Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/25766
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I am surprised by the vehemence of many writers' objection to said-bookisms -- the practice of using a verb other than "said" or "asked" in order to convey dialog. Writers are told you can't hiss an entire sentence nor laugh one either.

I feel like this is crippling writers in terms of semantics and inflection. Semantically, 'said' is a verb now primarily used as a placemarker to identify the speaker. Yet it doesn't add any inflection to what is written. We are told to contort our natural dialogue so the reader can understand what is written, in order to work around the need for nonstandard dialogue tags. Alternatively, we are urged to use of a never ending stream of 'said' or 'asked' because they are invisible to the readers.

Other than Groupthink and 'because Stephen King doesn't like them,’ how did bookisms fall so far out of favor in current writing? Why did great writers of the past have no trouble using them, but today they are viewed as a sign of an amateur writer?

Original score: 12