Grinded vs. Ground

[SimonDoom]

Inventive speech tags are the same thing. You don't have to like them, but don't claim that they're grammatically incorrect, because they aren't.

I don't claim that (note my use of "that") they're grammatically incorrect. I think that they're (most of the time) stylistically wrong. It's an indication of less-than-optimal prose choices. Most of the time, they're an indication of overcooked writing.

Not always. But when I see writers going out of their way to choose replacements for "said" and "asked," I think that they are making bad choices and following a wrong standard of what makes good writing. They feel like they have to dress up their writing, when in fact they don't have to, and they'd be better off keeping it simple.

That's me. But it's also what most good published authors do, most of the time, and what most professional editors will say.

 

[IWroteThis]

I could've, but I liked the flow of the one I went with more more. I try to avoid too many tags that aren't said, they tend to stack up and become pretty noticeable if you have a lot of them, and I was already pretty heavy on "he/she whimpered," so I went with a bit more flowy option. It also fit the mood and pacing around it better than the more simple "she whispered," and mood/pacing/flow factors into my decisions around using dialogue vs action tags.

You can also have loud whimpers, medium whimpers, hard whimpers, soft whimpers, all sorts. I wanted to capture the essence of her whimper's fragility, hence the explicit mention of softness.

I'm not a pretentious writer.

Promise.

Guys?

...hello?

And that's your choice. I was simply pointing out that in your example, you weren't using an action tag in place of a speech tag, because it actually was a speech tag. If you just meant instead of the standard "said" speech tag, that's not how I read your comment.

 

[IWroteThis]

So is smile. So is shrug. So is smirk. etc.

Yes and no. They show movement within the body, not movement of the body. The fact you can waltz into a room doesn't mean you can smile, shrug, or smirk into a room.

In fact it is even more appropriate to smile a sentence than it is to waltz into a room since the character speaking is actually smiling and the character entering the room isn't actually waltzing. Waltz is a metaphor that conveys a more vivid picture so that makes it valid. Smiling a sentence is no less valid.

That makes no sense.

Waltzing into a room implies a certain style of movement, not that they were actually dancing a waltz. If that movement is how they moved into the room, it's appropriate to say they waltzed into the room. It's the same for any other words that refer to a style of movement, such as walked, crawled, hopped, skipped, jumped, fell, etc. As long as it matches what they did, it's appropriate to say it's what they did.

However, even if they were smiling as they entered the room, the smile had nothing to do with the movement into the room. It's a separate action.

I don't have a problem with anyone who doesn't care for metaphoric verb license on speech tags and their reasoning for not liking them is totally valid. But this whole notion that smiling or shrugging a sentence is improper grammar is not true at all.

Ah, but you contradict yourself. The fact you need metaphoric verb license to call them speech tags means that they are not. Thus, it is improper grammar, simply ignored in deference to artistic license.

I have a little bit of grammar snobbery myself. I always use 'that' in my narrative, as in "Sheila thought that his shabby attire was inappropriate for the occasion." Most people would leave out the that. I notice this and it trips me when I see it. I prefer to have the that in there, but that's just me and my preference. Leaving out the that is not a grammar error. I'm not going to be snobby about it.

Yeah, I'm with you there. I used to make sure to include 'that' everywhere grammar rules dictated, then I mostly dropped them in dialogue in response to comments. Now, I use a mix, whether in dialogue or narrative. I make my decisions on each instance based on the Read Aloud editing, going with whichever one I think sounds better in the moment.

On the plus side, such inconsistency in usage should lower my AI probability score, right?

Inventive speech tags are the same thing. You don't have to like them, but don't claim that they're grammatically incorrect, because they aren't.

To be clear, I'm not saying you can't use them, and you're right that I don't have to like them, but you're also wrong about them not being grammatically incorrect. They wouldn't be inventive if they were proper grammar, after all. However, the rules of grammar change based on usage, so they'd never change if nobody colored outside the lines. Perhaps you'll start a movement and we'll all get used to people smiling words.

Until then, they will continue to look and sound wrong, largely because there is a mismatch between the action of speaking and the action verb used.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I don't claim that (note my use of "that") they're grammatically incorrect.

You have in the past. More than twice.

 

[XerXesXu]

I'm always amazed so few posters know the difference between 'grammar' and 'style'. Grammar is a feature of spoken language; style is a feature of written language. Style is arbitrary. Style guides are written by people who woke up from a dream and said, 'The world would be a more beautiful and contented place if everyone spelled and punctuated like me.' Consider how that differs from, 'The world would be a more beautiful and contented place if everyone spoke English/ Finnish, and so on, like me.' Bookshelves groan with the number of competing style guides - it's something that happens often.

Tomorrow morning, as you brush your hair in front of the mirror, talk to yourself. Count the number of punctuation marks you see. No writing in the condensation.