Amazing And Heartbreaking

Dialogue Tag Options Other Than "Said"

Writing "said" repeatedly in creative writing projects isn't necessarily bad. "Said" can be an excellent tool to support the flow of your prose. It can function like picture frames on a wall. It adds to your manuscript, but your readers may only read the whole dialogue tag occasionally.

Still, there can definitely be times when "said" gets used too many times in a row. Descriptive dialogue tags can add tension, variety, and depth to crucial moments in your manuscript.

Need a creative boost? Here's an extensive list of dialogue tag options besides "said."

Dialogue Tag Alternatives to "Said"

Acknowledged

Added

Agonized

Agreed

Announced

Apologized

Approved

Articulated

Asserted

Babbled

Backtracked

Bawled

Beamed

Began

Blubbered

Blurted

Bubbled

Called

Chattered

Cheered

Chimed in

Chortled

Chuckled

Commented

Communicated

Conferred

Congratulated

Complimented

Considered

Contended

Cried

Crooned

Declared

Denoted

Drawled

Elaborated

Emitted

Ended

Enunciated

Exclaimed

Expounded

Expressed

Giggled

Greeted

Grinned

Groaned

Gushed

Interjected

Jabbered

Joked

Laughed

Mentioned

Moaned

Mumbled

Noted

Observed

Orated

Persisted

Praised

Predicted

Pronounced

Quipped

Recited

Reckoned

Rejoiced

Related

Remarked

Repeated

Replied

Responded

Sang

Screeched

Shared

Slurred

Stated

Smiled

Snarled

Spat

Suggested

Swore

Thanked

Tittered

Told

Trilled

Urged

Uttered

Yammered

Yelled

Vocalized

Voiced

Other Helpful Resources

Need more inspiration? Here are a few other sources you can check out:

350 Other Words Than Said

Different Words to Use Instead of Said

500 Dialogue Tags Examples

Should You Always Use Dialogue Tags?

You don't have to! Conversations often happen in all genres of creative writing without constant dialogue tags. Once you establish who's saying what, you can format a conversation like this:

"You don't know what you're talking about," Joe said.

"Of course I do," Lucy replied, rolling her eyes. "I only got a Ph. D. in Chemistry."

"From one of the worst universities in the country."

"It's still accredited."

"Your thesis advisor was just arrested for academic fraud!"

"And yet I still passed all my finals."

You can keep up with who's saying what and the tone behind their voices without a tag for each line of dialogue. I wouldn't recommend doing that with every conversation (especially extensive ones) but you can take a break from tags if people are talking rapidly back and forth or if you just want to take a break.

---

You'll know how to handle dialogue tags and descriptors as you practice. Reading your manuscript out loud can also point out when they're clunky or unnecessary. There's a necessary balance to making tags that you'll find more easily with each draft!

I'm the one who ruined me: I did it myself

No Longer Human // Ask Polly: Help, I'm The Loneliest Person In The World! // Franz Kafka // Sue Zhao // Fingertips - Fortesa Latifi // Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky // Juansen Dizon // The Garden of Eden - Ernest Hemingway // On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong

Ladies and their Magic Swords (2019)

Art by: Serge Birault

in another universe

unsung benefit i think a lot of ppl are sleeping on with using the public library is that i think its a great replacement for the dopamine hit some ppl get from online shopping. it kind of fills that niche of reserving something that you then get to anticipate the arrival of and enjoy when it arrives, but without like, the waste and the money.

Fic which focuses on Alfred’s reaction to Jason. He looks like he loves him and he feels like he loves him but when the chips are down Alfred does the necessary thing and walks over his dead grandson’s memory in order to keep his living son functioning. He judges and criticizes Bruce in the privacy of his mind but outwardly he comforts Bruce that there was never anything he could’ve done for the boy, he brought it upon himself. The living must move on peace must be upheld the hatchet must be buried. Alfred nobly grieves dishonestly, until he believes it too. (It’s not very hard.)

And then Jason comes back. He tears at the seams of Bruce that Alfred (and Dick and Tim) so nobly stitched back together. He says no the living need to look, this peace isn’t real, the hatchet is all we have.

And what can Alfred do except continue the lie? What can he do except continue to bury bury bury Jason in a distorted past? Jason is his grandson but Bruce was his son first. Bruce was here. Bruce. Takes precedence. He’s already made his choice. There is no way but forward. He can’t look back.

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

opens box that reads "i wanna draw again". inside lies a note. the note says, "mental illness and difficult circumstances have taken years of interest, accessibility, and skill away from me. i want to forgive myself for that. i want to heal my relationship to my hobbies. i want to feel connected to something that once made me feel good, but the cyclic discouragement is difficult to overcome." i turn over the note. on the back it reads "wannta drawe sexy bodies awooga"