Hmm.

[valis2]

Am reading a fic where a character says something, and the tag reads "he said snappishly".

Wouldn't it be far easier to say "he snapped"?

I'm just now starting to understand economy of words, I think. I may never understand it fully (just look at tLS), but the more obvious things are starting to stand out.

Comments

[cats-are-snakes.livejournal.com]

I tend to go for the shorter option myself unless I'm trying to recreate someone else's style.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I often ladel it on, and then have to cut back. Heh. Though I definitely would have figured out the "snappishly" bit before it went to press.

[cats-are-snakes.livejournal.com]

I tend to "vomit on paper" and edit for quality later.

[snegurochka_lee]

Sounds like JKR. ;)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

*snorts*

*laughs*

[snapesforte.livejournal.com]

I swear I was going to comment with the above comment, so it's good that it has you snorting appropriately, and laughing appreciatively. Mwa ha haa!

[snarkypants.livejournal.com]

To me, there's just the slightest shade of difference in meaning between "snapping" and "saying snappishly." The first makes me think of a character being peeved and speaking sharply. The second is just a degree less peeved.

But I'm well known for being crazy.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Heh...very true. I do agree. Except in this circumstance, there was absolutely no reason for being a degree less peeved. ;)

[jen-deben.livejournal.com]

These days, the wisdom seems to be that writers should only use the ever-invisible dialogue tag "s/he said". Tags like "he snapped" or "she retorted" are discouraged as being intrusive. What do you think? My opinion tends to be to use "said" as much as possible, and something else only to make clear the tone of a statement that could be ambiguous. Generally, I try to indicate the tone with other cues in the text (like the statement itself, or a description of body language).

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard this as well. But I still tend to linger there, at least a little bit. Old habits die hard, y'know?

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

Is it a German author by any chance?
"Schnippisch" translates to snappish or sniffy. In my language at least it would be distinctively different from snapping. Snapping would be like barking at someone, or being really rude. Snippish would be more bitchy, or nose-up-in-the-air... like.

I think I'd use a different word, though.

[(Anonymous)]

It definitely was an ESL author, and though I don't really know which language they speak, I have a gut feeling it's German. ;)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Argh! That was me.

[whitemunin.livejournal.com]

It would be even better if it was just written "...he said." Dialogue tags like "snappishly" or even "snapped" indicate the sentence before is more tell than show--a bad thing. I learned that the hard way. : )

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Heh...it's really hard to weed those out. I'm just so used to writing with them, you know? Though I'm starting to get better. ;)

[whitemunin.livejournal.com]

I still use them and then edit them out later. It's hard. The dialogue tag is a seductive crutch. Tea with the Black Dragon was my first foray into fiction writing, and I committed every writing sin in the book, including the overuse of dialogue tags. The absolute worst? Writing "he hissed" when the word "he" used didn't end in an "s". ; )

Then you still have the trap of telling, not showing if you write something like "His voice was icy." I thought I was being slick by using that a few times in different variations until an editor pointed out that was a glaring tell-not-show mistake.

~~sigh~~ One of these days, I'll get past the learning curve. ; )

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Part of my struggle is that it's hard for me to fully comprehend the true ebil of the telling-not-showing branch of writing. When it's used particularly badly, I can immediately latch onto it, but sometimes it seems that I'm just so used to it that I read right past it and don't even register it.

I've been working hard at pruning words like "somewhat" and "kind of", inexact things that they are, and I've been trying to simplify dialogue, as well, but part of me is just so damned stubborn. I know what the point is, that you're trying to have the dialogue convey the emotion, but sometimes I like to be extra-clear, and it's such a nice, safe shortcut to say "he said icily", y'know?

It only becomes obvious when I read really great writing, and then I see how it hampers things. Now if I could just apply it...heh.

That's why I'm writing tLS. That's why I'm determined to finish it. It's a practice run. I want to get a whole story out of my head, and write The End, before I try anything for myself. Fanfiction has been more helpful than I ever would have guessed.