Because I’m confused. I am getting mixed messages about a tiny
but important word: said. I even felt a little panicked about it
at first. I was taught in school to avoid too much “said”. But
then again it was public school in Washington State, so the
relevance to current thought is questionable. Should we writers
use “he/she/they said” after dialogue exclusively or should we
find more interesting words. Who is right? What do you think?
These people think you need more interesting words: -
http://www.writingfix.com/PDFs/Writing_Tools/said_synonyms.pdf
(this is a school material) -
http://year4atbearwood.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/synonyms-for-
said-can-you-add-to-the-list/ (So is this. Are we teaching our
kids to be poor writers?) These people think that anything other
than “said” or maybe “asked” detracts from the story, calling
them “said bookisms,” -
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SaidBookism (This one
says it is “Purple Prose” and “Discredited Trope”) “James Blish
told me I had the worst case of “