Believable dialogue

This. When an author relies heavily on adverbs in speech tags (or indeed fancy verbs - "he sniped", "she exaggerated") it leaves me feeling that they don't have confidence in the dialogue they've written. It's a "show, don't tell" thing.
IME fancy adverbs/speech verbs are more useful for indirect speech, where they're replacing dialogue.

I like adverbs and fancy verbs - it may be a juvenile way to write, but I think they add flavor to the story. Hell, I haven't even been writing 6 months. I am still an infant working my way up to juvenile.

I have two stories in the pipeline. When I am done with those, I will experiment with sparser dialog commentary. Obviously, there is a consensus building that points to another, possibly better, way.
 
I like adverbs and fancy verbs - it may be a juvenile way to write, but I think they add flavor to the story. Hell, I haven't even been writing 6 months. I am still an infant working my way up to juvenile.

I have two stories in the pipeline. When I am done with those, I will experiment with sparser dialog commentary. Obviously, there is a consensus building that points to another, possibly better, way.

Well, again, there's nothing inherently wrong with adverbs or fancy verbs. But as in cooking if you use too much fancy stuff, the flavor gets lost. If you have adverbs after every dialogue tag, or constantly use those fancy verbs, then nothing's fancy anymore and there's nothing distinctive in the flavor.
 
Too funny.

At LIT if you write realistic dialogue youll be crucified by the PC Police.
 
Well, again, there's nothing inherently wrong with adverbs or fancy verbs. But as in cooking if you use too much fancy stuff, the flavor gets lost. If you have adverbs after every dialogue tag, or constantly use those fancy verbs, then nothing's fancy anymore and there's nothing distinctive in the flavor.

What a nice analogy - now I'm hungry.
 
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