: Re: Attributives in dialogue I normally stick with "he said" and "she said" to keep things simple and transparent to the reader but wondering about questions. Is "she asked" and "he asked" appropriate

@Angie602

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They're fine; they certainly aren't an error. If a particular use sounds awkward, don't hesitate to drop attribution entirely (it's often still quite clear who's talking, because most conversations are dialogue, so it's whoever wasn't talking the previous paragraph), or to move the attribution up to earlier in the line:

"But why would any of all that," he said, "explain how late you were to the party?"

This removes the incongruous sense of using "said" for a question, because it puts distance between the attributive and the question mark.

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