Never use a verb

 

“Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in.”

I saw Elmore Leonard’s piece about creative writing and liked the sentence so much I read the rest. (I have read it before and agree with most of it.) Other authors say similar things, and sometimes they way they say it is entertaining.

It took me a while to know when I needed to use the verb “said” at all. So many times, particularly if only two characters are in the scene, the tag is not needed. I think I’ve got it now.

Sometimes I long to go back and re-edit all my earlier titles, but will have to stay as a record of my learning process. Ten times 70k words is 7ook and to read through that lot with a correcting pen would take maybe longer than I still have on earth!