Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related I don't want to say say again...

Hi! This might be a German problem and maybe we're just all galactically stupid, but when it comes to dialogues I clearly remember that I lack words ( in my own language that is, I better not talk about the gray hairs this has caused me in English )

Getting to the point...

Would anybody, apart fom me be interested in a list of words that can be used to describe speech?

I start with it and maybe other people can come up with other brilliant ideas

Normal way of saying something

- to say
- to add
- to mutter
- to mumble
- to retort
- to utter

Question:

- to ask
- to inquire
- to want to know

Loud way of saying something:

- to shout
- to yell

That is as much as I can think of, now. Any takers?

Hey,

here are some more that I can think of:

to reply
to mean
to answer
to remark
to observe
to comment
to state
to call
to respond
to return

I hope this helps.

Thanks Pennyfeather. But I think we have to remove to mean. That's a Germanism. As far as i know you can't use it in this context.

to scream
to whisper

My 10th grade (age 15) English teacher once gave us all a list of synonyms/alternatives for the word "said." I'll see if I can dig it up.

Eureka! Pay dirt!

Here goes (all this is in past tense, since that's what stories are usually written in):

acknowledged
added
admitted
advised
affirmed
agreed
announced
answered
argued
asserted
assured
avowed
bellowed
blurted
bragged
cautioned
challenged
claimed
conceded
concluded
confessed
continued
corrected
cried
decided
declared
demanded
denied
disclosed
divulged
emphasized
estimated
explained
gasped
growled
grunted
hinted
insisted
interjected
interrupted
joked
lied
maintained
mentioned
mumbled
murmured
offered
ordered
panted
plead
pointed out
prayed
proclaimed
promised
proposed
protested
quipped
ranted
related
reminded
repeated
replied
reported
revealed
shouted
sighed
speculated
stated
stipulated
theorized
threatened
uttered
volunteered
warned
whimpered
whispered
wondered
yelled

whispered
grumbled
gasped
laughed
chuckled
giggled

questioned
ranted

exclaimed
bellowed

A good way to find an alternative to "say" or "ask" (or "shout") is to go to Thesaurus.com and type in "say" or "ask" or "shout" - you'll get lots and lots of choices.

Just for "say" you get:
add, affirm, allege, announce, answer, assert, break silence*, claim, communicate, conjecture, convey, declare, deliver, disclose, divulge, do, estimate, express, flap*, gab*, give voice*, guess, imagine, imply, jaw, judge, lip*, maintain, make known, mention, opine, orate, perform, pronounce, put forth, rap*, read, recite, rehearse, relate, remark, render, repeat, reply, report, respond, reveal, rumor, speak, spiel*, state, suggest, tell, utter, verbalize, voice, yak*

The ones in italics either don't work for active speech, or are awkward to phrase - ie,

"Maybe it's Lex Luthor," Clark conjectured.
"Hey, what if it's that Asabi guy?" Jimmy put forth.
"No, wait - here it is in this fax - it's Mindy Church," Lois read.

These all sound kind of awkward or contrived (to me, anyway). The rest, though, all work okay, depending on what your characters are saying.

And that's just the first entry, for "say." Under that entry, there's "add" with it's synonyms, a few of which would work quite well, then "answer" and "articulate" (and so on), with quite a few more synonyms that would work.

I use Thesaurus.com a lot, when I'm trying to avoid too much repetition - so much so that it's listed as one of my main references in the author's notes at the end of my current story.


'Toc

The problem with using lots of different words to avoid the word "said" is that eventually it starts sounding worst than using the word.

I prefer to use "said" and "asked", unless there's a good reason not to, but use them sparingly. For example, here's a conversation between a couple of characters in a Doctor Who story I wrote recently. For various reasons this particular story was in the present tense so "says" rather than "said" and "asks" rather than "asked", but I think it makes the point reasonably well:
So in 16 lines of dialogue I've used "asks" twice and "says" six times, at least a couple more times than it was really needed. If they're used that sparingly they aren't obtrusive.

OT - Marcus, where do you post your Doctor Who fic? I didn't know you wrote in that fandom - I do too, and I don't remember seeing that story posted anywhere I frequent.

The main Who archive, if you don't know it, is A Teaspoon and an Open Mind , and I post just about all my DW fic there, as well as on some LiveJournal communities and my own DW site.

(And Jackie in a nightie - definitely scary We know Nine thought so the first time he saw her )

Anyway... back on topic. I agree: using too many synonyms for say/said can detract from the story by dragging the reader's attention to your speech tags rtaher than the story itself. Using 'beats' - actions, as Marcus did in his example - is a good way to avoid speech tags altogether.

And in any case, a couple of the words on that list aren't speech tags at all, because they're not synonyms for active speaking - such as 'sighed', 'read' and 'laughed'. You may do these things together with speaking, but they don't actually imply speaking. 'Blurted', also, is incorrect on its own; it needs to be 'blurted out'.


Wendy

I've written two Dr. Who stories, they're both Buffyverse crossovers, posted to several sites including A Teaspoon and an Open Mind . The second one is the one I've quoted, but you really need to read the first for it to make sense. Also, they're set in a slightly AU Buffyverse future history I first wrote about some time ago, the easy way to get into them is to follow this link which takes you to an introduction and explains what it's all about.

I knew that there was a technical term for doing this, but I couldn't remember it.

There's a lovely essay on said-avoidance by the SF author James Blish, writing as William Atheling, giving some horrendous examples he'd found in stories. It isn't on line, it's in one of several books of criticism he wrote, I think The Issue At Hand or More Issues At Hand; they're both now pretty rare, but larger libraries may have them. The examples he gives include "He tinned," a verb that is normally only applied to soldering but was apparently used to describe the speech of a robot...

Oh, I have no objection to using the words "said," "asked," or "yelled." I just think it's nice to have a little variety now and then.

I mix up my dialogue like you do, Marcus (also including actions or just not having tags at all in between), only instead of using "says" (or said) six times and "asks" (asked) twice when I'd put them, I might use "asked" once, "said" twice, plus a "queried," a couple of "reiterateds," and maybe even an "intoned." Or whatever speech verb I think fits the best--because sometimes, "said" just DOESN'T FIT into the context of the sentence--or the conversation. And sometimes, the simple "said," "asked," or "yelled" is the ONLY word that will fit.

In other words:

It's important not to be afraid to use "said," yes.

But it's also important not to bore the readers to death (or to let your story get stilted from lack of variety in the prose) with the same exact speech verbs whenever a speech verb is called for.

Aha! Found you on the Teaspoon now, Marcus. I know why I never noticed your fic before - I generally avoid crossovers Usually it's because I'm not a fan of the crossed series, and that's the case here. I never watched Buffy, nor had any interest in watching it. But I did read your two fics, and left you a review


Wendy

How about...
barked
hissed
stammered
stuttered
wailed
whined

I have nothing against using another word than "said" occasionally, or if the situation demands it ("he whispered" etc.), I just don't see much point in going out of my way to do so if there's no need, and I really feel that doing so too often can be annoying, to the point where I've occasionally stopped reading stories that do it to excess.

By an odd coincidence I've just started converting a 1904 book called D'Ordel's Pantechnicon into an e-text. I say an odd coincidence because the Pantechnicon is a satire on magazine publishing of the period, and it turns out that one of the things in it is a "printer's dictionary of serial adventure phrases," set out as a sort of flow chart of alternative words. Needless to say this includes a list of 66 alternatives to "said" and "asked..."

I've not reached that point in the OCR yet, but as soon as I have it on line I'll post a link. Maybe I should add that the sample story written using this method is DREADFUL!