That moment I realized my dialogue tags were killing my pacing

I was reading back a story I wrote for a local writing group meetup back in February and noticed every single line of conversation had a 'he said' or 'she whispered' attached to it. My critique partner finally circled all 47 tags on a single page and just wrote 'trust your reader more' in the margin. Has anyone else had a beta reader point out something so obvious you felt a little silly afterwards?

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joseph45521d ago

Just cut all of them except the ones that tell the reader something important about tone or movement. If it's clear who's talking from the back and forth, let those lines stand on their own.