Ten Rules For Writing Fiction...

[Black Aeronaut]

I beg to differ here. I did that once before, and I found that I had entire paragraphs that fell flat from 'inactivity' on the character's parts - they simply didn't seem lively, so I mixed it up as much as possible and it seems to play well with my writing style now. Of course, I try to never use anything that isn't immediately discernable for someone with less than a sixth grade reading level.

The thing is, you can write an entire conversation without using any speech verbs, if you pay attention to what you're doing. That said, I agree with you, but still I'd do so very sparingly. Mix it up -- a little of each variety in every conversation you write that's long enough to need it.

Oh, of course.  You'r not going to use many speech-verbs over the course of a monologue, if any at all!  Those things I tend to use for the more animated discussions my characters may have.