"The temperature is going down," he said coolly.
So I noticed this morning while writing I was relying a bit too heavily on adverbial dialogue tags. I don't know why this suddenly occurred to me; I am pretty sure I have always done.
My Q is this: Am I being neurotic? Do you guys ever have trouble reading something due to overuse of lines like "Get out," she said menacingly, or, "Don't do that!" She said warningly, et cetera, when used too often?
Because as jarring as it seemed to me today while reading MY writing, I can't think of a single time I've noticed it in someone else's. And it can't just be me. I Googled, (my Saviour in times of doubt <3)and found this: http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/said.shtml
I also recall Stephen King mentioning to never ever do this if you can help it in his book 'On Writing'.
It seems to me, it may just be one of those rules that they shove down your throat in writing classes, that everyone actually ends up breaking because it's loaded. i.e, an 'artificial rule' which ignores standard usage. OR, maaaaaybe there is something to it and I should mature as a writer and start, I dunno, following important rules.
What do you think?
My Q is this: Am I being neurotic? Do you guys ever have trouble reading something due to overuse of lines like "Get out," she said menacingly, or, "Don't do that!" She said warningly, et cetera, when used too often?
Because as jarring as it seemed to me today while reading MY writing, I can't think of a single time I've noticed it in someone else's. And it can't just be me. I Googled, (my Saviour in times of doubt <3)and found this: http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/said.shtml
I also recall Stephen King mentioning to never ever do this if you can help it in his book 'On Writing'.
It seems to me, it may just be one of those rules that they shove down your throat in writing classes, that everyone actually ends up breaking because it's loaded. i.e, an 'artificial rule' which ignores standard usage. OR, maaaaaybe there is something to it and I should mature as a writer and start, I dunno, following important rules.
What do you think?