Attributives in dialogue
I normally stick with "he said" and "she said" to keep things simple and transparent to the reader but wondering about questions. Is "she asked" and "he asked" appropriate when a character asks a question? Can "he said" and "she said" be okay attributives for questions?
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'Asked' is generally not considered a said-bookism by most editors and readers AFAIK. In fact, I always use it when a character is asking a question. Because something like "'But how can that be?' he said." sounds wrong to me.
An aside related to comments on @LaurenIpsum 's answer: I only use the following:
- said - always
- asked - always for questions
- yelled, called - only when the scene won't work if the character delivers his line at normal volume
- interjected - when one character cuts off another mid sentence, but even then, rarely.
Edit: I also use "replied" occasionally.
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Sounds fine to me. But then, I don't object to a judicious use of synonyms for "said," either. (grumbled, snarled, sighed, snickered, hinted, etc.)
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They're fine; they certainly aren't an error. If a particular use sounds awkward, don't hesitate to drop attribution entirely (it's often still quite clear who's talking, because most conversations are dialogue, so it's whoever wasn't talking the previous paragraph), or to move the attribution up to earlier in the line:
"But why would any of all that," he said, "explain how late you were to the party?"
This removes the incongruous sense of using "said" for a question, because it puts distance between the attributive and the question mark.
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