Some times you gotta have 'em. After all, we're not watching a play and it's easy for a reader to get lost in our dialogue when we don't remind them who's talking.
I've got a long sheet somewhere in my writing handouts from conferences with a list of "tags." You know, like shouted, yammered, hollered, shrieked, howled, barked, giggled, chattered.
Use too many of them and the reader is going to anticipate them and pay more attention to that than your dialogue.
I use them rarely but once in a while must sneak in a "Brixton drawled" because I love me those cowboys. Then again, he didn't wake up and think I'll drawl now.. From the heroine's POV, she heard it. Understand?
But "Louis said" is best, unless somebody's asking a question and then you already know because of the punctuation mark... use Marguerite asked only if we need to be reminded of the speaker.
"Be back by dawn, ma'am," Louis said, two fingers touching the brim of his Stetson.
The cowboy's drawl sent Marguerite's heart skipping. "I'll be waiting for you," she said.
