She said. He said

Seeing these words in a book pains my poor little heart. I don’t want to say it’s lazy writing because it depends on your audience and target readers are. YA fiction and children’s fiction, fair enough. But in adult fiction aimed at anyone about the age of 17, then I get annoyed.

I will admit I sometimes resort to them when writing the first few drafts because I haven’t quite figured out the reactions of my characters, hence the character profiles I will go into another day! Character action comes in handy when getting rid of ‘said’.

Instead of ending the speech completely, why not back up the speech with body language. No one sits still while talking to people. I know god a fact I don’t, I like to gesture, and facial features come in handy, what are they doing with their eyes, are they avoiding eye contact, nervousness. Are they scowling, smiling, grimacing or have a blank expression. A blank expression used correctly can speak a thousand words for characters. It unnerves the reader to think there is something wrong. It helps the suspicion and perhaps gets across an awkward situation.

#Writing #help #Editing