The day I realized I'd been writing dialogue tags completely backwards for 3 years

I was at a writing workshop last month and someone pointed out that all my characters sound like they're giving speeches. Turns out I was putting the action tag BEFORE the dialogue every single time, like 'She sighed and said, I don't know.' My mentor showed me how much more natural it reads to just let the dialogue flow first and tag it after. It was one of those forehead slap moments. Has anyone else had a basic writing rule click way later than it should have?

3 comments

3 Comments

kevin_west16d ago

Three years man, that is a tough one but I bet it feels good to finally catch it. In my experience, that exact thing with dialogue tags is one of those weird blind spots that can stick around forever. I had a similar forehead slap moment about show don't tell, where I was literally writing 'he felt angry' instead of describing his clenched fists or the way his jaw tightened. I remember a beta reader circling every single emotion word in a chapter and it was basically all of them, like 15 in a row. The fix was so simple, just let the action or body language do the talking without labeling it, and it changed everything. Your mileage may vary obviously, but once you see it you can't unsee it and your writing will feel way more alive.

shanelee16d agoMost Upvoted

Find myself nodding along because this blind spot thing pops up in all sorts of places, not just writing. Once you learn to spot a pattern in one area, you start seeing it everywhere. I noticed it with how I give directions, used to say "turn left at the big oak tree" but nobody knew which big oak tree I meant. Had to learn to be specific, say "turn left at the second stop sign after the gas station". Same principle as dropping the emotion words and picking better details instead. It's like your brain has these default settings that need overriding, and once you catch one, you start finding them in everything you do.

torres.grant16d ago

The big oak tree thing hit close to home. I once told someone to "turn at the crooked mailbox" and they ended up three blocks away looking at every mailbox like a weirdo.