Said-bookism

A said-bookism is an ornate dialogue tag used in place of said: the article's examples are "murmured, whimpered or thundered," tags that "are known as 'said-bookisms'" and "are considered to detract from the narrative if over-used." The sharper charge is Cory Doctorow's: said-bookisms lead to "writerly laziness," because it is "easier to use dialogue tags to tell the reader how the character is speaking than have the dialogue itself convey this," which "thus weakens the story." The diagnosis matters more than any ban: when the line itself carries how it is said, the tag can be said; a writer reaching constantly for ornamented verbs has dialogue doing too little work.

The mechanics sit with the dialogue tag itself; the working rule and the beat alternative are in how to write dialogue.