In Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, the author uses inventive speech tags that defy the general rule of sticking to "said."

Cleft sentences are one of English's awesome emphasis-providing tools, but they're vast and hard to understand. In this post, we focus on it-clefts used for a few narrow reasons, which will help you get an introductory grip on the topic.

In this post, we look at Billy Devine's birdhouses in Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. Combining universal symbols in genre fiction is a great way of adding depth without bogging down the story.