I had someone tell me that you should always use he/she said and nothing else. No "He said, raising an eyebrow." I find that to be a load of crap because personally I hate it when the dialog is a string of he/she said. After a while you totally blank out the He said, she said part so what's the point?
Anyway, enough venting about that. I always have issues with action in dialog, because describing facial expressions between each line of dialog also gets tiresome (espeically when it's the same description each time).
I think this, too, comes down to characterization and having well-enough established characters to give your readers an idea of the character's expressions/actions without having to describe them every time. I'm basing this on books I've read that had an excellent balance of dialog and action. It seems like they'll start long strings of dialog with some action, then after a while focus on dialog only, without describing the actions. So they establish for the readers what actions should be expected by including action, then move into dialog only and let the readers fill in the action blanks themselves based on the actions previously described.
And I really hope that makes sense. I guess you could compare it to establishing mood, but instead establishing the character's actions either before or when they first start speaking. For example, if your character is the kind of person to fold their arms when frustrated (or pace, or rub their face), by establishing this before hand - say at the start of the dialog or the first couple of chapters - then after a while you wouldn't have to describe it each time the person gets frustrated, because the reader will know to expect it and see it in their mind without being prompted.
I would also say that unless the action is significant in some way then you don't need a lot of it, just enough to establish what actions would be (frowning, glaring, pacing, tapping feet, sipping from a glass, eating, etc.).
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chiming
no subject
Date: 2011-09-18 12:11 am (UTC)From:Anyway, enough venting about that. I always have issues with action in dialog, because describing facial expressions between each line of dialog also gets tiresome (espeically when it's the same description each time).
I think this, too, comes down to characterization and having well-enough established characters to give your readers an idea of the character's expressions/actions without having to describe them every time. I'm basing this on books I've read that had an excellent balance of dialog and action. It seems like they'll start long strings of dialog with some action, then after a while focus on dialog only, without describing the actions. So they establish for the readers what actions should be expected by including action, then move into dialog only and let the readers fill in the action blanks themselves based on the actions previously described.
And I really hope that makes sense. I guess you could compare it to establishing mood, but instead establishing the character's actions either before or when they first start speaking. For example, if your character is the kind of person to fold their arms when frustrated (or pace, or rub their face), by establishing this before hand - say at the start of the dialog or the first couple of chapters - then after a while you wouldn't have to describe it each time the person gets frustrated, because the reader will know to expect it and see it in their mind without being prompted.
I would also say that unless the action is significant in some way then you don't need a lot of it, just enough to establish what actions would be (frowning, glaring, pacing, tapping feet, sipping from a glass, eating, etc.).