Said

[moderntimes]

Using "said" is just fine so long as it doesn't become repetitious. But also, using "gushy" substitutes can be over-writing and sound like a Cosmo short story -- words like "she whispered" or "he exclaimed". The process of dialogue is also more difficult if you've got more than 2 people talking, because you then have to identify the speaker without an endless string of "he said" and "she said". Here's an example from my new novel. We've got the narrator, a private eye, Meierhoff, a homicide cop, and Duggan, his cop boss. They're outside the scene of a murder and have just said goodbye to a nun who discovered the corpse... (some wording changed for language) -- note how I use "asked", "laughed", "sighed" and also how I vary the sentence structure so the conversation's not boring:

Meierhoff looked at me. “Sister Mary Frances is professor of history at St. Vincent, lives next door. She was out for an early walk, thought she saw what looked like, but couldn’t be, copious blood splatter [etc]”

One of the CSI techs, a guy named Tom Phelps, had been listening. He frowned. “Sister Mary Frances? A nun? Don’t nuns, like…” He curved both hands around his head, indicating a coif.

“You watch too much TV, Tom, and movies,” I told him. “Nuns in the US haven’t resembled penguins for years. Started during Vatican Two in, ah…” I drew a momentary blank.

Meierhoff immediately took up the slack. “Second Vatican council, nineteen sixty-two, convened by Pope John twenty-three.”

“You’re Jewish,” I said. “How come you know that?”

Meierhoff winked at me. “Keeping up on the competition.”

“So,” Tom asked. “Nuns now dress like Dana Scully?”

“But with longer hemlines,” I said. “Some still maintain the traditional habit, pun intended.”

There was a brief pause, then Meierhoff sighed. “Dana Scully. I sure had a crush on Gillian Anderson.”

“Ha!” Tom laughed. “Tell me what nerd didn’t?”

“I actually think she’s better looking today,” I offered. “Saw her in Hannibal on TV.”

“Y’know who I thought was sexier, though?” Tom said. “Mimi, whatzhername, you know, ah, Rogers, Mimi Rogers. Played another FBI gal. Was in Playboy, too.”

“Mimi Rogers, otherwise Mrs. ex-Tom Cruise,” Meierhoff said.

Tom chuckled. “Meierhoff’s right, Cruise it is. Ya gotta keep an eye on Meierhoff here, Mitch. He’s up to date on Hollywood, reads all the murder mysteries, downloads CSI episodes so he can compare what we do with TV. He’s so very helpful that way.” Tom smiled, jerking Meierhoff’s chain. “Ol’ Sergeant Meierhoff’s real smart, a regular brainiac.”

“Not a good analogy,” Meierhoff said. “Brainiac is actually a malevolent alien entity that attacks the Earth, tries to kill Superman and other superheroes. In Frank Miller’s graphic novel Dark Knight Strikes Again, Brainiac—”

“Whoa,” Duggan interrupted, his arms raised. “Hold on. Can we back off the trivia a while and stop talking like we’re in a Quentin friggin' Tarantino movie? There’s a murder investigation, in case you’ve all forgotten.”
---

[ALynnPowers]

What do you think of "said"? Do you only use it, or do you sometimes use things like "asked," or "yelled"? What about "says"?

>>> What about "says"? (or, "say", since they go together, depending on is "I" am talking or if "he" or "she" is talking)

This makes me so happy, though I feel like I am kind of changing the topic a little. You don't see a lot of books written in the present tense, but I personally love it when this happens.
So I use say/says when I write in present tense, but I only use it when absolutely necessary, and I don't like to repeat it in two consecutive lines. It drives me crazy when people use "said" too often. It's my personal pet peeve and makes me turn into the incredible reading Hulk.
Like others before me have said (regarding "said" -- haha), I think using more descriptive words and a variety of sentence structure to tell actions is better.