/lit/ - Literature

This is how clean I want my dialogue to read. Barely a tag in sight.

>>23347075
>it comes off as monotone
I don't think it will come off as monotone if it's good dialogue, though. If your dialogue is strong, and the reader is immersed in the world and the scene, then the flow of the conversation and the shifts in characters thoughts and moods should already all be clear enough to make any extra labelling unnecessary. You don't want the reader to feel like the author is pushing his head in between the characters' in order to add his little clarifications and comments.

The more I read and write, the more I think that good writing is about knowing where to put the emphasis, and that's why an 'invisible word' is a useful tool to have when it's the character's own words that should stand out.