Is 'said' a good dialogue tag?

 

To make my stance on the issue clear – I prefer a mixture of no dialogue tags and ‘said’. I know not everyone agrees with me, and in fact, I know most of my English teachers do not agree with me, but hear me out.

I’ll start with an example. 

Example 1: Anything but said

It’s the same dialogue, written in four different ways. The first: Here, dialogue tags are used every time, but if ‘said’ can be avoided, it is avoided.

This may not be the best representation of that kind of writing, but that’s mostly because I actively dislike this type of writing. My problem with it is that it leaves nothing to the reader’s imagination. It treats the reader like an idiot. On top of that, it adds emphasis everywhere, dulling the effect for when you really need to hammer the point home.

Example 2: Always said

Here, too, the speaker is indicated every time, and ‘said’ is used except when it’s necessary to use a different dialogue tag.

As far as I am concerned, this is actually better than the previous one. True, it doesn’t demonstrate your superior vocabulary, but the dialogue tag is mostly invisible here. More importantly, the reader can fill in some of the nuance themselves and the text isn't screaming at them all the time.

There is still not perfect, or as perfect as a writing style can be. It’s necessary to indicate the speaker every time. Besides, even an invisible word can start to stand out if it’s overused.

Example 3: Said + no dialogue tags

The third: this avoids dialogue tags when possible, but uses said when you need a dialogue tag to indicate the speaker.

Full disclosure, this is my preferred method. The reader has quite a lot they can fill in, but the gaps in information aren’t so large that they can’t be bridged. I, for one, like to assume that my readers are paying some attention and are intelligent. 

When you need a dialogue tag, you can use something fairly innocuous, like said. When there’s a back and forth between two people and it’s clear that it is the case, you can avoid dialogue tags for, say, a few lines.

But please, for the sake of whatever you believe in, do not have a back and forth conversation of three pages with no reminder of who’s saying what.

About that,

Example 4: There are no dialogue tags

This avoids dialogue tags altogether, instead using action and the rhythm of the conversation to indicate who’s speaking.

This one works too, but it requires quite a bit of work on the reader’s part in order to make sense of what is going on. The reader needs to be paying attention all the time - face it, no writer is that good at pacing. Besides, it’s fine for a ~100 word conversation, but with longer texts, it's easy to lose track of who's saying what. That ambiguity can change the interpretation of a scene completely.

That was my two cents on the topic. Do let me know what you think of it in the comments. 

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See you next time!