Dialogue tags are the lines that tell the reader who's talking. Generally, they are the “she said” and the “he said.” While the rules of dialogue tags are simple, it is one of the most common mistakes new writers make. And it's also one of the easiest ways to lose a reader, because, for your story to make sense, the reader needs to know who's saying what. For example: “If Jack wants to see me, he's just going to have to come to me,” Mary said.

The easiest way to prevent confusion is to make sure you give all your characters a unique voice. This is accomplished by speech patterns, word choices, and by allowing your character's personality and background to come across in the way she talks.

Many new writers forget to give their characters their own voice and therefore all the characters speak the same and use the same vocabulary. Be careful that your storybook people don't all sound like you.

However, even when an author gives characters different speech patterns, dialogue tags are sometimes needed to help a reader keep things straight. When it's just two people talking, you will need fewer tags. Their use becomes more important when more than two people are involved in a conversation.

Dialogue tags can come after, in between, or before a line of dialogue. For example:

• “I'll take the cookies home. My son will devour them,” she said.

• “I'll take the cookies home,” she said.

• “My son will devour them.” She said, “I'll take the cookies home. My son will devour them.”

While there are no hard rules about where to place a tag, other than what sounds more natural, writers have their preferences and many authors feel the “before” tag is more intrusive and use it less often. However, alternating your tag-line placements can help make them less noticeable.

Quotation marks go after the punctuation within the dialogue. For example: “Do you love me?” Kathy asked.

Another mistake commonly made with dialogue is tag lines that include things that are not forms of speaking. For example: “I'll make sure it happens,” she grinned. Grinning is not a method of speech, therefore the proper punctuation should be “I'll make sure it happens.” She grinned.

Be careful of the number of exclamation marks you use in dialogue. Exclamation marks should only be used to show shouting, or very firm orders. Editors say that a page littered with exclamation marks is the sign of an amateur writer.

While word repetition is frowned upon in most cases in novel writing, the word said is truly the exception. Said, when used as a dialogue tag, is practically invisible to the reader and is generally better than an author trying to get too clever and use such words as articulated or proclaimed.

While using “he said” is clearly acceptable, most writers vary the “said” tag with action and narrative tags. Action and narrative tags are simply attributives that describe action or give a bit of narrative that tells the reader who is speaking. See the following two examples:

• Mark crossed his arms over his chest and inhaled. “I'm going to miss you.”

• Sarah stormed into the room. “I'm not staying here.”

When using action tags, make sure the action is important to the story and fits the mood of the scene. If not, these little actions can start reading like filler and fluff. A balance of regular dialogue tags and action tags can make your dialogue appear crisper and cleaner.

Be careful not to add someone else's action in another person's dialogue paragraph. The reader may assume that the dialogue belongs to the person performing the action and not the actual speaker. Sometimes, even a mention of another character's name immediately following a line of dialogue can confuse the reader.