Of the many rules I learned in writing, the use of ‘said’ remains among the most controversial. According to some, the use of said is mandatory. You should end or begin a line of dialogue in this fashion and this fashion alone. However, other famous authors and practically all of my editors deplore the over usage of said as a dialogue tag. Here is an example of how said vs, other tags changes the temperature of a story:
“I didn’t think you were that type of person.” Taro said.
“You didn’t want to.” Rati said. “It wasn’t much of a secret.”
This version strips away any intentionality from the dialogue tags and forces the reader to focus on the language as a way to understand the situation. How does changing the flat tags to emphatic tags modify meaning?
“I didn’t think you were that type of person.” Taro spat.
“you didn’t want to.”Rati smirked. “it wasn’t much of a secret.”
In this second version the author, me in this case, intentionally forces the reader to interpret the words in a specific way. I do the work for you. Instead of making you dive into the context on your own, I give you a ladder and walk you down into that context. I suppose it could be called a matter of audience. Typically speaking, you want to do more hand holding with younger readers, so it could be the case that the more mature (from a sense of ability to interpret literature) the audience is, the less likely you are to want to use dialogue tags.
This is just speculation here, and don’t take it as fact. What is fact is the dichotomy between plain tag and flare tag writing. There are differences there, which affect the meaning of the writing.
Some thoughts:
1. Very few people pull of the bald head very well. I think you need to have the face and head shape for it. I likely do not, though the recent hair loss means I soon may have no choice. I met a guy who pulls it off rather nicely and it made me believe that facial hair may play a pivotal role too. In other words, bald and nicely groomed is good, but bald and letting your facial hair run wild is not so good.
2. WordPress does not support automatically numbered lists as far as I know. I’m okay with that. It just means spaces between the numbers; another formatting change to a blog that is still evolving.
3. My ghost armor on my iPad is heavily damaged. It keeps peeling, and I think it is the result of the climate shift. The iPad and I are in Washington where the air has moisture. I installed it in Arizona where the moisture is lacking.