Suppose an author wants to write dialog without using dialog tags such as he said/she said and without using quote marks. How could he/she do that? An online writing acquaintance of mine, Bill Bartlett, answered the question this way:
Hemingway had a dozen lines of dialog or more without any dialog tags or beats to show who was saying what, but he used quote marks. This was in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, as I recall. I've seen at least one writer use the character name followed by a colon. Johann David Wyss used that technique in Swiss Family Robinson. I've slept since I've read it, though, and I can't recall if quote marks were used or not.
Example:
Bill: What's up?
Pamelyn: Same ol' same old.
A beat or an action tag is good.
Example:
Bill wiped his brow. I'm not sure about this.
Pamelyn stomped her foot. You said you knew how to do it.
That being said, I seem to recall that the writer only needs to identify a speaker about once every three lines of dialog or so.
Example:
Bill wiped his brow. I'm not sure about this.
You said you knew how to do it.
Well, yeah, but that was a long time ago and I haven't even tried for dozens of years.
Pamelyn narrowed her eyes. This is important.
You're sure? If you're absolutely positive, I can try again, but you have to be certain.
What do you think? Can you imagine in your wildest dreams me asking you?
No. Bill looked at his feet. Not really.
Another way is to use the characters. One could use a name and make their dialog unique enough to identify who is saying what. This could be done with a dialect, too, where one character has a pronounced accent and the other doesn't. That's a little tricky to pull off, though. Too much dialect can irritate the reader and too little won't achieve the desired effect.
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