I have read endless books concerning the use of attributives. Not really, I read two books I got from the bargain bin at the bookstore, and a few websites. I think, for me, writing dialogue has been and continues to be the most challenging aspect of writing.

When it came to writing my first paragraph, I stopped short at the first attributive. Having failed to find a single common thread or grammar usage rule to guide me in the Merriam-Webster Punctuation and Style guide, or Strunk and White Elements of Style, I turned to thousands and thousands of published fiction books (well, one really, I like to exaggerate.)

The big problem I have here is that the one rule I keep coming across is that you can not snort, spit, chuckle, laugh, or bark a word. I completely disagree and do not see the problem.

A thousand years ago, in Army basic training, I would stand at attention while a Drill Sergeant would bark in my face about some infraction I had committed, usually something to do with not folding my underwear correctly. (I’m certain wars have been lost and Nation’s fallen over such horrid transactions). The Sergeant would continue for several minutes and then move on to the next dazed trainee, leaving me standing there wondering what language he had been using, certainly it was not English, probably some lower form of Cro-Magnon slang.

“Muck yuck yak yak mush bogga?” barked the Drill Sergeant. “Puck duck slosh?”

(Attempted translation)

“You worthless maggot,” barked the Drill Sergeant. “Did your mama fold your shorts?”

(Actually, yes she did, thank you mama)

But you see, the Sergeant was barking his words, and I’ve snorted a few words myself at an ill-timed joke causing me to snort a few words while I spit my coffee across the table.

So, what is it? Is there a right way or is it what you can get away with?

Do what you can get your readers hooked on.

When I started writing the trend in creative writing classes was to announce all of the things you could not / should not do on a lamb, on a cam, on a ram, with a mouse, on a house, with Sam Iam and green eggs and ham. Then everyone in the class would joyfully shread your work with inarticulate glee for its failure to be "literature" or for being more perfect than their successful results in seeing Dick and Jane run.

So yes there are many rules that get thrown about and many the teacher's pet that did not get slapped down for making foolish pronouchments about what was the right thing.

At least for me the point of the story is to tell the tale in an entertaining way. If you can get there with attributives or dialect or a 500 page free verse rendering... great!

Floating around here in my stacks of books [they seem to have over flowed the bookcases] I have a copy of "Voice & Style" by Johnny Payne published by Writer's Digest Books... he doesn't seem to mind but...at one point he implies that there is an "anti-intellectual" bias in American writers that causes them to want to write stories rather than literature

In your excerpt you are flipping the flop between authorial, narative and discoursive voices... which will work in a first person story as an extension of the narrator's personality... and I can't see a problem with doing so except where it might confuse the reader.

What works for some stories might not work for others. To have your Authorial voice spitting, bitting, chewing, growling, ejaculating, throwing, or otherwise slinging phrases about might confuse your audience if the story is telling a "classic story" [Pick a Greek Play or Dickens or any other story plot that is considered litterature] where the expectation is that you are going to speak in a litterary voice.

Throwing, gambling, gamboling, gasping, snorting, spewing, or coughing out the lines of dialoge sounds in some way like a great way to take the "food fight" meme to the next level.  Yet were you to attempt to do this in the middle of a tragic or romantic scene, I think you would find the result to be comedic rather than tragic or romantic. To me at least this is a "comedic" affection to be used in situations where the narrator is a bit of a bombastic bloke telling tall tales on a dark and stormy night. ;)

That makes the most sense I’ve read so far. I think what you are saying is that it depends on who is speaking.

 [Right] The Drill Sergeant marched up and down the ranks. “Line it up, you maggots,” barked the Drill Sergeant.

 [Wrong] The Lord of the Castle stood on the parapets surveying the battle. “Stand fast men,” barked Lord Richard.

 Lord Richard would be commanding his men in a clear and concise manner, not barking at them like a dog. (woof woof)

 [Right] The Lord of the Castle stood on the parapets surveying the battle. “Stand fast men,” commanded Lord Richard.

 As for Voice and Style, I just ordered 'Voice & Style (Elements of Fiction Writing)' by Johnny Payne from Amazon. I’ll wait until that arrives and I read it to post a thread and comment on Voice. Thanks for the suggestion.

If you haven't seen it before, another outstanding writer's idea resource is tvtropes.org which is home to a wiki of plot / character / style /device / sumaries for all kinds of writing as well as sumaries from writing books on topics suchs as character archetypes and plot types.

While TVtropes of itself  will not tell you how to write, it will help you see the parts and pieces [giving them mostly funny names] which  writers use to construct their stories.

After a while of digging through these things you might see how plots are like jokes-- some are good only once, while there are others that are good always...