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I used to think dialogue tags were ruining my scenes until I read a pro author's first draft
I always tried to keep my tags to 'said' and 'asked' because every writing blog says that's the rule. Then a friend sent me a copy of Stephen King's original manuscript for Carrie with all his 'she whispered angrily' and 'he muttered darkly' still in there. Seeing those messy tags from a bestseller made me realize the rule was more of a guideline. Now I use a stronger tag maybe once every three pages and it adds so much personality without feeling cluttered. Has anyone else broken the 'only use said' rule and seen their dialogue improve?
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