Thursday, November 03, 2005

Said substitutes

When writing dialog it's okay to use "said" when you want to help the reader keep track of who's speaking. In fact it calls too much attention to your writing. rather than keeping the attention on the story, if you try to use a lot of different words instead of said.

But sometimes characters are "blustering" and "cooing" and "lisping" and occasional use of them can add some sparkle to the story and the character.

Write the alphabet down the side of the page. For each letter come up with as many different ways to say "said" as you can.

1 comment:

Joyce Fetteroll said...

Deb’s list:

announced
breathed
cajoled
deferred
echoed
fielded
gushed
hissed
insisted
joked
kvetched ; )
lamented
mentioned
noted
offered
pondered
queried
responded
stammered
teased
urged
vented
warned
yammered
zinged

Jill’s list:

announced
barked
called
drooled
escalated
frothed
gabbed
howled
issued
jowled
kilovolted
lamented
mewed
nagged
ordered
pooped
quaked
roared
spewed
trumpeted
uttered
versed
whispered
xiphoided
yodeled
zinged

Nichole’s list:

annunciated, added, admitted, ameliorated, argued
bellowed, bounced, beckoned,
crowed, coughed, crooned,
drawled, digressed
estimated, examined,
fumbled, frowned, fished, fawned, faltered,
grumbled, guffawed
hinted, haggled
intimated, initiated,
joked, jabbed, jested
kvetched
lamented, lingered
meandered, moaned, murmured
nudged, noticed,
oozed, overstated, over-emphasized,
poo-pooed, pried, pantomimed, pacified
questioned, quacked, quibbled, quipped, queried
reasoned, reminisced, renounced, reaffirmed, regressed
slurred, stammered, seethed, stuttered
thought-out-loud,
undulated,
volunteered, venerated
whispered, waffled, wallowed, wondered, wandered
x
yammered, yelled, yodeled,
z

My list:

argued
bellowed, blustered, breathed
cried, cooed, cautioned, cackled, croaked, called
effused
fluttered
gagged, gulped, groaned
howled, hooted, hissed, hinted, huffed, hushed
joked
kidded
laughed
muttered, moaned
nattered
panted
questioned
roared, ragged
sighed, shushed, screamed, stuttered, sang, shouted
tattled, told, tittered
ululated
voiced
wondered, warbled
yelled, yelped, yodeled
zoned

Here’s the list from the page where I got the idea. (It was a rather schoolish site so unfortunately I didn’t save it to give it credit.)

argued
bellowed
cajoled
declared
exclaimed
fretted
guessed
howled
inquired
jeered
kibitzed
lamented
muttered
noted
objected
protested
questioned
repeated
stated
taunted
uttered
vouched
whimpered
yelled
zinged