbs for attributives. The following are some glaring bexamples of these:

“Me dearest friend passed away,” he said morosely. How else was he supposed to say it. Happily?

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said.    “Get out of my room!” she yelled. Why use yelled when it’s clear to the reader that’s how she had to have replied.

There are other attributions  which brinks on being idiotic :

“The target is in sight, General,” the lieutenant said.   “Fire the missile,” the general commanded. This is fine because the general’s words would have to be a command. But ‘the general said’ would have been okay .

“This gun is loaded,” he said.      “Hand it to me,” she commanded. Here ‘commanded’ is not required. “Do you really need it now?” he inquired. Don’t need ‘inquired’ here. That’s what the ? is for.

“I will kill you,” he said threateningly . The threat is implied. Don’t underestimate the reader’s intelligence.

Another form of attribution that must be avoided is:

“That was most ridiculous of you,” John chuckled. Has anyone ever been able to chuckle a sentence.  “It would be okay if put thus:

“That was most ridiculous of you.” John chuckled. Here chuckle is an action which follows what john has already said.

It is best to stick to “said” as far as possible. Any other word attached to it distracts the reader, drawing his attention away from what is being said to how it is being said. But if it is absolutely necessary to use a complex attribution,– even some best-selling authors do — there is a list of them available. See submenu for DIALOGUE in the main menu.

Long Dialogues

When there many lines of dialogue in succession, the writer can identify the speakers in the first two spoken lines. Then forget the attributives until the last two spoken lines. Unless the dialogue makes it clear as to who is saying what, the reader can get lost in the maze. To avoid that, the writer can show an attributive for one or two spoken lines in between, or name one of the speakers (characters) in quote marks. “John, I told you to stay out of my room.” The alternative way to identify the speaker is to make him perform an action before or after he speaks a sentence. Example:

John pointed to a chair across the table. “Sit down, Mark, have a cup of coffee.”  He motioned to the waitress.    Mark eased into the chair and sighed.  “This is the first time in days someone has been courteous to me.” Such actions are called beats.

In dialogue, one character should never tell another what he already knows, nor should he tell the reader what had already been disclosed in the story.