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jagnikjenHow's the writing going today?
~ Cruising right along...
~ Making decent progress...
~ Eh, it could be better...
~ What?? This drivel can't be called writing...
~ Writing?? Ha ha ha ha ha...I wish.
Discussion topic...
Elmore Leonard that, in writing dialogue, qualifying "s/he said" with an adverb (softly, angrily, gravely, etc.) is practically always a no-no ... nay, a downright abomination. This is widely cited as a standard for good writing, along with the principle that one should almost never use dialogue tags or attributions other than "said" (e.g. he snarled, he growled, he barked, etc...) that many fic authors are prone to using. The reasoning is that dialogue should speak for itself, and the use of emotionally charged/descriptive attributions and adverbs breaks up the rhythm, clutters up the dialogue, and distracts attention from what the characters are saying. Some people follow the "said is the only acceptable dialogue tag" rule so religiously that they even frown on asked as a tag for a question.
On the other hand, there are many who disagree and think that this is an excessive generalization that seeks to force all writers into the same mold and is based on far-from-universal standards of what good writing should be. As someone recently wrote in an essay on this topic, "Not everyone wants to write like Elmore Leonard, and not everyone should."
Where do you stand on this? If you are a writer, do you try to avoid or minimize your use of adverbs and descriptive dialogue tags? Do you tend to use them but consider it a flaw in your writing? Or do you use them a lot and think it's perfectly fine and the so-called rules of good writing are arbitrary and stupid? Or are you somewhere in the middle?
~ Cruising right along...
~ Making decent progress...
~ Eh, it could be better...
~ What?? This drivel can't be called writing...
~ Writing?? Ha ha ha ha ha...I wish.
Discussion topic...
Elmore Leonard that, in writing dialogue, qualifying "s/he said" with an adverb (softly, angrily, gravely, etc.) is practically always a no-no ... nay, a downright abomination. This is widely cited as a standard for good writing, along with the principle that one should almost never use dialogue tags or attributions other than "said" (e.g. he snarled, he growled, he barked, etc...) that many fic authors are prone to using. The reasoning is that dialogue should speak for itself, and the use of emotionally charged/descriptive attributions and adverbs breaks up the rhythm, clutters up the dialogue, and distracts attention from what the characters are saying. Some people follow the "said is the only acceptable dialogue tag" rule so religiously that they even frown on asked as a tag for a question.
On the other hand, there are many who disagree and think that this is an excessive generalization that seeks to force all writers into the same mold and is based on far-from-universal standards of what good writing should be. As someone recently wrote in an essay on this topic, "Not everyone wants to write like Elmore Leonard, and not everyone should."
Where do you stand on this? If you are a writer, do you try to avoid or minimize your use of adverbs and descriptive dialogue tags? Do you tend to use them but consider it a flaw in your writing? Or do you use them a lot and think it's perfectly fine and the so-called rules of good writing are arbitrary and stupid? Or are you somewhere in the middle?
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