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he said / she said

I think there are more of them in CONTAGIOUS because I have more multiple-character scenes. When you have just two characters in a scene, you can leave off many of the attibutions and it's clear who is talking. Introduce three or more characters, however, and the writer has to be very careful -- otherwise, the reader can start a chunk of dialogue thinking it's Margaret talking to Perry, and four or five lines later realize it's Dew.

The way around that is to open the paragraph with a character action, so you know who that paragraph is about:

Margaret nodded. "You're right, Dew, but I'm still not going to do the dishes."

However, as the scene and novel progress, you are limited there as well. If you start every paragraph with "she nodded" or "he shrugged," that becomes even more obvious than "he said.' For the most part, the word "said" is largely invisible. It's far more subtle and natural than something like "he replied" or "she stated.'