: Is there a way to explain how a character said a word sarcastically without dialog tags? I have a character who is a talking shovel. He's arguing with another character and criticizing them.
I have a character who is a talking shovel. He's arguing with another character and criticizing them.
"Oh! And let me take a wild guess—you’ve probably asked the people who
live around the jungle to harvest it and make the shirts for you
without getting paid!"
The word "asked" is supposed to have an inflection on it. Bascially, he wanted to say with the use of sarcasm (or at least I think it's sarcasm) how the other character didn't really ask but force people to make shirts for her without pay.
I don't want to have to take a whole paragraph to explain how the talking shovel had an inflection on the word "asked" as he spoke to indicate sarcasm, and I can't describe his body language because he is a shovel with no face or limbs of any kind. Is there a better/simpler way to do this?
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As far as the specific question of inflecting the word "asked," the entirely standard and acceptable way to do that is to put it in internal quotes. This is not an affectation, it is the technically correct way to indicate (in print) that a word is not being used in strict accord with its dictionary definition.
Beyond that, I'm going to be the contrarian voice, and say that as long as it isn't every other paragraph, the occasional "Tom Swifty"-ism of "he said, sarcastically," is perfectly fine. I'm in favor of anything that makes it easier for the reader to understand your writing without calling undue attention to itself.
"Oh! And let me take a wild guess," he said, sarcastically. "You’ve probably 'asked' the people who live around the jungle to harvest it and make the shirts for you without getting paid!"
As long as it doesn't become a nervous tic, or something you shoehorn in, it should be relatively transparent and invisible to the reader.
You have already conveyed sarcasm perfectly well in the dialogue. And that is the best place for it. If you can convey emotion through dialogue without having to add tags like, derisively, sarcastically, and so on, you're doing a great job.
As soon as your character says:
Oh! And let me take a wild guess...
We know that's sarcasm.
Fayth85 is right: "Trust your readers."
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