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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/45260
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

When posting an excerpt of my book on a critiquing site, someone commented on my use of "hahaha" inside the dialogue instead of just having a laughing verb after or before it. They said it took them out of the reading. Obviously, this is subjective, so rather I will ask this:

Which alternative is the most popular and professional? Which do you see the most in writing?

The answers to this question said to use speech tags. But I thought this was bad, and within the phenomenon called _filtering_. In [another question](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/34417/how-to-avoid-using-he-she-it-repetitively-in-action), a user taught me about this, and I've tried to take it to heart.

I thought the alternative was a separate line under, like this.

> -That's so funny!
> 
> A thundering laugh rolled out of him.

Instead of:

> -That's so funny, Mick laughed.

The latter having _filtering_, in the way there's a "Mick laughed" in between the dialogue and the rest of the text.

So, I thought the alternatives were "hahaha" and having this separate line under. The problem is, which someone once told me, having specification for the dialogue at **a later time** isn't good, because it often makes the reader have to go back. The person said this in relation to not including name tags after the dialogue, but I believe it applies to the **way** dialogue is uttered, as in if it is laughed or said normally.

Original score: 13