Is it strange/confusing to initiate/introduce a dialogue without a dialogue tag?
In other words, is it strange/confusing to do this?
For the next few seconds, I watched Aiko read the letter with her lips agape---lips that steadily curled up into a smile. A contagious one. Because before realizing it, I found myself smiling too, enjoying a happiness that came from someone else's heart. It was my first time.
A first time that wouldn't last.
"Hey, Daichi." Kiyoshi tapped me on my shoulder.
As opposed of writing: "Hey, Daichi," Kiyoshi said, tapping me on my shoulder.
Why or why not?
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1 answer
The quotation marks themselves provide signal. By then tying the line of dialogue to an action in the same paragraph, it's clear that Kiyoshi is speaking. If anybody else were doing the speaking you'd need to say so, but that's not the case here.
Beginning writers sometimes make the mistake of attaching attribution -- he said, she asked, Bob mumbled, etc -- to every single piece of dialogue. Don't do that; they get in the way when not needed, and if you establish the context they won't be needed very much. (Occasionally you'll need one, especially if more than two people are speaking; I'm not saying to banish them entirely. But you don't have to use them liberally either.)
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