Dialogue Tags

When I was in school, I got really good at using words other than "said" in dialogue. My characters would remark, reply, respond, and even retort (when I was feeling brave).

Come to find out, that's actually not what you're supposed to do when you write dialogue. Nor are you supposed to use adverbs. The characters shouldn't say things testily, anxiously, hurriedly, or determinedly. It distracts from the writing and makes things clunky. If you have to use a dialogue tag, most of the time you should just use "said."

I get that, I really do. But I feel like if I were to document most of the quotes from my toddler these days, "said" would be woefully inadequate. It would perhaps give the impression that he spoke with an even, calm tone of voice, rather than one that makes the baby cry sometimes and makes my ears ring other times.

So, for the sake of accuracy, I have adopted a classification system to determine which dialogue tag fits the blasting noise I just heard. Was that more of a shriek, scream, shout, squawk, squeal, scowl, or screech? Most of the time, I usually land on screech. I assume that means that I would use "screech" in place of "said" each time I wrote about conversations with him.

And then there's this guy, who makes sounds I don't even know how to characterize. (He makes the sound in the first few seconds of the video, and then not again, but he makes that sound all the time, especially when his brothers are laughing and he wants to join in. It's not pertussis, I promise.)

Does our house sound like a wildlife sanctuary sometimes? Absolutely.

"But they sure are cute," she retorted admiringly.