At the pinnacle, qualifiers such as 'gasp', 'exclaim', and others are almost superfluous because the author tends to use what is being said as well as the environment it is being said in to convey how it is being said.

For the most part, I dislike their use. Use said, or a newline for speech, and intersperse speakers with some action if you wish.

 

It's not bad as is, but I'd do this along the lines of:

Old and wizened are near-synonyms; one can be dropped. Similarly with silvery and grey. Deeply is unnecessary, since a sigh connotes it. Walked is a boring word--you can evoke so much more with a colorful word, or you could make the phrase deliberately passive as I've done to imply a disconnect between the man's head and heart.

Stylistically, I prefer to avoid lots of broken monologue, since I find it hard to read, and I try to remove nearly all ellipses from monologue, save for insane ramblings. The angel metaphor should be used carefully; I didn't include it, since I didn't know your underlying purpose. It's a powerful symbol of forgiveness or protection or judgment or any number of other things and can be used ironically--impersonal marble eyes and beatific smile distorted by shadow into a cruel leer. Instead, I substituted the wind since it brings two other senses into play (sound, touch); moreover, the winter, cold, darkness, colorlessness, and impersonal loneliness all amplify the desolation and loss the character feels, something I found appealing.

I broke the passage into two paragraphs; nowadays, a brisker style, with shorter paragraphs, seems to be in fashion.

Hope this helps.

 

Well I already figured I sucked at writing so...>_> That's why I'm going into Mechanics. I don't want to end up being similar to Meyer. That would just be...depressing.

I guess that's why I'm not to picky about other people's writing. If I can understand it and its interesting I'm fine with it. I really get irritated when people start overanalyzing shit. Especially when its something that's being done for entertainment. Some things don't need to follow a scripted format.

 

Given the sheer about of published fiction I read, said seems to be the way to go, with qualifiers being interspersed only occasionally, usually only when necessary and usually only to convey either a very subtle emotion or a very forceful that needs a qualifier.

Usually, you just go with said. After reading so much, it usually just disappears into the background and one feels more intimate with the dialogue and don't have to worry about reading chunky descriptions to describe simple conversations.

 

That was kinda my point. "Said," unless you're using it to identify the speaker, is a superfluous word. I'm not saying to constantly use other words, but it isn't always possible to convey the whole emotion with the dialogue. So much of dialogue is about inflection, tone of voice, and facial expression, all of which are difficult to impossible to convey with just the words of the dialogue. When it is necessary to show a certain tone of voice or a certain mood, especially with a shorter sentence, then other words besides "said" are necessary. I agree that reading something that ends every piece of dialogue with "so-and-so exclaimed/gasped/shouted/etc" is really, really annoying. That doesn't mean those words should be outlawed though.

The whole point of writing is to paint a picture, and all "said" does is tell you who's talking. If you think so much can be done with just "said," try writing any emotionally charged scene without other dialogue modifiers.

 

Everything recently said can be simplified as 'write less'. That's my philosophy. The more you can say in fewer words, the better. Of course, I don't always follow my own philosophy, but I'll get it right eventually...

Adding words like 'gasped' 'croaked' etc. cloud imagery and break immersion, especially since these things can be grasped from our own real life experiences. A dying person doesn't giggle or shout his last words, he probably gasps or whispers them (and if he is giggling, write that down :/).

The same goes with other descriptors. Of course, you can't write a story void of them, but you have to make a judgment call of which ones contribute and which ones overweigh. Precision over verbosity.

Fanfiction writing is usually substandard because dialogue is clunky and unnatural (a character keeps saying another character's name over and over again, for instance), description is too heavy, ideas are tired and bloody, and no one ever finishes what they start.

Personally, I've been reading some lower-quality stuff while I wait for Shezza to update Denarian again, and I just can't read any of it. I don't know how I used to. What bugs me the most is the use of hyphens or dashes to indicate page breaks... god damn just make a new paragraph or something, I'll figure it out. When people feel the need to state dates and times at scene changes also piss me off. I'm not reading a movie script here, so why do I care what time it is if you tell us the moon is out?

 

So you don't get gobbled up by the nasty mean werewolves .

Edit:

Lol: The more you can say in fewer words, the better.

Made me wonder how long it'll be before there are HP fanfics on Twitter. They do it for books sometimes already .

 

Whether or not writing is good based on the amount of description is entirely subjective.

I personally fully regretted wasting ten bucks on Hemingway's Old Man In the Sea. It fully embodies the concept of less is better and many people love it. The minimalist sentence structure just felt stilted and nearly made me abandon the book half way through (something I haven't done since attempting to read War and Peace as a sixth grader).

On the other hand I really enjoyed Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series which many people consider way to descriptive.

 

I'm with Immolo on this. The idea of less is more just doesn't appeal to me in my literature. It's why I enjoy the Horus Heresy series so much, it has more descriptors than a Twilight fanfic on the silky locks of Bella. (Also, I seem to have developed a twitch in my eyebrow every time I see that name... Damn.)