In writing, things go in and out of style. Take the exclamation point. Back in the day, a reader could find a couple per paragraph. Now no one wants to see them. They say,"Stop shouting at me!"
And so it goes with dialogue tags. In this day and age, we only want to see said. Not exclaimed. Not retorted. Not pleaded! Dialogue should speak for itself.
My students, however, don't want to be saddled with using one word over and over again. It gets boring, they insist. To which I respond, do you feel the same way about the period? It's at the end of the majority of sentences.
Until you start writing, you don't think about dialogue tags. Truly, you don't notice them, and that is the point. As the reader makes her way through a story, she doesn't read said, just as she doesn't read the periods. Both act as visual cues. Said, along with a character's name or pronoun, helps the reader keep track of who is talking. Just as period gives the reader pause and let's her know she's reached the end of a thought.
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