Emotion is not a slider. It lives in the small sounds between words — a laugh, a breath, a shift to a whisper. Inline tags let you place those moments exactly where they belong.
The core tags
- <laugh> — a genuine, short laugh
- <chuckle> — a softer, amused breath
- <sigh> — relief, resignation or a beat of weight
- <gasp> — surprise or a sharp intake
- <breath> — a natural pause for air or pacing
- <whisper> — an intimate drop in volume
Place tags at the moment, not the sentence
A tag should sit exactly where the sound happens. If the laugh follows the punchline, the tag goes right after the punchline — not at the start of the line.
Less is more
Two or three tags per paragraph is plenty. A tag on every line stops reading as emotion and starts reading as noise. Use them the way a narrator uses a breath: sparingly, and only when the story needs it.
One well-placed <sigh> can carry more feeling than a whole paragraph of adjectives.
M
Moziva Team
Writing about voice, language and creation.