Today, we're going to take an up-close and personal look at one of the most versatile and remarkable beasties in the grammatical world: the said tag.

At its most basic level, the said tag is for identifying who’s speaking a quote. For instance, in the sentence

“I really like books,” Twilight said.

‘Twilight said’ would be the said tag. As you can see from the above example, if the quote would have ended in a period as a stand-alone setence, it's connected to the said tag with a comma. If it would end in a question mark or exclamation mark, keep that. Also, said tags can be as long and complex as you want, incorporating additional clauses and stuff like that.

"I have an intense, almost sexual, love of books!" she said, holding aloft an enormous tome and stroking its spine gently.

Again, keep in mind that a said tag is part of the same sentence as the quote (with exceptions that we'll talk about). That's why the S in "she said" in the last example isn't capitalized- it doesn't start a new sentence.

"But SpaceCommie," you say, "do said tags have to go at the end?"

Well, apparently not, since that one didn't. And actually, no, they don't. If you want to separate the clauses of a quoted sentence and squeeze in a said tag, you can absolutely do that.

"Twilight," Spike said, "you're really freaking me out."

The important thing to remember, though, is that you don't need to, and shouldn't, do this when you want to separate individual quoted sentences. For instnce, if you wanted to give the quote "Books are pretty much my waifu. Is that weird?" a said tag, you shouldn't write it like this:

"Books are pretty much my waifu," Twilight said, "is that weird?"

That looks wrong, and it's because the two quoted sentences are being smashed together into one, and it doesn't fit. The proper way to write it would be

"Books are pretty much my waifu," Twilight said. "Is that weird?"

Now, let's get to my favorite kind of said tag: the indirect. Essentially, you describe an action being done by the speaker in the general time frame of quote, which indirectly identifies the speaker.

Spike rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. I think you have a problem.

If you do this, you don't need to specify who's talking: we get it already.

Finally, you do not need to use said tags for every quote. If the reader knows who's talking, and can make a reasonable guess as to how they're talking, it's good.

"Twilight, you have to get help. I can't watch you do this to yourself. There are some really good book addiction clinics near-"

"Screw you! I do what I want!"

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AMEN! If only more people knew this... It would make my job as an editor at least twice as easy. And 20% cooler.

Isn't that already written in the "writing guide" that is accessible from every single page on fimfiction.net through the FAQ button?

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And aren't we supposed to have at least a basic understanding of this already, considering our presence in this group?

You also need to add a "guest speaker" tag to your thread title... oh wait, this isn't the School For New Writers?