Dialogue Tags

Need 'em?

Photo by Irena Carpaccio on Unsplash

This question comes from a subscriber—thank you for letting me know what’s on your mind.

When do you need them? And the question was asked in regard to picturebooks, but we’ll look at it in work for all ages. First, though, a review of dialogue punctuation—that other bug-bear:

He Said, She Said, They Said, Too

The usual response to this is a mumble about “only when you need them,” which has a lot of truth to it. But in the case of writing work that is intended to be read aloud—and picturebooks, early readers, junior chapter books, and many middle-grade novels should be written with “read aloud” in mind—this quality should be considered.