My post from last week by that name linked to an article about writing advice in the NYT by Elmore Leonard. I thought it was great and offered good information. But, of course, I have to add my opinions.
One piece of advice was, "Never use an adverb other than 'said' to carry dialogue". (Do I have to point out the adage, "Never Say Never?") Leonard is referring to some writers propensity for using words like 'snarled', 'exclaimed', or 'pontificated' when tagging dialogue. Leonard's is good advice in most cases, but what do you do in a situation where your character has to speak quietly and you just use "said" instead of "whispered"? Don't you then have to follow with a sentence explaining why the words were not overheard? For example: "He kept his voice low, so no one else would hear." Just saying 'whispered', which is a form of speaking, seems more efficient.
What about "asked"? A writer friend of mine quotes the somewhat recent advice to writers to always use "said" as a dialogue tag rather than "asked", even when the dialogue is a question. The logic is that if the dialogue has a question mark, the reader knows what the character said was a query and so writing "asked" is redundant.
I don't feel dialogue in fiction or often in reality is that clear. Haven't you ever had a conversation where someone says something and you are not sure if it is a question or a statement? In one of my recent short stories the two main characters had this issue, so I am a fan of using "asked" when a bit of dialogue is a question. I have done some checking and discovered that many (well-known) authors embrace the new method of using only "said" for all dialogue and some still use "asked" for some dialogue. The general consensus is that as long as you are consistent (which I am afraid I am often not), either is considered acceptable.
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