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.

Well, I'm probably making it sound worse than it is. I have a perfectly good mental image of all my major and most of my minor characters, it's just that my mental pictures aren't very panoramic, and when the dialogue is really flowing for me, it's like when you close your eyes to concentrate on a piece of music. The visual side almost fades out--I can imagine the expressions on their faces, and how near or far they are from each other, but that's about it. So I layer the rest in on rewrite.

I'm finding it easier to imagine visuals for Anna's story than I ever did for Lucy's, but I don't know if that's my growth as a writer or just that it's a better story.

It's not the panorama I'm talking about - it's the minutiae of a character. When I see a character, I'm seeing them as a human being, complete and whole. That includes how they move, how they react, what pushes their buttons.

Dialogue is nice, but I've never found a book where I thought the dialogue carried it.

Well, that's why I rewrite. I'm stuck with the brain and imagination I have, and since in most ways they serve me well, I'm prepared to learn to compensate for their limitations.

I mean, what can I do? My brain is as it is. I think I've got enough strengths as a writer that it'd be foolish of me to stop because of the weaknesses.

Well, if you're a writer, the point is moot, since you couldn't stop even if you wanted to.

But this is an old, old discussion; writers write. All different.

I seem to have been lucky in that the little fidgets and bits of business that people do when they're talking come fairly naturally.

I've probably got half a dozen writers' books, all told, some of which I wish I hadn't put down money for, but all of them at least have one nifty bit of advice that I hadn't thought of before. Hence actually sitting down with them and distilling them into a notebook.

And then I'll be able to write my own writer's guide!

Well, I don't know about that. I didn't write a word of fiction while I was in college, then stopped again between 1997 and 2001. And the project I started in 2001 was the first one of any length I actually finished. But there's certainly nothing I feel more compelled to do, nor anything I love in quite the same way.

And I'm happy with the work I'm doing now. It's satisfying to write and, I think, to read. It's got me by the throat.

I didn't say a writer wrote all day and all night, Susan. Just that we wrote. I stopped writing for ten years, remember? After deciding I'd had enough of the industry, as it was being run in the hands of a select few of those pesky gatekeepers.

Here I am, though.