How To Avoiding Repeating “Said”

I saw a commenter online recently say that a published author wasn’t a good writer because she kept repeating ‘she said and he said’. ‘Get a thesaurus!’ the commenter advised. But, actually, a piece in which all the characters “exclaim”, “squeal”, “proclaim”, “mutter” etc. can look immature and unprofessional. So, I wanted to write a blog post looking at ways to get around the issue of the endless repetition of “said” in dialogue (or “says” if writing in present tense).

Some writers don’t mind word repetition and, like everything else, it can be used creatively, but I find it a good idea generally to avoid using the same word too many times too close together. If an unusual word (like “obsidian”, “reverence”, or “serendipitous” for example) appears multiple times within a few pages, then the reader will notice. They will be distracted from what the writer is saying by noticing how they are saying it, which pulls them out of the absorption the writer is trying to create.

There are, however, some words which are so common that the reader barely notices them. It doesn’t matter how often someone reads “the” or “is”, the flow won’t be interrupted. All words fall somewhere on a scale running between these two types. A writer typing “said” multiple times is more likely to notice its repetition than a reader because “said” is more similar to “the” than it is to “obsidian”. Many primary school classrooms have a poster on the wall telling the children something along the lines of ‘Other Ways To Say “Said”’, or ‘No More “Said” Use These Words Instead’, and listing words like “mumbled”, “screeched”, “announced”, “growled” etc etc. However, a reader will be more likely to notice words higher up the scale of unusualness, such as “affirmed”, “concluded”, “forewarned”, “stipulated” and other synonyms, than they will a word like “said”, no matter how often it appears.

This passage from Margaret Atwood’s The Year of The Flood, is full of repeated “said”s but they don’t interrupt the flow of the reading:

“Here it is,” Shackie said. He brought out a piece of cloth with something wrapped up in it.
“What is it?” I said. I could hear my own voice: girly and squeaky.
“It’s the surprise,” said Amanda. “They got some of the superweed for us. The stuff Burt the Knob was growing.”
“No way!” I said. “You bought it? From the CorpSeCorps?”
“Lifted it,” said Shackie.

The flow of this passage is helped by the dialogue being broken through with description, reaction and action. It doesn’t feel like it’s all talking, and gets the “said”s further away from each other, too.

Other ways to vary the use of “said” include reordering, for example sometimes using “Peter said” and other times “said Peter” (though somehow with a pronoun that looks comical: “said he” etc), or using “was saying”. Attributions can go before or after the speech, or in the middle as with Amanda’s in the example above. It is completely legitimate to use “asked” and “replied” or “answered” when there’s an interrogation happening. It’s also fine not to if you prefer “said”. Occasional use of indirect speech helps, too, although too much will create emotional distance.

Synonyms are distracting when they are obviously substitutes in order to avoid repetition of “said”, but can work well if they are the right tags for how specific things are being said, adding to character descriptions as well as plot, as in the following, from The Devil’s Paintbrush by Jake Arnott:

The Beast leaned across the table, conspiratorially.
‘It’s all right,’ he whispered. ‘I want to help you.’
‘Who are you, sir?’ Macdonald demanded.
The Beast sat back in his chair and placed a bejewelled hand on the table.
‘I’m a poet,’ he declared.

The Beast relishes being dramatic and unusual, so whispering and declaring suit him more than saying. Macdonald is used to giving orders, so he demands instead of asking.

The best way to avoid overuse of “said” is to cut it out altogether. If there are three or more characters in a conversation it gets more complicated, but if only two people are talking, then only the first couple of pieces of dialogue need be attributed. The reader will assume that they are alternating lines of speech as they answer each other, as in this passage from The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler:

“Edward?” she said. “On Rayford Road?”
“That’s right.”
“We can’t accept him.”
“What?”

The content of what the characters are saying, and the way they are saying it, help to indicate who is speaking, too:

“Says here he bit an attendant. Says, ‘Bit Barry in the ankle, do not readmit.’”
“Nobody told me that.”
“Well they should have.”
“Nobody said a word! I left him in June when we went to the beach; I came back and they handed him over.”

If the conversation goes on for a while, it is a good idea to put in an occasional reminder of who has which dialogue, so the reader doesn’t lose track:

“Look,” Macon said. “I’m on my way to the airport, right this minute. I’ve got a plane to catch.”
“I’m only following orders,” the girl said.

Sometimes the context is such that the dialogue itself tells the reader who is speaking as here in A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood:

George gets himself off the seat and shuffles into the study, like a man in a sack race.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello – is that – it is you, Geo?’
‘Hello, Charley.’
‘I say, I didn’t call too early, did I?’
‘No.’

The convention when writing speech is to have a new line for each piece of dialogue. If a piece of action by the person speaking is added to that line, the reader will pick up that they are the speaker, for example, in this passage from Beloved by Toni Morrison:

“Look,” she points to the sunlit cracks.
“What? I don’t see nothing.” Denver follows the pointing finger.
Beloved drops her hand. “I’m like this.”

The same can be done with a description of how the speaker feels or looks, as in this from Madeline Miller’s Circe:
The hairs stirred on my arms. ‘You did not tell him about Prometheus, did you?’
He smiled. ‘Why, because he spoke of “other treacheries”? You know Father. He’s only being cautious, in case some further terror of yours comes to light. Anyway, what is there to tell? What did you do after all? Pour a single cup of nectar?’
I looked up. ‘You said Father would have me thrown to the crows for it.’
‘Only if you were fool enough to admit it.’
My face was hot. ‘I suppose I should take you as my tutor and deny everything?’

More experimental writers use techniques like running dialogue straight into description, or mimicking scripts. There will be times when the only way to avoid confusion is to just stick with a combination of “said” and character name on every line. Communicating what’s going on is the most important thing after all. Over the course of a story, though, it can help to keep a reader’s interest to use a variety of different ways of attributing dialogue, and by combining them.

I hope that was helpful!