I feel you. It kinda reminds me of the little snippets I put in my own writing. My characters just have jumbled trains of thought, and I find I like that more than sounding like you just wrote a really important speech. Take for example, Nethhemar from Of Blood and Steel.
“It feels like I got into a drunken fight with a bear, after imbibing a metric fuckton of whiskey. A fight in which the bear dragged me through a forest , and then knocked me out with a tree. And I don’t mean running me into it, oh no. More like chucking a literal tree at my face. Ugh, I think that sums it up.
It’s not like the place I woke up in is good for a bear-whiskey induced hangover either. This is not my idea of a good start to the night;day? Ah. I mean, at least I’m waking up though. Beggars can’t be choosers, especially when said beggar is in a cell that smells like something died in it. Oh, wait. Something did, and it’s called that-guy-in-the-corner. Eugh”
I like it when my characters feel more like people than fantastical creatures that I could never meet. At least I hope that’s what Nethhemar sounds like O-O.
My big thing is I hate, ABSOLUTELY HATE, is having the same word in like, the same paragraph. If I’m sitting here describing something I cant use the same word twice.
“My feet ghosted over the cold stone slabs… My head slammed against the floor, painfully cracking into chilly rocks.” I would do something like that, than use stone again. Then I would go on to not use floor, instead using like ground or something. It’s a vicious cycle and I cri evertiem.
I have an embarrassing story about reading what I write out loud. I was staying over at my moms, trying to make my main character sound genuinely distressed as I would be. So, I spent an hour just testing ways of saying her lines and trying out tones when, my mom comes in with her bf, and I mean into my room and is like. “Are you talking to yourself?”
Me:Pfffbt no. silently crying in embarrassment.
Mom: gives mom look like, child you are insane, and closes the door
It was awful.
I am a strong proponent of using “said” practically each time. I am of the camp that “said” is invisible as an attribution word, and using other words gets annoying. If you start doing “they remarked” and “he uttered” and “she replied” you get tired of those, and before you know it, you are having your characters thunder and whimper things.
And then, if you are writing a particular sort of Victorian style novel, you may even have your character ejaculate something. “Good heavens!” he ejaculated.
There are definitely a few situations where it feels like there’s cause for a word other than ‘said.’ But, none come to mind, and it certainly isn’t wise to do what writers are often tempted to do…find a different word for ‘said’ every single time.
Me. Literally me. My second word issue applies to this too, I’m sittin here like. NO!! WOE IS ME!! I HATH USED SAID TWICE IN ONE CHAPTER AHHHHH!! IT BURNS…
It sucks.
Ah yes, I suffer from the double-word curse too. It’s especially bad because I’m prone to long-winded poetic descriptions (that no-one ever wants to read) and there’s only so many times you can find reasons substitute words before it becomes purple prose.
The way I try to fix it is to switch to a different sense for descriptive purposes, or to just cut down the damn size. I always edit out at least 50% after the first draft.
One thing that, personally, helps me a lot in making my characters sound 1. unique, 2. realistic and 3. entertaining is to write a detailed paragraph about how certain characters talk split into three sections - dialect/slang and more, way of handling a conversation, which is about how the character reacts to certain situations, not how he phrases them and way of talking, which refers to whether someone uses softspoken words or is rather harsh in their choice of words.
That way you can come up with the person who never uses short forms, someone who tends to add rather insignificant sounds like ‘heh’ to their conversation, people that prefer short or longer sentences and act accordingly to their prefered talking style. I do that with all of my characters.
Of course, that isn’t 100% realistic, but it is still a lot more realistic than a cardboard cutout way to let everyone talk. Give the flashy guy colourful words, let the hyper girl reply with short bursts of sound. I really, really love this to give my characters a lot of personality by their way of talking alone.
I’m not a proponent of “said” alone; a bit of thundering and whimpering can enliven prose nicely.
I appreciate the authorly argument that says there’s always some way to convey tone without using a deprecated, too-colorful verb. And I admire writers who try; but not the Dogme-style insistence that all other artists ought to share the austerity.
The sooner editorial style fashions change back so authors are allowed to use moderate quantities of said-synonyms without shame, the happier I’ll be.
I’m in the camp that favors mostly “said.” It suffices to establish who’s speaking without sticking out too harshly. (Though I’d argue that “asked” is also fairly invisible.) Too many uses of alternative verbs for speaking make them watered down and less effective.
As the flip side of that, alternative verbs can be quite useful for effect. (Well, and there’s things like “whispered” where the volume might not otherwise be conveyed.) I’d just advise using them sparingly, and avoiding relying on them. I’ve also seen plenty of cases where they end up redundant, just another way of stating the same thing the dialog already shows, and therefore end up stealing the dialog’s thunder.
However, I would like to draw attention to another form of tag: character actions. It’s possible to show more of what characters are thinking, feeling, and doing, if you include things like “She paced down the corridor” or “he paused his embroidery to look over his handiwork.” Not only does this serve the same purpose of showing who’s speaking, and not only can it provide a subtler way of demonstrating tone, but it also helps keep the characters from feeling like they’re existing in a vacuum. A scene in which people are doing something and interacting with their environment is a scene in which they become embodied, an active part of their world, providing room to show off more of your setting as background, and to help immerse your reader.
