I’m sure you’re well aware by now of my feelings on “stated“, “drawled“, and “ground out“. Well, I recently started the 17th (!!!) Doc Holliday urban fantasy novel, and right there in the first chapter, on the same page, the author used both stated and drawled — in back-to-back paragraphs!

It’s like the author is mocking me by doing this. She knows I really enjoy her books, but not her dialogue tags, and that I’m invested in the characters so I’m going to keep buying the books regardless of how annoying certain things are (looking at you, Laurell K. Hamilton).

Oh, and by the way, I’m up to chapter five or so now, and there have been several more uses of stated and drawled, as well as a few ground outs. And no one’s playing baseball, so no one should be grounding anything out.

Remember, “said” is just as good most of the time. (I have to keep reminding myself of that as I work on my GWWA story.)