A Question of Attribution

When you're writing dialogue, it's easy to get bogged down in a he said / she said / he said / she said riff and although it can sometimes be used to stylistic effect, as with everything else, variety is the spice of life.  Here are a few ideas which might help you break down the tricky problem of attribution....

• Sometimes use he / she, but intersperse it with the names of the characters involved - Fred said, Jane said.
• Root around in your Thesaurus for alternative ways of describing speech: he observed, she replied; he declared, she answered etc
• Get verbal - distil the verbs you choose into the most concentrated form of meaning: instead of saying he said sleepily, try he yawned; rather than he said loudly, try he yelled / shouted / bellowed.
• Use action to indicate who is speaking: "I've had just about enough of this," Jane rummaged in her bag for her cigarettes and when she couldn't find them, she clawed her fingers through her hair.  "You think I haven't?"  Fred was standing with his back to her, staring out of the window at the street.
• Vary where you place your attribution so that it is sometimes at the beginning of the speech and sometimes in the middle, not automatically at the end each time: Jane hesitated, "What do you mean?  What are you - ?"  "Well, it's obvious, isn't it?"  Fred cut across her,  "We've both known for months now..." 
•  Establish a rhythm where Jane speaks and then Fred does, so that you don't need to label each exchange, as the reader can work it out for themselves.

Why not write a short piece yourself, putting all of these to the test?  Be as creative and inventive as you can; overexaggerate it so that you get a feel for the different techniques, then you can row back a bit, to a level that feels more comfortable.