However, the point of this post isn't to analyze the various websites out there, but rather to emphasize a piece of common advice I've found myself giving lately. It's about something that should be simple, but isn't: dialog tags.

Something that should really be as easy as she said gives a lot of people trouble, sometimes because they don't understand the nature of the dialog tag, and sometimes because they try too hard. There are a couple of common mistakes that, while technically grammatically correct, should be avoided by anyone who wants their work taken seriously.

While technically "wrylies" is a bit of screenwriting jargon referring to parentheticals in a script, it's the one that's stuck with me over the years. They're also called "Tom Swifties," but I prefer the screenwriting term. An example is:

Jim: (wheezing) He said what?

Used in excess, they become annoying. This is true in prose as well, though we usually see them in this format:

"Things are good," she said happily.

A more technical label for these is "adverbial dialog tags," and they're a problem for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that they're indicative of weak writing. If your dialog is already strong, i.e. your diction properly demonstrates (read: shows) the mood, then you don't need to give me an extraneous explanation (read: tell). For example:

"Get out of my house, you rat!"

I could attach she said angrily to the end of that, but between her language, the exclamation point, and the context (for example, if the antagonist had just told her that he had cheated on her), her anger should already be clear.

Sometimes, you can't avoid the wryly. If it's a choice of being unclear or shoving the adverb in there, then of course you should go with the adverb. But first, instead of attaching an -ly to clarify your point, try a piece of action. Let us see your protagonist stomp her foot or throw a pot at his head.

Then there are the people who avoid "said" altogether. Unfortunately, readers are trained to ignore words like "said" and "asked," which makes their reading go faster and lets them slip into the conversation. When an author goes and gets bored with "said" and try to spice things up with (melo)dramatic terms--whispered, bawled, hollered--it does little except distract and annoy the reader.

Another phrase for these is "said bookisms." It's okay to have a few, but it's better if you avoid the really extreme ones, like "she shrieked" or "he snarled."

Even worse, of course, are the ones that just don't make sense, or are physically impossible like:

"Shut up," he hissed.

Sit down and try to hiss that phrase. How well does that work out for you? Find a longer phrase, hiss it to someone. Do they understand you? How well do the sibilants come through? Think about it. Or how about this one:

"You're hilarious," he laughed.

If you're laughing, can you also talk? Start laughing and try to form a coherent sentence.

It's fine if you want to indicate that your character is amused in that moment. They can even laugh, but it must be punctuated properly. The appropriate dialog tag is not "he laughed" in that situation; "he laughed" should be written as an action:

"You're hilarious." He laughed.

And as a final note, just to reinforce the very basic rules of punctuating dialog:

"This is proper," he said.
"This is not." He said
"This is wrong too," he smirked.
"However, this is acceptable." He smirked.

This is a community for those of you that enjoy creative writing. Every one - two weeks a new challenge will be posted. As an example, we might give you a title, an opening sentence, a picture, or something completely different. It is then up to you to write a story of up to 5000 words that links to the prompt we gave you. You do not have to enter every single challenge, it's up to you which ones you feel like doing.

and while I can't come up with something for every challenge, I usually try. It's a good community, and the prompts help keep me inspired to write, and I enjoy the practice of having to actually finish pieces every week; endings are much harder to practice than beginnings, after all.

I bring this up because this week's (week 33!) challenge is to write a film noir piece that takes place in an unusual location. While I often describe myself as an urban fantasy reader primarily, the truth is that my absolute favorite niche of the sci-fi/fantasy genre is what I like to call "noir fantasy." The Dresden Files (beginning with STORM FRONT) by Jim Butcher are a good example of this, as are Glen Cook's Garrett, P.I. books (beginning with SWEET SILVER BLUES), the Cal Leandros (NIGHTLIFE) books by Rob Thurman, The Vampire Files (BLOODLIST) by P.N. Elrod, and the Nightside (WELCOME TO THE NIGHTSIDE) books by Simon R. Green.

I admit I'm a little young for true film noir, but even though I've never seen THE MALTESE FALCON or even had much luck sitting through BLADE RUNNER, I love the concept of the hardboiled, down-on-his-luck private detective, I love the femme fatales, and I love the conventions of the genre that have become established. I love how it has its own language, its own tropes. Even if film noir is difficult to define precisely, the mood of fantasy noir is a wonderful blend of dark idealism and gritty hopefulness that I really love. One of my favorite episodes of Charmed was CHARMED NOIR (episode 7.08), where Paige and Kyle end up sucked into a 1930s film noir written by former Magic School students.

I tend to think of such noir fantasy as a subset of the urban fantasy genre, though urban fantasy is growing up, acquiring its own identity and standards, separate from its roots, and the Garrett books, for instance, don't take place in the "real world" (or a recognizable analog), but rather in a true fantasy setting, so there's some clear differentiation. Much of urban fantasy now has a female protagonist who kicks ass, takes names, and the underlying messages tend to have to do with being a strong woman, what that means and the difficulties that arise. Urban fantasy is also blending into the paranormal romance genre a bit.

What I call noir fantasy, however, while sharing many of the same elements of setting, has much more in common with the mystery genre than romance. Protagonists are often male, although this isn't a necessary feature of the genre. Narration is still usually in first person, but there is usually a lessened focus on relationships and a stronger focus on solving a problem. Both genres deal with tough choices, and broad-impact, saving-the-world type plots aren't the distinctive domain of either, and the tone of both genres is often quite dark, with characters who toe the line between good and evil, but I personally enjoy the noir-ish subsection of urban fantasy more than the more romance-driven works.