Pet Peeve #44 - Anti-”Said” Writers
Did we really need this? Truly? (If you’re not the type of person to follow links, it’s a list of ‘other words for ‘said’’.)
Since when did the perfectly adequate ‘said’ become such a sin to use? Oh, wait, that’s right!
When some writers thought you needed to tag every single line of dialogue in an entire story.
I’m okay with occasional ‘he whispered’ and such, but this list just makes me shake my head. When you consider that half the times some writers use ‘said’ it’s unnecessary, lists like those are doubly unnecessary.
Let’s take ‘began’ for example.
“Well, the thing is…” he began.
Have you ever heard the rule ‘show, don’t tell’? Well, this is telling. And then telling again. Of course that’s how he began because he’s – go figure – beginning his sentence.
Impressive, I know, but I pick up on things like that.
How about ‘explained’?
“The battery goes in like this,” he explained.
Again, obviously. Why don’t you save yourself some time and keep your readers from snoring by writing something like:
“The battery goes in like this.” He inserted the battery into the toy slowly so young Dora could understand.
Not only are most (if not all) words on that list similarly obvious like that, they’re also annoying. You don’t need them.
Use ‘said’ when you need to. ‘Said’ loves you. ‘Said’ has never abandoned you for fancier and ultimately more annoying writers, so why do you feel the need to abandon ‘said’?
A note to anyone I edit or will edit for: Don’t even look at that list. Save me the editing time. Please.
Save me more time by checking out my other pet peeves.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:26 am
[...] **Do you have a Pet-Peeve? JM does over at Fiction Scribe with writters not wanting to use the word … [...]
November 7th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Well…um…said!
November 7th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Haha. Thank you.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Yeah, I’m not really a fan of those anti-said words either. Especially the obvious ones, like “he/she explained” or “he/she interrupted”.
Bleh.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Yes, there are the obvious ones that are annoying, and then the ones that you know the author is using just to avoid putting “said”.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
[...] Scribe points out that there are really only two kinds of writers: those that search for the perfect synonym instead of using "said" all the time in dialogue scenes, and [...]