For Writers: A list of “talking” verbs
UPDATE: Go HERE for a revised and expanded list.
I write a lot of conversations into my novel, and I found myself in a rut last week.
“She said”
“He spat”
“She answered”
“He whispered”
Apparently I like those four verbs. Spat was always when someone said something nasty. Whisper was one particular character because “mutter” has connotations of low self esteem and “said softly” sounds dumb. Answered and said are self explanatory.
In the interest of diversifying my conversations, I decided to look up a list of verbs for talking. Perhaps I did not choose a good set of search terms, but google gave me nothing. Instead, I used thesaurus.com and compiled my own list. So for your writing pleasure, here’s a nice alphabetical list of 64 verbs to use for conversations. Please let me know if I’ve missed any good ones.
| Admit | Drone | Ramble | Sob |
| Advise | Exclaim | Repeat | Spit |
| Announce | Falter | Reply | Sputter |
| Answer | Groan | Report | Squawk |
| Argue | Growl | Respond | Squeal |
| Bark | Hiss | Retort | Stammer |
| Bellow | Holler | Roar | State |
| Blurt | Howl | Sass | Stutter |
| Call | Interrupt | Scream | Tattle |
| Chatter | Lie | Screech | |
| Coax | Moan | Shout | Wail |
| Complain | Mumble | Shriek | Weep |
| Confess | Murmur | Sigh | Whimper |
| Cough | Parrot | Slur | Whine |
| Cry | Preach | Snarl | Whisper |
| Demand | Proclaim | Sniff | Yell |
Thanks I was have such difficulty after almost 250 pages in with talking verbs. It felt so repetitive and my characters are smart and expressive. This list helps a great deal!
February 13, 2012 at 2:21 am
Lovely! Thank you!
October 10, 2011 at 8:14 am
I rarely use any of these words in my writing, but they are handy to have to stretch my vocabulary. I typically use action to show emotion as you illustrated. But sometimes one good word like “bellowed” gets the point across without a lot of extra description. I think when you have established a character and helped the reader understand their general demeanor, these kinds of words can help you establish a change in emotion or a new aspect of a character’s personality.
Thanks for the comment!
October 10, 2011 at 8:14 am
And of course for the more lengthy discussions, you need only start with a few instances of ‘Tom chortled,’ ‘Michele gasped,’ and ‘the dwarf pointed threateningly at Tom.’ (That’s another handy trick, to replace a talking verb with body language or actions that the speaking character does to accentuate the context of what they say.)
Tom cleared his throat, “anyway, after you do that-”
“-And give the reader a good feel for the sequence,” Michele interrupted.
“Let them know who talks after the other,” the dwarf added.
Tom finished in annoyance, “then you can simply divvy each person’s quotes into separate paragraphs as per usual without any other clauses or sentences.”
“It can go on that way as long as you want.”
“It works ideally with a conversation of two, though…”
“Any more though and it quickly becomes difficult to remember who’s saying what.”
“If you want clips of crowd-speak, then that’s not an issue, of course. I’m Michele.” c^3
I’m sure someone can elaborate on this much more than I.
October 1, 2011 at 10:54 pm
argued
snapped
swore
questioned
September 3, 2011 at 2:53 am
You left out….
deadpanned
defended
reasoned
July 5, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Glad to be of service, Maggie. I hope your assignment gets an A+.
April 14, 2011 at 9:58 am
Thank you for this . It will helped me to accomplish an assignment . I chose to write about verbs . I chose Talking verbs specifically . Everyone thinks I am going to fail . Gonna show them that I can kick ass at it .
April 13, 2011 at 5:13 am
The problem comes when you have a character who always speaks quietly. Or one that tends to yell at people. Or you have four characters arguing all at once. “Said” turns into extra noise in the conversation.
Currently, I have a professor who drones, a researcher who hollers, shrieks, and sputters, and a main character who groans and spits. This was primarily designed to jog my memory. My brain has gotten a bit mushy since graduation, and I needed a vocabulary refresher.
March 20, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Marvelous little list… though I feel obligated to point out something I learned back when I copy edited newspaper sports articles. Specifically, although grammatical diversity is great, *contrived* diversity is deadly. I would argue that a thousand straight “he said”s is far better than a thousand “he [whatever]“s, where [whatever] keeps changing to a different word each time. It can be distracting to the reader, and practically screams “I used a thesaurus!” Not that you’d ever dip to such amateur levels, of course.
I also once heard a writer say that he obsessively tried to avoid ever saying “he said”. Ever. It is surprisingly easy to avoid if you can do a good job of providing context so that the reader can naturally deduce the speaker. I’m not quite so religious about avoiding talking verbs, though.
And I certainly do appreciate it when someone snarls.
March 20, 2009 at 4:00 pm