TheCrystallineEntity
Istar
I'm fine with constructing character personalities; but making the dialogue sound unique to each one is where I have the most significant trouble.
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Another writer's tip that I've found useful in my own work: think about what the character notices. Different people notice different things, which in turn means they will react differently. This applies to things in the setting they notice, but also applies to what they notice about other people, about each other, about the MC.
One character might pass over a comment in silence, another might make a muttered comment, a third might confront directly. One will cheerlead while another smiles and nods (non-verbal is another aspect of "voice"). In a group scene, I find myself going through the scene from each character's POV. During the edit. During initial draft, I'm just trying to thrash my way to the other end of the scene!
One character might pass over a comment in silence, another might make a muttered comment, a third might confront directly. One will cheerlead while another smiles and nods (non-verbal is another aspect of "voice"). In a group scene, I find myself going through the scene from each character's POV. During the edit. During initial draft, I'm just trying to thrash my way to the other end of the scene!
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Deleted member 4265
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Wow, thanks for all the interesting responses everyone. This is turning out to be a really interesting discussion.
I've decided to just not have my protagonist talk like I'd originally planned, but I'd still appreciate advice on writing dialogue for children/teens as there will be other talking characters around her age in the story.
Obviously, not all teenagers are the same, but I feel that generally speaking there are some majors differences. From my own (admittedly very limited experience) I've noticed that children tend to be more straightforward in their speech. What I mean is, they don't usually hide their meanings in subtlety, innuendo, metaphor, or making allusions to other things such as "give to Caesar what is Caesar's. . .", which unfortunately is the sort of thing I love to do when writing dialogue. It's just such a great way to combine worldbuilding with character backstory, but it doesn't feel natural for younger characters and this is a major difficulty I have.
I've decided to just not have my protagonist talk like I'd originally planned, but I'd still appreciate advice on writing dialogue for children/teens as there will be other talking characters around her age in the story.
Obviously, not all teenagers are the same, but I feel that generally speaking there are some majors differences. From my own (admittedly very limited experience) I've noticed that children tend to be more straightforward in their speech. What I mean is, they don't usually hide their meanings in subtlety, innuendo, metaphor, or making allusions to other things such as "give to Caesar what is Caesar's. . .", which unfortunately is the sort of thing I love to do when writing dialogue. It's just such a great way to combine worldbuilding with character backstory, but it doesn't feel natural for younger characters and this is a major difficulty I have.
Vvashjr
Minstrel
I have an almost exact yet opposite problem as you when I am writing on characters who are in their thirties to forties, and I wonder if at times I make them sound alarmingly too young(read emo bratty whiny).
FifthView
Vala
That's a great point. I hadn't thought about that so much. I think there's room to play with that with teens, especially the older they get, but also opportunity to make their attempts at subtlety flop, hah.
Michael K. Eidson
Archmage
I use sentence length maximums to help with young character voices. I forget where I read this advice, but I think it works well. The technique is to restrict the number of words in any sentence spoken by a character to the age in years of the character. I take this as the "mental" age of the character, vs the physical age. A twelve-year-old smarter than the average twelve-year-old might speak in sentences of up to sixteen words, for example. I also shorten the number of words spoken in the heat of the moment, and shorten the paragraph text if told from the character's perspective, to reflect the lack of thought going into the choice of words.
I like the advice mentioned by others here, about knowing what a character would pay more attention to or be most interested in. This helps focus the dialogue for that character.
Lastly, one exercise I've found useful in developing a character's voice is to write a chapter or two or even more from the perspective of that character, in first person present, even if you have to toss those chapters or replace them with chapters written from a different POV and/or tense. First person present forces you into the character's head. I've been surprised by how much I've learned about some of my characters this way, and realized what I'd written about that character from a third person past tense perspective was sometimes disrespectful of the character's personality, in favor of furthering the plot.
I like the advice mentioned by others here, about knowing what a character would pay more attention to or be most interested in. This helps focus the dialogue for that character.
Lastly, one exercise I've found useful in developing a character's voice is to write a chapter or two or even more from the perspective of that character, in first person present, even if you have to toss those chapters or replace them with chapters written from a different POV and/or tense. First person present forces you into the character's head. I've been surprised by how much I've learned about some of my characters this way, and realized what I'd written about that character from a third person past tense perspective was sometimes disrespectful of the character's personality, in favor of furthering the plot.
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