Susan roooooocks.

Your mileage - whether reading or writing - may definitely vary. I have a dislike for "said" being used in every piece of dialogue; I find it particularly infuriating and pointless when there are only two characters on a scene. As in:

Thom and Billy, alone in the vast boardroom, stared down at the city lights.

"I'm going to Memphis tomorrow," Billy said. "It's time."

"I agree," Thom said. "Someone has to deal with it."

"I should probably go home and pack," Billy said.

Um, yo? Two characters in conversation. I am a grownup, who can follow dialogue. MUST you tell me which character is speaking, every single time?

edit: pssst, Susan, check your spellings. It's "excruciatingly": c not t.

It's correct in the manuscript. Though, now that I remember it, I typed it wrong there the first time, and Word helpfully underlined it in red.

(I have to give Word credit where it's due, since I bitch about it so much.)

I have a dislike for "said" being used in every piece of dialogue; I find it particularly infuriating and pointless when there are only two characters on a scene.

Oh, I agree. I only use it as often as I think it needs to be there to keep who's speaking clear. Because it's equally a pet peeve of mind to lose track of who said what and have to go back to the last attribution and put in the "he saids" and "she saids" myself.

I'd rather see a writer use illustrative actions in conversation than simply state "he said" "she said", anyway.

I try to mix them fairly evenly, though action tags are another thing that are second draft or beyond for me. They're just not one of the things that come to me early in the process.

What are action tags?

I find that if I'm seeing the character, I'm seeing them from moment one, and knowing whether they're sighing or stretching or feeling guilty or sneaking a look over someone's shoulder is part of that for me.

I can't do broad sketches on a character, and fill things in later; I just don't work that way.

Are action tags all the fancy words for "said"? He shouted, she spat, they ejaculated?

Are action tags all the fancy words for "said"? He shouted, she spat, they ejaculated?

Said means said. It means, spoke. Words coming out of a human being's mouth; a specific physical action.

When I say illustrative action, I mean I'd rather two parts of a character's spoken thoughts be broken by an illustration of what they're doing rather than by the author telling me they're speaking.

Such as

"Damn!" Jane glared across the kitchen at the cereal bowl, heaped to the brim with granola. "I can't believe I forgot to buy milk again."

rather than

"Damn!" Jane said (or remarked or shouted or whatever). "I can't believe I forgot to buy milk again."

"Jane said", to me, is lazy and incomplete in this instance. She could be anyone. There's nothing of the woman in the author informing me, the reader, that the character said something.

I want to be shown.

"Damn!" Jane glared across the kitchen at the cereal bowl, heaped to the brim with granola. "I can't believe I forgot to buy milk again."

And that's what I mean by action tags.

I find that if I'm seeing the character, I'm seeing them from moment one, and knowing whether they're sighing or stretching or feeling guilty or sneaking a look over someone's shoulder is part of that for me.

Well, I'm well aware I have what's perhaps the world's least visual brain. I hear my characters a lot more than I see them, except on rare occasions. Though I've gotten to where I can naturally and vividly visualize things up to 25% of the time instead of more like 5%, so maybe I'm getting better. But I'm fighting my brain's hardwiring on this one.

But I'm fighting my brain's hardwiring on this one.

Tricky, that must be (why am I talking like Yoda?). I'm sorry, Susan. I'd imagine that anything that helps is a Good Thing; I can't imagine not being able to see my characters, but it isn't really a head thing with me, it's a pit of stomach thing. I trust that hugely and without reservation - it's where my creative instincts tend to cluster.