(no subject)

[conuly]

Just read a fic where there are no fewer than twelve different dialog tags in a row, not one of which is "said", "asked" or "replied/answered". (Or "null", which I guess would be not using a dialog tag at all.)

Most notably, we have X "chiming in" immediately after "affirming". You cannot "chime in" when you were the last person to speak! You'd just be chiming in to yourself. (And there's only two of them in this scene anyway, and I guess you can chime in in a two person convo, but would you really need to?)

Edit: Nope, most notably is "Hey" Y greeted. The word "hey" is a greeting. Unless you're using "greeted" here in the odd Scots sense of "wept" there is no need to reiterate that Y is greeting somebody else. And even if you feel there is such a need, it's a transitive verb. You can't just "greet". You have to greet somebody or something.

And it all started out so promisingly too, but I am losing it at this dialog! And there's just so much of it! With adverbs, even!

There is such a thing as too many adverbs.

Comments

[conuly]

Well, in this case the sentence is exactly as I wrote it, except with a name instead of a variable.

I'm sorry, but "X greeted." is just not a valid output in my dialect, and neither is "'Hey,' X greeted."

[pauamma]

Nothing to be sorry for. It's your dialect (and your language), not mine, so your notion of what is and isn't correct in it is definitely more reliable than mine. I'm also interested in how people form their opinion of what is or isn't correct, and thinking about or discussing grammar framings sometimes help me with that.