Smile?

When I write, I tend to make my characters smile to much-normally when they are talking. It always ends up with everything smiling-

"There were almost five, but one didn't make it." She said, and smiled. Johnathon nodded, and smiled as well. She smiled. He smiled. I smiled. We smiled. GEORGE WASHINGTON SMILED!"

So then it sort of makes my writing really awkward to read. Normally I do this to keep it from becoming like this-

There were almost five, but one didn't make it." She said.
"Yes, you're correct. The five we have now are important though..." He murmured.
"I know." She said.


How can I stop my characters from smiling? Or is the second way fine? I CAN'T STOP SMILING!

Simply, darling, just stop smiling. Sometimes in life, we make things wayyyyy more difficult than it has to be! This happens a lot in writing. We think, oh this is so difficult, I'm writing, and then we start make things overly complicated because when it starts to feel easy, we think something is going wrong. Find different adjectives, descriptions that you can use for what your characters are doing. Instead of talking about their facial expressions, try adding more actions. Once you become aware of what you're doing, it'll be easier to change your ways. It's just a habit! Kick it to the curb and show it who's boss !

Okay thanks! *smiles*

I do the same thing ( I think, not as bad as your example though. )! The thing is, I'm not sure it's a huge problem... of course if it wasn't in your character to smile that much, than yeah, that's not going to work. But the thing is sometimes conversations are FILLED with smiles ( and any facial expressions ), I guess the trick would be moderation. Try using some other expressions like: she winced, his eyebrows knit together, she laughed/giggled. There's also quite a few different kind of smiles ( and everyone smiles differently ), so you might want to try more than just simply saying "she smiled" ( maybe you don't always use smiled? I'm not sure ). Also different smiles say different things. If he grinned, you could bet he was pretty amused. If she smiled sadly- the key word is sadly.

Anyway, I think if you concetrate on cutting back on just smiling, and add some more expressions, it would be fine.

The second example you have there isn't bad, except "murmured" really isn't the best word to use. Based on the smiling first example, he's not discontent or unhappy about the situation, and he's not trying to go unheard, which is when you would use a word like "murmur".

Not all synonyms of "said" are the same, and you have to be careful which synonyms you use, otherwise you use words that mean the opposite of what you intended. For the most part, though, "said" usually works just fine, and you'll generally want to avoid using synonyms for "said" because they can be really distracting (especially when the synonyms are used wrongly).

With that said, instead of tagging the dialogue with the boring "Character said" tag, you can show us some of the characters actions instead. For example, how did she say "I know"? Did she toss her head or wave a hand dismissively? Did she roll her eyes? Did she turn around to walk away and not bother turning around to face him while answering?

Actions can really reveal a lot about how a character says something, which in turn reveals a lot about them as a character. Dialogue tags don't have to involve mentions of the characters saying things directly. Describing their actions as they say something is just as (if not sometimes more) effective.