Said Is Dead?!

BOIL THE BUNNY

Jamesaritchie said:

Rowling is dead on in using creative dialogue tags, ly adverbs, etc., when writing for children.

Kids love them, appreciate them, and seem to have a much better understanding of the story when such words are used. Kids also use such words when telling a story, and their eyes seem to light up a bit brighter when someone like Rowling writes the way she does..

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What empirical proof do you have for this one? I mean, I'm totally with you on sticking to "said" in adult novels, and no one can question that kids love Rowling's books (as do I, and I'm no kid). But what makes you say they love the quirky dialogue tags and adverbs specifically? What makes you think kids get a better understanding of a story because of these particulars as opposed to creating the mood and/or emotion with narrative and/or dialogue so you only need to use "said" in the end? True, using adverbs and saidisms (or whatever they're called) makes it easier, but does that mean that's what kids prefer? I read as many adult novels as I did "kid" novels when I was a brat--not that I was special because of this--and I don't recall favoring either one because of the usage, or lack of, the word "said".

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, James, honest. You're published and I'm not. But short of running an elementary class for a decade, or running a Gannet poll on the subject geared at a pool of 1,000 kids, I don't know how you can make that claim. Kids love Rowling, but it doesn't necessarily mean they appreciate the saidisms or adverbs.


Getting back to topic (and not directed at you, James):
Why teach kids something now that we'll have to un-teach them later? You want to improve kids' vocabulary? Great. Teach them different verbs not adverbs or tags. A clever verb is worth a dozen adverbs in my math. To me, teaching them to use more adverbs or more flowery tags is just plain lazy on the teacher's part. Or conforms to the teacher's (misguided) sense of what sounds "writerly". Bad enough we have to tell kids we were just kidding about Santa. Now we have to tell them to forget what we taught them about adverbs and funky dialogue tags being the way to go? And we wonder why they don't trust adults. Teach them right from the get-go. And start with the Easter Bunny. You'll save them thousands in therapy when they grow up and need counsel for the distrust they harbor for their elders.

gp101 said:

Sure you can. Elmore does it all the time. Depends how good you are with dialogue. If you set up your action and emotion properly like Elmore and others, then the occasional "said" is used simply as it was intended--as a tag. You won't need that "muttered" or "grumbled" or "said contemptuously" because you've already established the mood with clever narrative and/or dialogue. In that way, "said" almost becomes invisible.

"Or you could be lazy and add a silly said-wannabe or an adverb," he retorted.

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I see the point; but I do not think it universally applicable.

By the way, Tom Swiftly's were mentioned earlier, here is one I thought up - I apologize if it is too risque:

"Stop screaming at me, mother. I'm coming!" Tom ejaculated.

If you ever watch "The Colbert Report", you'll notice that Colbert frequently reads excerpts from his novel, "Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure". Invariably, the dialogue is marked by vigorous verbs and adverbial modifiers.

So, yeah, if you want your book to sound like "Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure", then go ahead and have your characters exclaim, roar, babble, moan, intone, threaten, and expound, threatingly, breathlessly, passionately, moaningly, sublty, and vapidly.

But do you really want to write the sort of dialogue that gets read aloud on Comedy Central after 11 PM?

Popeyesays said:

By the way, Tom Swiftly's were mentioned earlier, here is one I thought up - I apologize if it is too risque:

"Stop screaming at me, mother. I'm coming!" Tom ejaculated.

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LOL, good one.

Another of my all time favorites is:

"I love hot dogs," she said with relish.

B-b-but... she spluttered.

And my creative writing professor said you should almost always use the word "said."

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamesaritchie
Rowling is dead on in using creative dialogue tags, ly adverbs, etc., when writing for children.

Kids love them, appreciate them, and seem to have a much better understanding of the story when such words are used. Kids also use such words when telling a story, and their eyes seem to light up a bit brighter when someone like Rowling writes the way she does..



What empirical proof do you have for this one? I mean, I'm totally with you on sticking to "said" in adult novels, and no one can question that kids love Rowling's books (as do I, and I'm no kid). But what makes you say they love the quirky dialogue tags and adverbs specifically?

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Maybe I can help with this. I'm a teacher, a writer, and I'm in the midst of teaching fiction writing to my high school students. It isn't empirical evidence, but we do know from observation and testing that students who show acceptable and high levels of comprehension of text can point to saidisms as "proof" of how they come to their conclusions. For instance (and an incredibly simplified example), when we assess students we will often ask them to identify a character's emotions based on dialogue, then ask them how they know this. If they say, "He's excited," and we say, "which words lead you to believe he's excited?" they can accurately point to the dialogue tag and say, "It says 'he exclaimed.' 'Exclaimed' means someone's excited." When they are able to do this we can assess their understanding of the vocabulary as well.

(I'd also like to point out that the original poster's referenced website appears to be a teacher's website, sharing some teaching ideas, not a writer's website on how to write better.)

The reason we teach this to younger students is, as has been stated, as a method of improving vocabulary. The best way to improve vocabulary is to show them an interesting way to use it -- and in order to use it, they must seek out more interesting words. Thus you get kids vomiting up the thesaurus. The reason we do *that* is because we're finding it increasingly difficult to get kids interested in writing with any sort of imagery or detail. Most of them just put a piece down on the page in a "then this happened, then this happened" style which is difficult to overcome.

Apparently it can all be traced back to vocabulary building exercises where teachers told students they should replace "said" with other verbs -- but forgot to tell them that they knew as much about writing publishable fiction as my neighbor's dog.

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In defense of the method, I will say this: our intention as teachers is not to train all students to write publishable fiction. It is to engage their attention and interest in their own writing for as long as we have them in school -- because once out of school only a small percentage will continue to write for themselves or others. We do our best to instill some interest in vocabulary itself, so that they will take more interest in it as they read.

That having been said ) ), you might find it comforting to know that many teachers on the middle and high school level are working hard to hone students' skills as they come to us, and to get them out of the habit of this. I am particularly adamant about this in my classes -- but that's because I'm also a writer. Unfortunately, it always seems to come as a surprise to folks that English classes very rarely, if at all, allow time for creative writing any more - even in Honor's Classes. (They usually have to take Creative Writing as an optional class if they want it.) Most of us have to battle to allow time for it -- some of us go behind the curriculum's back to do it . The predominant writing skills being focused on are research, persuasive techniques, and literary analysis, with the occasional allowance for personal essays. This is what the states test them on, this is what we teach. Therefore, when we do get time to do something with them just for the enjoyment of it, we tend to lean toward their love for trivia and experimentation -- which includes learning the coolest, biggest words, and playing with them in writing.

It's not pretty, but there it is. Wish it was different, believe me.

those who never say said are doomed to be rejected - -

Anaparenna said:

Maybe I can help with this. I'm a teacher, a writer, and I'm in the midst of teaching fiction writing to my high school students. It isn't empirical evidence, but we do know from observation and testing that students who show acceptable and high levels of comprehension of text can point to saidisms as "proof" of how they come to their conclusions. For instance (and an incredibly simplified example), when we assess students we will often ask them to identify a character's emotions based on dialogue, then ask them how they know this. If they say, "He's excited," and we say, "which words lead you to believe he's excited?" they can accurately point to the dialogue tag and say, "It says 'he exclaimed.' 'Exclaimed' means someone's excited." When they are able to do this we can assess their understanding of the vocabulary as well.

(I'd also like to point out that the original poster's referenced website appears to be a teacher's website, sharing some teaching ideas, not a writer's website on how to write better.)

The reason we teach this to younger students is, as has been stated, as a method of improving vocabulary. The best way to improve vocabulary is to show them an interesting way to use it -- and in order to use it, they must seek out more interesting words. Thus you get kids vomiting up the thesaurus. The reason we do *that* is because we're finding it increasingly difficult to get kids interested in writing with any sort of imagery or detail. Most of them just put a piece down on the page in a "then this happened, then this happened" style which is difficult to overcome.



In defense of the method, I will say this: our intention as teachers is not to train all students to write publishable fiction. It is to engage their attention and interest in their own writing for as long as we have them in school -- because once out of school only a small percentage will continue to write for themselves or others. We do our best to instill some interest in vocabulary itself, so that they will take more interest in it as they read.

That having been said ) ), you might find it comforting to know that many teachers on the middle and high school level are working hard to hone students' skills as they come to us, and to get them out of the habit of this. I am particularly adamant about this in my classes -- but that's because I'm also a writer. Unfortunately, it always seems to come as a surprise to folks that English classes very rarely, if at all, allow time for creative writing any more - even in Honor's Classes. (They usually have to take Creative Writing as an optional class if they want it.) Most of us have to battle to allow time for it -- some of us go behind the curriculum's back to do it . The predominant writing skills being focused on are research, persuasive techniques, and literary analysis, with the occasional allowance for personal essays. This is what the states test them on, this is what we teach. Therefore, when we do get time to do something with them just for the enjoyment of it, we tend to lean toward their love for trivia and experimentation -- which includes learning the coolest, biggest words, and playing with them in writing.

It's not pretty, but there it is. Wish it was different, believe me.

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Its unfortunate that writing in all its forms is not pushed in the classroom. I can remember my sophomore English teacher (Mrs. Allen) requiring us not only to write stories in her class but require us to do SONNETS on more than one occasion. Talk about discipline.

Regards,
Scott

gp101 said:

What empirical proof do you have for this one? I mean, I'm totally with you on sticking to "said" in adult novels, and no one can question that kids love Rowling's books (as do I, and I'm no kid). But what makes you say they love the quirky dialogue tags and adverbs specifically? What makes you think kids get a better understanding of a story because of these particulars as opposed to creating the mood and/or emotion with narrative and/or dialogue so you only need to use "said" in the end? True, using adverbs and saidisms (or whatever they're called) makes it easier, but does that mean that's what kids prefer? I read as many adult novels as I did "kid" novels when I was a brat--not that I was special because of this--and I don't recall favoring either one because of the usage, or lack of, the word "said".

.

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Experience in writing for kids, listening to kids, and more so than anything, looking at the stories kids most prefer. Very few kids twelve and down read a lot of adult novels, and the most popular novels for kids have always been big on using active dialogue tags, ly words, and modifiers of all sorts.

Rowling hardly invented this style of writing for kids. The most popular children's writers have been doing it forever. I find it very difficult to argue with long success by a multitude of writers. Whether it's Frank Dixon and The Hardy Boys, or Carolyn Keene with Nancy Drew, or R. L. Stine's horror novels for kids, or J. K. Rowling, "said" gets used only now and then. And kids love the books. For me, this is the deciding factor.

I think we do wrong in trying to get kids to read like adults, writing like adults, or think like adults. If the kids love read ng it, and if kids have no comlaints about it, then saying it's wrong just doesn't make any sense. The important thing is that kids love reaidng and love writing, preferably without adults trying to tell them how they should love either.

Using only "said" when writing for adults is fine, but it's also something very easy to do. When these kids get old enough to start writing for adults, I don't think any of them will have problems finding good advice about writing, or will have problems in adjusting to using only "said." But for now, popular children's writers do, and pretty much always have, written in a different style for children. Nor do I think teachers are doing any harm in trying to get kids to write in a way that excites them, and that builds vocabulary in the procees.

This really is a matter of style, not of grammar or punctuation. Styles come and go, and style for children is only the same as style for adults if the adults force it to be so. Not at all a good idea, in my opinion. We already have enough kids who don't like reading or writing without giving them one more reason to avoid both.




I suppose you can write around things, use other description in narrative, go with many things that work for adults, and many kids would get by. But if someone screams, a kid just wants you to say they screamed.

There's a reason most writers for children have always used cretaive dialogue tags, modifiers, and do not shy away from ly word, and the reason is because it works. If it didn't, kids would let you know very quickly. I've seen the eyes of many a child light up when reading such fiction, or when someone else is reading it to them, but in all my years I've never once heard a child say, "I would have liked that story a lot better if the writer had stuck to 'said" in all the dialogue."

I am appalled at the Creative Writing exercises in elementary school classes which involve making up lists of descriptive words.

Well, I can't argue with James A there. I was weaned on the Hardy Boys books, and I'm pretty darn sure those and the Tom Swift books are what got me jonesing on reading. Mind you, my parents were book addicts. We were surrounded by novels and magazines growing up. In fact, if memory serves, the first book that was ever mine was a hardcover copy of Aesop's Fables, given to me as a birthday present by my mother when I was around ten, I think. Wish I still had that book. Lost it in a house fire ages ago.

I'm gonna go feel sorry for myself now.

Its unfortunate that writing in all its forms is not pushed in the classroom.

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I agree. And as a teacher, I'm often forced to have to make difficult choices I'd rather not make between the "validity" and "usefulness" of certain types of writing over others. My only recourse is to make certain they at least experience many types of literature, even if I don't have the time to delve into teaching them how to write it. It's a very bad compromise, mostly one we have to make because we must teach reading AND writing, but only have every other day to do so, on block scheduling.

Jamesaritchie said:

There's a reason most writers for children have always used cretaive dialogue tags, modifiers, and do not shy away from ly word, and the reason is because it works. If it didn't, kids would let you know very quickly. I've seen the eyes of many a child light up when reading such fiction, or when someone else is reading it to them, but in all my years I've never once heard a child say, "I would have liked that story a lot better if the writer had stuck to 'said" in all the dialogue."

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Based on this I will have to bow out to you and take your word for it since I don't write for kids or teach them, and you apparently do both. However... I think you helped bring out my real point which, sadly, like much of my writing, tends to be convuluted and not very clear initially. You wrote:

Jamesaritchie said:

...in all my years I've never once heard a child say, "I would have liked that story a lot better if the writer had stuck to 'said" in all the dialogue."

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Couldn't agree with you more. I was trying to say that, alternately, I doubt any kids have ever said, " I liked that story because of all the fun dialogue tags" which is what your initial post kind of implied to me. Then again, maybe there are kids who think this. I wouldn't know better. I guess I'm just hoping there aren't.

You know, these fancy dialogue tags aren't the devil incarnate. I see them all the time in published novels. Sure, authors use "said" more than anything else, but not exclusively. From what I've seen, most of the time dialogue attribution comes from a snippet of narrative before or after the quote.

gp101 said:

Couldn't agree with you more. I was trying to say that, alternately, I doubt any kids have ever said, " I liked that story because of all the fun dialogue tags" which is what your initial post kind of implied to me. Then again, maybe there are kids who think this. I wouldn't know better. I guess I'm just hoping there aren't.

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Something that I learned from fine arts - no one really knows why they like or dislike something. They just like it or dislike it. Even adults aren't likely to come up with anything like a detailed critical analysis of a book they liked. That's why people spend so much time learning critical analysis skills in college - so that they will be able to identify what works and what doesn't. To expect that level of detail from a kid is probably pretty unreasonable.

Just my 2¢.

Jamesaritchie said:

Experience in writing for kids, listening to kids, and more so than anything, looking at the stories kids most prefer. Very few kids twelve and down read a lot of adult novels, and the most popular novels for kids have always been big on using active dialogue tags, ly words, and modifiers of all sorts.

Rowling hardly invented this style of writing for kids. The most popular children's writers have been doing it forever. I find it very difficult to argue with long success by a multitude of writers. Whether it's Frank Dixon and The Hardy Boys, or Carolyn Keene with Nancy Drew, or R. L. Stine's horror novels for kids, or J. K. Rowling, "said" gets used only now and then. And kids love the books. For me, this is the deciding factor.

I think we do wrong in trying to get kids to read like adults, writing like adults, or think like adults. If the kids love read ng it, and if kids have no comlaints about it, then saying it's wrong just doesn't make any sense. The important thing is that kids love reaidng and love writing, preferably without adults trying to tell them how they should love either.

Using only "said" when writing for adults is fine, but it's also something very easy to do. When these kids get old enough to start writing for adults, I don't think any of them will have problems finding good advice about writing, or will have problems in adjusting to using only "said." But for now, popular children's writers do, and pretty much always have, written in a different style for children. Nor do I think teachers are doing any harm in trying to get kids to write in a way that excites them, and that builds vocabulary in the procees.

This really is a matter of style, not of grammar or punctuation. Styles come and go, and style for children is only the same as style for adults if the adults force it to be so. Not at all a good idea, in my opinion. We already have enough kids who don't like reading or writing without giving them one more reason to avoid both.




I suppose you can write around things, use other description in narrative, go with many things that work for adults, and many kids would get by. But if someone screams, a kid just wants you to say they screamed.

There's a reason most writers for children have always used cretaive dialogue tags, modifiers, and do not shy away from ly word, and the reason is because it works. If it didn't, kids would let you know very quickly. I've seen the eyes of many a child light up when reading such fiction, or when someone else is reading it to them, but in all my years I've never once heard a child say, "I would have liked that story a lot better if the writer had stuck to 'said" in all the dialogue."

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James, I don't contribute the success of those writers to use of adverbs and creative dialogue tags, but rather to well-drawn characters and appealing storylines. You might as well say that Dan Brown is a writer whose style we should all strive for based on the success of The DaVinci Code. While I enjoy the story of that book, I think we can all agree the writing is less than wonderful.

An LJ friend recently attended an SCBWI conference, and editors/publishers from children's houses touted the advice given in Self-Editing for Fiction Writers - get rid of the adverbs and use said; write proper dialogue and use tags as little as possible, make it understood who is speaking. In other words, write well, just as you would for adults.

I follow this advice. That's not to say that I don't use the occasional creative tag, or that there is nary an adverb in my work; but rather that I use them sparingly and only if it sounds like it should be there.

I like the style of Tamora Pierce; much closer to what I strive for. Eoin Colfer's latest Artemis Fowl book left me wanting to throw it across the room, there were so many adverbs it was distracting.

My point? There's a happy medium; find it.

I remember getting the "said is dead" advice back in high school. I tried so hard to replace it and got so frustrated, because it's practically impossible to do without sounding like a... well, like a high school student. Eventually, I made an effort to get rid of tags altogether, because replacing them was too bothersome. Good accidents sometimes happen. But, still... I wish I had been given good advice to begin with.

Sage said:

When you do want to add an adverb to a dialogue tag (for whatever reason), is there a comma between "said" and the adverb?

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"There's no comma," Ray said emphatically.

Anaparenna's post was interesting. I'd never thought about it from a teacher's perspective. I know teachers are often a slave to the curriculum, though.

I just wish there was a way to be honest with the students instead of tricking them into expanding their vocabulary. It would have been more helpful for me to hear, "We are doing this exercise to help expand your vocabulary," rather than, "This is the way you should ALWAYS write."

Like I said, there are a lot of ways to help students expand their vocab without using saidism. Description is a good place to start. Action is another. Instead of "walk slowly" or "run quickly" there are many other words.

I think the bigger issue is that young writers don't know how to effectively convey emotions through action and dialogue, so it's simpler and more effective to write "she said angrily" or "she grumbled." It gets the point across and the student is able to move on with the story. It is, however, essential for that student to learn to improve his or her writing later.

I must have had really crappy teachers, because they never taught me anything I had to unlearn. Of course, even the advanced placement English Teacher wasn't very up on making us write papers, though she did give me a bad grade on a poem because it was only 3 lines long.

I did learn never to use black paint (so insistent on this the teacher popped all the black squares out of the water colors) in art class, but that's also a rule meant to be broken.

AlienEeeter said:

I did learn never to use black paint (so insistent on this the teacher popped all the black squares out of the water colors) in art class, but that's also a rule meant to be broken.

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lol. I was still being told that in college. Though truth be told, I still think it's a good idea to teach that in school. What better way to break through black-or-white thinking than to get rid of black and white?

Power to the artists!

I did learn never to use black paint (so insistent on this the teacher popped all the black squares out of the water colors) in art class, but that's also a rule meant to be broken.

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lol, i learned this too. In fact, my art teacher in high school never wanted us to use white either (I suspected that this was the school's way of saving money). Instead they wanted us to paint in a watery style (with acryllics) and start light working our way to dark by layering the paint. I did try to paint this way but it wouldn't work for me because I can't work in the layering method, I need to paint one part of the canvas at a time, not the entire thing layer by layer, color by color. So I didn't conform and my paintings were thick. I did what I wanted to do and I ended up winning acclaim by being the only art student in my AP art class to receive a 5 on the AP test out of 6 (5 meant you got college credit, anything less meant you didn't and everyone else got a 4 or less).

That's not to say that other students in the class didn't produce beautiful work in the watery method - it just wasn't my style. Their paintings looked translucent, like they would drip off the page, while mine looked full and vibrant. Sorry if I sound arrogant, but I am proud of the work I did and I despised the advice the art teacher gave me. Here they are if you want to see them (some are from college): http://www.shanagrafix.com/html/art.html