It’s up to the writer to determine what, when, and where to use these different forms of dialogue distinction.
There are also times where using only dialogue tags to keep a scene of snappy, fast-paced dialogue flowing is essential. In fact, mixing the two can be extremely effective. Let’s look at an example from some of my own writing to get a better feel for what I mean. It provides the reader with something more to “see” within their mind’s eye, which creates a deeper, more enriching experience. They serve to both inform the reader who is speaking, just like a dialogue tag does, while also giving some sense of grounding in the scene. These are simple actions a character performs while talking.
The preferred approach in our current writing culture leans toward using action beats rather than excessive and creative verb/adverb combos. Can you image the cringe factor for these folks if they read books from the grand old days where adverbs were thrown around like candy? As most of you know, common wisdom encourages near complete removal of adverbs from our writing altogether. Regular use of adverbs was also seen during this era, which resulted in dialogue tags that read something along the lines of: he said shyly, or she muttered angrily. Ergo, characters were often portrayed as doing things such as shouting, crying, mumbling, whispering, or muttering their lines of dialogue. It used to be common practice to see writers using a whole spectrum of strong verbs in place of said. Currently, the great powers that be-whoever they are-say to limit verb attributions (with some occasional exceptions, of course) to “said” alone. The expectations and ideas on what is “best” in writing morph and change as frequently as the fashion trends.
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