October Novel Prep Challenge

I have the opposite viewpoint, Deborah. I learned in a writing class several years ago that the dialogue tag 'said' is by far the most unobtrusive to readers. An article provided by my mentor quoted 'said bookisms' and 'Tom Swifties.' Generally, they pull the reader out of the story and draw attention to how many other words the author can think of instead if 'said.'

My personal preference is to leave out even the 'said' if I can, though I do use it and i very rarely use other words.

"What do you think you're doing?" Mary confronted her husband at the door before his stomping could wake the baby.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CE3DD103BF935A25754C0A9679C8B6...

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/said.shtml

And if you don't know about Tom Swifties:
http://thinks.com/words/tomswift.htm