Slashie posted:

Well, you're never going to completely get rid of that writerly neuroticism, but one thing that jumps out at me is that you aren't actually using the word "said" all that much. The plainer the word, the more it recedes into the background. Also, you pretty much never need to say "he replied." Trust your reader a little. If you've given them an "establishing shot" paragraph at the start of the scene, they know who's there. You don't have to constantly remind them. And if somebody's saying "Mark!" we can assume that's not Mark talking. And I would get rid of that bit about the voice carrying far enough for the police to hear. If you've set up that the police are within earshot, you can let that be background tension without reminding us like that. Bring "the police can hear her" in when the police actually do something. Right now the cops aren't "in frame."

I hope you don't think it's presumptuous of me to rewrite it, but I wanted to throw in some different examples of handling the "saids." One trick I love is to throw it into the middle of the sentence like I did in the fifth line here. Also if you go straight from "character's line" to "character did x" the who-said-what is implied without you having to actually connect the dots.

code:

Establishing sentence here (include names, location, mood, action, etc.).
"Mark, we'll never make it!"
"We have to try," he said, revving the engine.
"This is all about her, isn't it?" she said.
"Shut up, woman," Mark snarled. "This is all about you."
He slammed the car into gear and...

Eh, it's not great, but you get the idea. Mix it up and don't resort to adverbs.