Try This: Juxtaposition

Not subtle, but useful

“I’m all about being a mother now,” she said as we watched the venomous anaconda crush and swallow a baby panda bear…

Check out this link for laughs and lessons. A reporter profiles Elizabeth Holmes as they walk through a zoo. Lest you miss the metaphor, Holmes is about to go behind bars. You have to love how Holmes’s quotes use attribution to link her to various lethal animals they encounter.

“I made so many mistakes and there was so much I didn’t know and understand, and I feel like when you do it wrong, it’s like you really internalize it in a deep way,” Ms. Holmes said as we stopped to look at a hissing anaconda.

As for verbs, note how her abstract verbs—know, understand, feel, internalize—wither when placed beside “hissing anaconda.”

This is the kind of guilt-by-association juxtaposition you forfeit when you choose not to use attribution. “No, actually, I’m a saintly person,” he said while he leaned forward to tongue-kiss a life-sized photograph of Nazi leader Adolph Hitler.

Attribution in dialog: Use it. Live it. Love it.