dialogue tag

plural dialogue tags

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see dialogue, tag.
2. authorshipA sentence part that attributes a piece of written dialogue to its speaker. (e.g. In "Get out of here," he said, "he said" is a dialogue tag.)

   Not every paragraph of dialogue needs to have a dialogue tag attached to it.

   4 more examples

   Sometimes inexperienced writers will discover the useful tool of tacking on detail to a dialog tag with a present participal or adverbial phrase: "It's too late," she said, closing the door.

   2000, Tom Romano, Blending Genre, Altering Style: Writing Multigenre Papers, →ISBN, page 63

   A dialogue tag has to indicate sound

   2004, Leslie Wainger, Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons

   An alternative style forsakes italics altogether and assigns a dialogue tag: This is going nowhere, he thought.

   2011, Deborah Halverson, Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons

   A line of dialogue followed by a dialogue tag looks like this: “Nothing suits me better than a fried egg on toast early in the morning,” Billy said.

   2015, Kris James with Laura E. Koons and Stefanie Spangler Buswell, Beyond the Style Manual: Bundle #1, Red Adept Publishing