dialogue - How do I say that a character said something without resorting to "said Character" every time?

I have one big problem with my writing - when I'm doing dialogue, I find myself writing it and following it with "said Character" quite a lot.

I can mix it up sometimes by using a synonym or descriptive way to indicate the character said something (such as: "Blah blah blah" droned Character, or "Hum tee tum" sang Character jubilantly) but it still feels very forced to tag all my dialogue with a character's name each time.

During dialogue-heavy scenes, where characters might be talking back and forth a lot, how can I avoid the repetitive "said Character" tags at the end of each quote?

Answer

You don't always have to tag "said" after every line said. You can do something like:

"Why do you always look at me that way?" She turned her head away, embarrassed as she recalled all the times she caught him glancing at her while working.

"Because the sparkle in your eye, and the radiance of your smile could only be because you are an angel that fell from heaven."

"Do you always use such corny lines to pick up women?" She smiled at his attempt to be cheesy. Admittedly, she thought it was cute at the same time.

You don't have to put said after every line, and even when you give "tags" to quotes, you don't even have to use said. Notice how I used other ways to fill the trailing of a quote.

So feel free to skip a line or 2 with the he said she said stuff as long as it is just 2 people talking. Most people understand when you change lines, it's a new person and if you established it is just 2 people talking, they can follow who is who as long as you give tidbits here and there on who is what in the convo.