This has been brought up a couple of times before in threads regarding writing style and such, but I'm hoping to see a discussion centered around it anyway. It's not that much a question as an 'asking for your views' topic. So here it goes.
The structure I would like to discuss is this:
1) "Nice to meet you
," he smiled.
I've seen several different views on which verbs should be used in dialogue tags when there is a comma before, and there's a vast number of people who strongly disagree on using verbs like 'smile', 'grin', 'pout' etc., arguing that they don't indicate speech. Instead, they suggest:
a) "Nice to meet you." He smiled.
or
b) "Nice to meet you," he said with a smile.
or something around those lines.
I see their point. But personally, I'd put 'smiled' on structure 1 anytime. It seems to me that it indicates something that goes with the words the speaker said. It's like he had a smile on his lips while he was saying that. Structure a) looks to me like the speaker first said that, then smiled. Structure b) has the same meaning with the one I give to structure 1, but it has an additional 'said'. And since it's unavoidable to use 'said' a good number of times (especially when your fics are dialogue based, like mine usually are), I tend to avoid it when writing.
I should add that it doesn't annoy me at all when I read stories that don't follow this line. I'm not sure I notice, even. But that's what I apply when I write.
So, FoLCs... what are your thoughts on the subject?
See ya,
AnnaBtG.
