"Dialogue bookisms interrupt the reader," she harped.

I was hanging out on http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com, one of the many book-oriented blogs I visit throughout the day, and was reading their post about "bookisms" and whether they should be used.

It touched a nerve with me as a reader, writer, and occasional editor.

The "bookism" in this case is referring to the use of emotional tags in dialogue attribution to tell the reader how the speaker is feeling. Here's an example:

"You are standing on my foot," she exclaimed angrily.

You, the writer, do not need to tell your reader that your character is upset that someone is on their foot. This is a common experience most of us have been thorugh many, many times. Feet have nerve endings and pressing upon them excessivley causes pain that will raise anger and irritability on the stepped-on party's emotional thermomenter rather quickly.

In this particular dialogue scenario, the magic of the exclamation point could be employed.

It would look like this:

"You are standing on my foot!" she said.

Another option, if you're really are determined to use the phrase "she exclaimed angrily" you could do this:

She exclaimed angrily, "You are on my foot!"

The best option, in my opinion, is to let the dialogue carry itself.

"You are standing on my foot!"

"I am so sorry, I didn't see you there."

"That's OK. It just surprised me. Wow. You have really big feet."

"Well, I'm 6'4". Tall people generally have the big feet. Short people with big feet kind of look like Weebles. Don't you think?

"Get away from me, you weirdo."

See? Successful dialogue that required nary a speaker ID.

Here's the bottomline:

By using bookisms, you slow the reader of your words down. The content is what is important and the story cannot continue for your reader if they are consistently popped out of the story to decide what "exclaiming" feels like.

Keep the dialogue flowing. If you need to use an ID, use a simple "she said" and you'll keep your reader clear on the speaker and keep their eyes moving across the page.