Character Voice

[T.Allen.Smith]

Dialogue for some people is the easiest thing to write. I've always found it more difficult than other aspects of writing.

One thing I constantly battle in the revision process is character voice. I notice I tend to have several characters who have a very similar voice as the work progresses.

Does anyone have character voice exercises they use to good effect?

I do extensive character sketching but sometimes this still gives me difficulty & I wind up having to do a lot of editing during a 2nd draft to overcome this.

Thanks.

[Caged Maiden]

I have a related comment, but no exercise to offer.

I write a lot of different types of characters. However, it's hard to differentiate them in dialogue specifically because when you start getting too creative, it gets hard to read. For example, people advise against writing accents into the dialogue because it's like having to decode what the person is saying. Or, if you're trying to write an upper class character and get too snooty, or a lower class character and use poor grammar. I can agree too much is tedious, but I've been called out on even slight colloquialisms. So I ask, how is it even possible to distinguish character's voices within such constraints?

I mean, how much will a reader tolerate, because I've been lead to believe, not much.

Hey so after all that, I think I'm pretty good with dialogue, and if you want to post something, I'd be happy to offer some suggestions. It's hard to without understanding what exactly is causing you trouble though.

[T.Allen.Smith]

I appreciate that. I'm not really one to post material though (although I respect those who do). I tend to rely on a few people that I know to read pieces and give critique. I'm fortunate to have them.

I was curious to know if other writers have ways to keep their character voices from becoming monotone. Meaning, if your really good at this, how do you constantly remind yourself how a character speaks?

Maybe it is something that we all just handle during revision. If so then I'm right there with you. But I'd love a time saver. Editing can be quite boring at times.

[Caged Maiden]

Oh, well I picture their face and give them a tone of voice and when I read the dialogue out loud in their voice it either fits or doesn't. Of course, I've never given that much thought, so who knows whether it's what other people do. HAHA. I guess it sounds pretty stupid. Oh well, sorry I couldn't be more help.

I consider myself a keen observer of people. I've dealt with a lot of people and am a pretty great salesperson (I used to sell cars if that's any indication). So I just naturally have an ease about how I communicate. I guess I rely on that natural ability when I try to write characters' interactions. However, while I am observant, my writing skills are not as top-notch as my abilities to put people at ease, align with a client, sell someone something they don't need because they just like me so darn much... So it probably doesn't show in my writing.

One thing I do tend to keep in mind is people's speech patterns. I'm from Wisconsin. The phrase, "You know," is peppered throughout my speech. My husband is from England and has a very different set of speech patterns. I sort of use the differences between us as a gauge. HAHA So when I'm writing a particular sort of character, I use more of my husband's way of speaking, and when I'm writing another type of character, I use more of my own words.

[Penpilot]

One thing I do, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not, is cast the character with an real life actor. Imagine them speaking when you write the dialogue. For me, I have a character who I write with Alyson Hannigan in mind. It wasn't intentional, but one day there she was embodying my character with a Willow'esque type personality from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And now, I can't write her without doing it.

[Christopher Wright]

The trick I have for dialog is that I try to focus on rhythm. In real life conversations, talking isn't necessarily rhythmic. We fumble with our words and reach and frown and hesitate and pause, etc. But if you watch shows with really good dialog writers (the Buffy example above is perfect, because Whedon is the master at this) all of the characters adopt a rhythm that words well with each other. Willow stutters and pauses, but the stutters and pauses are timed to make it funny, or poignant, or sad.

So when I'm writing dialog, I try to keep that in mind, because it works well on text as well.

[R.S.Robertson]

I like to write my dialogue out like a transcript, without any indicators of who is speaking, the gestures and movements going on, the location... just he words being spoken. Then as I read through it I can see if it's apparent who's speaking without all of the nonverbal cues.

I also try to give each of my "big" characters small verbal traits, as anihow mentioned. So, for instance, one character may like to say "fracking" all the time, a nervous character may use strings of very short words that give the impression that they are speaking faster. My grandmother use to say "warsh" instead of "wash" which was a huge giveaway to her personality and where she came from. You don't want to overdo speech traits though, try for one or two per character.

Hope that's helpful.

[Ophiucha]

Two things.

1. More important, I think, then giving each character a unique voice is being sure that their voice doesn't sound a lot like the narrative voice. From my experience as a reader, one tends to relate to the other. If all the characters sound alike, in their speech patterns and word choice in particular, then it is very likely these are the same patterns and diction found in the actual writing. So be sure that's not the source of the problem.

2. If you do just have a "generic person speaking voice" for your writing, the easiest way to break it up is just to give each one a small trait or tic. Or give different regions 'accents'. Not in the annoying, misspell every word way. But in sentence structure and grammatical choices. As an English example from my home, everybody who lives on Long Island says they live on Long Island. Everybody who doesn't? We live in Long Island. Same applies to most islands, really. Without having to create annoying verbal tics, giving different regions different habits ('you' as 'you plural', versus 'you all/y'all' as 'you plural') will distinguish at least some of your characters from one another. After that, simple things to indicate class, education, and personality are usually enough. Big words vs. small words, run-on sentences vs. consistently four or five word sentences.

[T.Allen.Smith]

Thanks all. Nice nuggets in there.