Mokka mit Schlag

I’m having trouble figuring out which form of dialog tag is preferred under which circumstances. In fiction dialog, should I write:

“I’ll call a car to take us to my studio,” said Terence.

or

“I’ll call a car to take us to my studio,” Terence said.

Which flows more naturally under which circumstances? I’ve tried googling it, but if the answer is out there I can’t find the right search terms to describe the question.
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So chapter 104 of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is out and big reveal at the end. Reading comments at fanfic and r/hpmor, I’m going to go out on a limb and say most folks are missing the point of the last line. Spoilers follow.
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I’m eligible to nominate for the Hugo this year, but I don’t think I’m going to nominate much. Although I read every issue of Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF with a 2015 cover date, various issues of Galaxy’s Edge, Apex, and other magazines, many stories online, and at least one anthology, only two stories have stuck with me.
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For the last ten years or so, the real markers of the holiday season for me are the annual Christmas Bird Counts. I try to get to as many of these as I can. Yesterday was Kings County’s (which actually includes part of Queens County for reasons of convexity). This year I counted at Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden on a beautiful cloudy winter day. Conditions were ideal for sea watching, and we had a lot of great birds including all three scoter species (maybe more than a thousand Black Scoters), hundreds of Red-throated Loons, and eight Common Eiders.

However for me the highlight was three Common Waxwings that Joshua Malbin and I found in the woods at Fort Tilden. Shockingly, these were the only Cedar Waxwings anyone saw anywhere in the count circle yesterday, which makes them a save. They usually aren’t that hard to find, and we didn’t think much about them when we did see them. If we hadn’t bushwhacked the overgrown trail behind the West Battery, or been a few minutes earlier or later when we did, the entire count would have missed Cedar Waxwing this year.
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My flash piece, “To The Point”, is now available in the January/February double issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine:

You can find it at most newsstands, as well as Amazon and Google Play.

This is my first official Mystery Writers of America qualifying pro sale so I’m pretty psyched. :-)

My latest short story, Refusing the Call, is now available in Third Flatiron’s Abbreviated Epics for Kindle, DRM-free ePub, or just plain paper.

It wasn’t easy figuring out how to write an epic in only 3,000 words. In the end I just started at the beginning, and stayed there. Enjoy!