Speech tags: a defence

‘Oh no,’ she moaned sadly. ‘I overdid the speech tags again!’

Well, I may have done. The editor can take them out if absolutely necessarily. Thing is, contrary to the advice of those who would obliterate them on principle, I quite like speech tags in moderation. Characters of mine have frequently growled, and in extreme cases the large blokey ones have been moved to grate, though I’m not really keen on that one. And none of my characters have ever vocalised, quoth or ejaculated (as far as I can remember). I have some standards.

Smiling I think is a borderline case. It often gets used as an example of bad speech tagging, along with frowning and grimacing. I agree the latter are no good, because they’re physically impossible. But if you smile while articulating a word, it does slightly affect the sound. Not very much though, so I try to keep smiles on the lips and out of the vocal chords.

But my characters groan and mutter and yell and scold, all right. Sometimes, speech tags really do contribute to the story. Consider the following:

‘I’m sorry!’ he whispered.
‘I’m sorry!’ he snapped.
‘I’m sorry!’ he cried.

If you ditch the tag and use ‘said’ in any of the above cases, you lose something. I suppose the contrary argument is that you should be able to imply the character’s feelings by some other, subtler means. I don’t always see why, if a – well-chosen – speech tag does it in one.

When waving the stick of editorial office I take out speech tags when they are piling up too thickly, but I don't make a point of it unless necessary.

‘I won’t condemn all speech tags sight unseen!’ she concluded defiantly.

Ah, behold my deliberately overcooked adverbs. I use those things on occasion too. Just not (except here) with descriptive speech tags.