He Said, She Said

Framing accessible dialogue.

I can't read good.

It's been a long time since I tested, but I am confident that I'm in a reasonably high percentile for literacy. However, I am not a strong reader. As far as I know, it's not dyslexia (my spelling is impeckable (that's a joke)) but I often have difficulty following sentences and sometimes have to read paragraphs two or three times to make sure I didn't miss any words.

When I see strings of untagged exchanges between characters, it is possibly the single biggest challenge to get through of any stylistic choice.

What is the problem?

Here's a small example to help demonstrate the style of dialogue in question, so we’re all on the same page:

“Where are we going for dinner?” Jane asked.
“How about El Gallo Hermoso?” John said.
“I don't think I can handle Mexican tonight.”
“It's Tuesday. We could do happy hour at Morocco Lounge.”
“We’ll never get downtown in time.”
“It doesn't have to be happy hour. Do you still want to go?”

Yes, the writing is terribly bland. I don't have time to develop a whole setting and write complicated backstories just to get you invested in this example. We're also not evaluating the dialogue itself, just the presentation.

Because the speakers aren't labeled, I have already lost track of who is talking by the time we're going downtown. If I were sufficiently inducted in the premise, I might follow along with a bit more ease, but it still requires extra effort. I might have to read back multiple times to double check, hold up fingers with each switch to follow along, or just actively alternate the speaker label in my head as I read, when it could have been there on the page for me.

Additionally, this style of dialogue exchange presumes a world free of distractions where one never has a reason to look away from the page and break the flow of recognition between the speakers. If you have to put the book down in the middle of a scene, you might want to read back anyway, but it's an extra challenge to pick up from the line you paused on when it's become a nebulous wash of phrases.

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash

The scene probably looks just like this.

One step above this, and scarcely more helpful, is using pronouns with each quotation:

“Where are we going for dinner?” Jane asked.
“How about El Pollo Hermoso?” John said.
“I don't think I can handle Mexican tonight,” she said.
“It's Tuesday. We could do happy hour at Morocco Lounge,” he said.
“We’ll never get downtown in time,” she said.
“It doesn't have to be happy hour. Do you still want to go?” he asked.

I can't personally recall seeing this style in a book, but I have seen it referenced in discussions. It’s a bit clunkier than unattributed passages while still providing very little context. If you’re going to employ tags at all, you may as well make them specific.

At the highest level of attribution, we have a name attached to each quotation:

“Where are we going for dinner,” Jane asked.
“How about El Pollo Hermoso?” John said.
“I don't think I can handle Mexican tonight,” Jane said.
“It's Tuesday. We could do happy hour at Morocco Lounge,” John said.
“We’ll never get downtown in time,” Jane said.
“It doesn't have to be happy hour. Do you still want to go?” John asked.

Maybe it reads like a chapter book and it's perhaps less quick and punchy, but at least one can effortlessly follow the action of the scene. Also, ideally, characters should occasionally do something in addition to speaking, but more on that another time. In any event, including the speaker’s name adjacent to all their dialogue is going to help readers like me who can struggle to process the words.

“But I don't like that.”

Counter points to the impression that this is “bad”:

1. It's eliminates any possible confusion over which character is speaking.

2. Editors who hate adverbs often make the point that the word “said” becomes invisible to the reader. I argue that the names here enter a similar space and can be skimmed over if you don’t need them.

Naturally, you will make the stylistic choices that you feel best suited to your work, but I advocate for making those choices consciously, not just falling into a pattern without acknowledging the tradeoffs and how it might impact the reader.

Remember that this is only one facet of presenting a conversation to the reader. In a much longer, more heated article (or possibly series of articles), we’ll expand this discussion into things such as action tags, the usefulness of adverbs, and the kinds of places where “said” falls short, because characterization is actually showing and telling isn’t a cardinal sin anyway.

First one’s free, kid. No content in this article series is legal advice.