Now You See Me, Now You Don't

There are a few suggestions I make to clients that I get a lot of pushback on. Prologues are one of them. Point of view (multiple, omniscient) is another. Surprisingly, to me, dialogue tags are a big point of contention—people want to hold on to their fancy dialogue tags in the worst way.

After taking my advice to switch most of the dialogue tags in her manuscript to “said” and “asked,” a client recently wrote to me with the following concern:

“When I read my manuscript now, my attention is drawn to the dialogue tags. I see ‘said’ and ‘asked’ peppered all over my pages. I’d like to get rid of those. Do I need dialogue tags at all? Do you have any suggestions about other ways to show who is speaking?”

—Worried Writer