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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/6210
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

When different phrasings all have more or less the same meaning, I choose the phrasing that creates the tone or mood I want. For that, I listen to the rhythm, tempo, and sounds. Reading the passage out loud, in context, is a big help here.

Some of your phrasings give cues about the order of events. The temporal arrangement of emotions, actions, and dialogue can create subtext that nicely expresses the character's mood. I got different impressions of the character from each of your "I probably love you" examples. In the first one, he proclaims his love despite his embarrassment. In the second, he seems more breathless and blurting. In the third, he seems embarrassed not by what he is feeling, but by having proclaimed his love, or perhaps by the lack of an immediate response. The fifth gives a rich, more complex mood that I'm not sure how to summarize.

I would probably avoid "he said, after..." The sequence in the text mismatches the sequence in which the events happened. This forces the reader to resequence the events, which is jarring. It can be useful if you're trying to show that the character is disoriented, or is overwhelmed and becoming aware of events out of sequence. But those are very specialized situations.

Original score: 3