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b'Show Transcript:\\nHello, and welcome to About This Writing Thing, a bi-weekly podcast about living the writing life. I am your host, Sayword B. Eller, novelist, short story writer, and podcaster.\\n\\xa0\\nLast week I heard some pretty terrible writing advice on TikTok. I know, right? This video encouraged writers to forego "said" and embellish with punchier verbs like "retorted", "expounded", "wept", etc.\\n\\xa0\\nElmore Leonard\'s "10 Rules of Writing" hangs above my desk. Mere inches from the top of my screen. Rule number 3: Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue."\\n\\xa0\\nI\'m not in the all or nothing camp. I think sometimes it\'s okay to use a verb other than said in an end tag, but I think it should be done sparingly. Most often we should be using actions to indicate how a character is saying their dialogue, but now and then a simple verb may be used. In other words, sometimes "asked" is necessary, but never "shouted", especially if you\'ve used an exclamation mark.\\n\\xa0\\nOne thing I 100% agree with Leonard on is rule 4: Never use an adverb to modify "said". I know bestselling authors do it, but this is an instance where you should seriously avoid following their lead. It\'s amateurish and lazy to let an adverb do what the actions of your characters should be doing. No surprise here, but that bad TikTok writing advice I mentioned came with a list featuring scores of adverbs.\\n\\xa0\\nI know Stephen King\'s It is riddled with adverbs in dialogue tags. Trust me, I tried to read it. But even he added in his 1999 memoir/craft book that we should avoid adverbs. What\'s the quote again? Oh yes, "While to write adverbs is human, to use \'he said\' or \'she said\' is divine." We\'ll talk more about adverbs and end tags in a couple of weeks.\\n\\xa0\\nWhat is the main use for end tags? To let the reader know who\'s speaking, right? Yes, I am right. The question was rhetorical. Some writers do this masterfully. Using end tags sparingly but at the right moment that keeps the reader in the conversation without them pausing to say, "Wait a minute, who said that?"\\n\\xa0\\nThere is an author whose work I love, but they don\'t use enough end tags sometimes. In both their books I\'ve found myself (at some point) taken out of the story to try and figure out who is speaking. That\'s a case where the author is using end tags far too sparingly. Most often, I find myself shrugging and moving on, never really knowing who was speaking, but not knowing gnaws at me. I find this most often in writers who are trying to stay in deep POV. They want the reader completely and totally immersed in a story. Problem is, if I don\'t know which characters is speaking I\'m not longer immersed in the story. Instead, I\'m going back to try to follow the line of dialogue and figure out who\'s saying what.\\xa0\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\nThis is exactly, as writers, we should make a concerted effort to learn as much about end tags and how to use them as possible. Yes, in the \'80s and \'90s it was all the rage to pretty up the end tag with other verbs and adverbs, but that\'s when everyone was still writing in third person omniscient and we hadn\'t quite learned that a limited perspective is favored above a know-it-all one. It gets us closer to the character, lets us feel what they\'re feeling and experience what they\'re experiencing without some ever-present entity telling us what\'s happening.\\n\\xa0\\nSpeaking of telling, the use of verbs in end tags is a big signal that you\'re telling instead of showing in your narrative. While some telling is necessary, when our characters are in conversation the last thing we should be doing is telling our readers how they should be hearing the characters speak. This is where action or beats are so important. When in conversation we\'re not simply sitting stiff and unmoving, so our characters shouldn\'t be either. There should be movement even in your conversations, just like in real life.\\n\\xa0\\n"You don\'t know what you\'re talking about!" Sally exclaimed. Isn\'t nearly as effective as: Sally paced back and for'