: Re: Deciding whether to use a dialogue tag or an action tag in a dialogue Example: "I'm not saying you don't know what you are talking about," he said, then looked at her and shrugged

When different phrasings all have more or less the same meaning, I choose the phrasing that creates the tone or mood I want. For that, I listen to the rhythm, tempo, and sounds. Reading the passage out loud, in context, is a big help here.

Some of your phrasings give cues about the order of events. The temporal arrangement of emotions, actions, and dialogue can create subtext that nicely expresses the character's mood. I got different impressions of the character from each of your "I probably love you" examples. In the first one, he proclaims his love despite his embarrassment. In the second, he seems more breathless and blurting. In the third, he seems embarrassed not by what he is feeling, but by having proclaimed his love, or perhaps by the lack of an immediate response. The fifth gives a rich, more complex mood that I'm not sure how to summarize.

I would probably avoid "he said, after..." The sequence in the text mismatches the sequence in which the events happened. This forces the reader to resequence the events, which is jarring. It can be useful if you're trying to show that the character is disoriented, or is overwhelmed and becoming aware of events out of sequence. But those are very specialized situations.

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: Re: Deciding whether to use a dialogue tag or an action tag in a dialogue Example: "I'm not saying you don't know what you are talking about," he said, then looked at her and shrugged

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: What software can handle both revision control and layout? I'm desperately looking for a book publishing solution that can handle revision control and layouts. My issues/requirements are as follows:

: Should I care if my short story has the same title as someone else's book? It appears to be a pretty obscure book. It's on Amazon, but there are no descriptions or reviews. From the

: How to get over writer's block related to revising? I'm a PhD Student in the social sciences. When I do focused free-writing on a topic, my thoughts just fly out and I can easily generate

: I would advise you to get hold of a number of non-fiction naval books and start reading! Ideally look for biographic works, rather than factual books, as these will contain more insights into

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