Brian's Style

[The Skarzs]

  I've currently been taking a course on fiction writing, and upon rereading some of Mr. Jacques's works, I have noticed something of the way he wrote: He almost never used the word "said" as dialogue tags. What he did instead was show the character's actions before, after, or during their dialogue, making for a lively read.
  This topic is for those writers who have noticed certain aspects of BJ's writing style that they would like to share.

[Jetthebinturong]

Not specifically on this same topic but I also try to avoid "said", the operative word being try. It hasn't worked out so well thus far. Though I do use it more than I like, I still think I don't use it too much.

[The Skarzs]

Said really isn't too bad a word; it's quite invisible under some circumstances, whereas words like yell, shout, mumbled, etc. can be distracting to the reader.

[Hickory]

Can you post a good example? I'm intruiged. This could be the key to good fanfics.

[The Skarzs]

"I don't understand. Why must you have me along?" Mara scratched her head in puzzlement.

"Mousewives's tale or no, we've got to give it a try." Bremmun stood up officiously. "I'll go this very day, see if I don't."

Those are only a couple examples.

[Hickory]

Thanks! I'll make use of that style...

[Gonff the Mousethief]

Without the use of said, the writing really felt more meaningful in my opinion, for it felt like the characters were still talking while doing something, not just stopping, talking, then continuing. Just my thoughts though.

[LordTBT]

 I've currently been taking a course on fiction writing, and upon rereading some of Mr. Jacques's works, I have noticed something of the way he wrote: He almost never used the word "said" as dialogue tags. What he did instead was show the character's actions before, after, or during their dialogue, making for a lively read.
 This topic is for those writers who have noticed certain aspects of BJ's writing style that they would like to share.

"Almost never"? I think that's a bit of a stretch...

114 uses of "said" in Redwall...
90 in Mossflower...
106 in Mattimeo...

Perhaps "infrequent" was be a more appropriate description...but certainly not "almost never."

Said really isn't too bad a word; it's quite invisible under some circumstances, whereas words like yell, shout, mumbled, etc. can be distracting to the reader.

Indeed. The word "said" is also preferred in screenplays. You out yourself as an amateur if you're using other terms.

[SoranMBane]

Hmm... I guess now I know where I got my own tendency to avoid the word "said" in  my own writing.

Anyway, another thing Brian did a lot is that his narration, rather than being a passive, objective observation, would often give its own opinions on the things going on in the story (such as literally describing the things as "evil"). It also seemed to get pretty excited on occasion, ending sentences with exclamation points, like this:

Snippet from The Bellmaker

[...] It was a curious sight: three big, battered ships, swarming with thin, wild-eyed creatures, tattered sails flapping above creaking decks as they rode the ingoing swell toward shore. And so it was that Urgan Nagru came to the far south!

[close]

This may be partly to reinforce the idea that the story is being related by an in-universe story-teller, but I'm thinking that Brian also kind of just found it more fun to write that way.

[Banya]

"Almost never"? I think that's a bit of a stretch...

114 uses of "said" in Redwall...
90 in Mossflower...
106 in Mattimeo...

Perhaps "infrequent" was be a more appropriate description...but certainly not "almost never."

Considering the length of those books and the amount of dialogue in them, those numbers are much, much smaller than I would have guessed.

Another style of Mr. Jacques' writing I've noticed is that he sometime does without dialogue tags at all.  Often the particular dialects of the characters are enough to tell who is speaking (usually this is done while closing a scene or when a group of characters are departing a scene), or he will give dialogue tags or an action to the first speaker, and the conversation will pass back and forth between two speakers for its duration.

[Captain Tammo]

I haven't really picked the stories apart like that, but it comes as no surprise to me that aspiring writers can learn a lot from Brian's work! I agree on the point that avoiding certain dialogue tags can enhance the flow of a scene, and I agree with what Gonff said in particular. It kind of sheds light on what Brian's reasoning for doing this may have been.

[Skyblade]

Interesting observations; we all can learn from this. It will help us develop our own writing style.

I must say I like what Skarzs mentioned about Brian's not using dialogue words.

[SoranMBane]

More on the topic of avoiding the word "said," I suppose it might be worth mentioning my rationale for doing so in my own writing, which is pretty much that I find it unnecessary under most circumstances. Of course that character said something; that's what the quotation marks signify in the first place. But how did they say it? Why? Under what circumstances? What actions are they taking while they say it? All of that information seems a lot more important and interesting to me. I wouldn't be surprised if Brian had similar reasons.

Another thing I've noticed in Brian's writing is that he tended to slip into passive voice a lot. Let's take another snippet from The Bellmaker as an example (I'll underline the examples of passive voice):

Book passage

The mousebabe had regained his confidence and was jabbing his "sword" stick into Slipp's back. "You leava 'im alone, big bully!" he squeaked.

[close]

To contrast, if that passage had been written entirely in active voice, it probably would have looked more like this:

My revised passage

The mousebabe regained his confidence and jabbed his "sword" stick into Slipp's back. "You leava 'im alone, big bully!" he squeaked.

[close]

I'm not entirely sure why Brian wrote like that, though there are some instances where it may have been done to make things easier to understand for very young readers (which is fair enough, I suppose, even if it does occasionally make things more ponderous for us adults ).

[Skyblade]

More on the topic of avoiding the word "said," I suppose it might be worth mentioning my rationale for doing so in my own writing, which is pretty much that I find it unnecessary under most circumstances. Of course that character said something; that's what the quotation marks signify in the first place. But how did they say it? Why? Under what circumstances? What actions are they taking while they say it? All of that information seems a lot more important and interesting to me. I wouldn't be surprised if Brian had similar reasons.

Very good point in my opinion. This is a debatable topic but I agree with you.

[The Skarzs]

  That is a mistake often made by writers, and while it may be a bit sloppy, it doesn't really detract from the story and most people gloss over it. Sometimes it just feels more natural to write it a certain way, so going with natural over some "rule" is sometimes acceptable; just another quirk to Mr. Jacques's writing style.