When you can't imagine the right voices for your characters

[srebak]

Like the title says, i just can't imagine the right voices

I have a female character and i just can't give her the right voice. I don't want to give her a well known female voice from my memory because i want to try something different, but then i end up giving her a male voice instead. What's wrong with me?

 

[wordwalker]

The usual advice on this is would be to listen to people more, to imagine your character's background, to practice writing her in different situations. Organic, intuitive understanding.

But you can combine that by looking at particulars of how dialog works, as stepping stones for different ways she might speak. For instance:

• Does she speak more or less than the other characters she's usually with? Is that because she's likely to start conversations, or take the last word? Does she raise more points in the course of a subject (and are they good points or wanderings), or take longer to get through each?
• Is she educated or eloquent, or is she a bit clumsier and rougher in putting words together, less smooth about it?
• What career jargon, metaphor, or other system helps her frame her words? Men in some groups are notorious for their sports metaphors, but women may not be as easy to define here. Which of her five senses tends to slip into her language: does she "look into" things, "keep an ear out," or "feel around"?

Dialog is a complex thing, but you can look at it from any direction you want. (Or is that "listen to it from different angles"... wait, the metaphor itself makes the process seem different, and hints at the character being more aware of certain parts of it... Oh.)

 

[Penpilot]

For me, I don't pre-plan a character's voice. I write myself into it. I start with a basic understanding of who the charter is and what they want and why. From that I just write and eventually the character's voice will come out. It usually takes until the halfway point.

 

[Chessie]

What does your main character desire? What are her psychological and moral needs? What is her story goal? Figuring out these things can help you come into contact with where to take her in the story, and thus bring out her voice as a character.

 

[KC Trae Becker]

I'm writing a narrating character that spends most of his time alone or in the presence of an intelligent tree. I'm finding the personality of this loner character difficult to nail down and the voice even more slippery. Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[Svrtnsse]

For me, I don't pre-plan a character's voice. I write myself into it. I start with a basic understanding of who the charter is and what they want and why. From that I just write and eventually the character's voice will come out. It usually takes until the halfway point.

This is very similar to my go-to advice for character development: write a flash-fiction short-story with the character as the main point of view. Make it an irrelevant (non-canon) everyday incident involving the character and just wing it. It could be about her waking up in the morning and getting dressed and having breakfast, or about doing the daily chores or going for a walk or something else that's absolutely trivial.

The point here isn't to write an interesting story.
The point is that you as a writer gets to spend some time with the character and get to know her.


This has worked very well for me. Do note though, that even if the character in the end didn't turn out at all like in the flash fiction, the flash fiction still helped as it made me get to know my character.

If you haven't tried it, give it a go. I can't promise it will work for you, but it did work for me.

 

[Chessie]

I'm writing a narrating character that spends most of his time alone or in the presence of an intelligent tree. I'm finding the personality of this loner character difficult to nail down and the voice even more slippery. Anybody have any suggestions?

What is his story goal, meaning, what is he trying to accomplish in this story? Who is his primary opponent? This could be a person or thing that wants the same thing he does, just a variation of it. What is your premise? Spend some time figuring those things out and see if that helps.

 

[Mythopoet]

When I have trouble getting into a character I spend some time writing non-story related character centric exercises just in a sort of stream of consciousness fashion. Eventually the character's unique voice starts coming out. If it doesn't, it means I might need to think more about the character and flesh them out as a person more.

 

[Jabrosky]

Like the title says, i just can't imagine the right voices

I have a female character and i just can't give her the right voice. I don't want to give her a well known female voice from my memory because i want to try something different, but then i end up giving her a male voice instead. What's wrong with me?

What do you mean by "voice"? You mean speaking patterns or diction (as if that were gender-specific)? Because you're not producing something with in-built audio, are you?

 

[buyjupiter]

What do you mean by "voice"? You mean speaking patterns or diction (as if that were gender-specific)? Because you're not producing something with in-built audio, are you?

Yep, voice can be gender specific. And socio-economic and ethnically specific. If you listen to enough people talking to members of their own group you will see a certain pattern emerge. It is different from how people talk to those outside of their socio-economic status or ethnic group or gender.

Ok, Example Time! I'm going to use discussion of clothing as a thread between all my examples. I'll show how men talk to other men, and how that differs from how a group of men interact with women in the mix and vice versa. I'll use "Tim" throughout all my male examples, even though they are all different "voices" and "Susan" for my female examples.

Example 1:

"Nice jacket Bob," Tim said. "Where did you get it?" [or "was it expensive" or similar bland statement.] (Man to another man.)

Example 2:

"Oh, wow! That's a fab jacket, Bobby," Tim said. "I didn't know there was anybody else like moi in this town. So fashion forward, isn't it?" (Man to another man, but this time Tim is a very bad stereotypical gay representation.)

Example 3:

"Hey Jill, did you see Bob's new jacket?" Tim asked. "Didn't it look like he was trying a bit too hard for that promotion?" (Man to woman. This is different from how he talked to Bob in the example above, because I've noticed that among guys--if there's any discussion of clothing at all it is very much Example 1--but when women are in the mix, different things get said/brought up.)

Example 4:

"Oh, my gosh, I love that jacket," Susan said. "You have to tell me where you got it, Jill. And did you get it on sale?" (Woman to another woman. This is almost directly a word for word representation of multiple conversations I've had with friends or coworkers.)

Example 5:

"I sure wish my husband would wear jackets like yours," Susan said to Tim. "It's such a nice jacket. And you fill it out so nicely, too." (Woman to man, but with romantic undertones. I've heard variations of this any number of times.)

Example 6:

"Will y'all stop carryin' on about that darn jacket? It's off the sale rack at Wal-mart, it ain't nothing special," Susan said. (Woman to a group of women.)

 

[Jabrosky]

Yep, voice can be gender specific. And socio-economic and ethnically specific. If you listen to enough people talking to members of their own group you will see a certain pattern emerge. It is different from how people talk to those outside of their socio-economic status or ethnic group or gender.

Agreed, but most of those speech patterns come from subcultures that may not have existed in a pre-modern time period, or wouldn't develop in a high fantasy world. I mean, I personally think it would be pretty cool to hear ancient Roman characters in the movies talk like those chefs from Lady and the Tramp (at least accent-wise), or ancient Egyptians talk like Tyler Perry characters (or, even better, that old Rafiki dude), but the actual chances of any of those modern-day speaking patterns stretching back to ancient times is nil (and besides, I have no idea how to write Tyler Perry-type dialogue without making offensively major blunders).

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Agreed, but most of those speech patterns come from subcultures that may not have existed in a pre-modern time period, or wouldn't develop in a high fantasy world. I mean, I personally think it would be pretty cool to hear ancient Roman characters in the movies talk like those chefs from Lady and the Tramp (at least accent-wise), or ancient Egyptians talk like Tyler Perry characters (or, even better, that old Rafiki dude), but the actual chances of any of those modern-day speaking patterns stretching back to ancient times is nil (and besides, I have no idea how to write Tyler Perry-type dialogue without making offensively major blunders).

Not only socio-economic but speech patterns emerge across professions. The most affluent attorneys (the partners in big law who make 500K base and bonuses for other reasons that nets them a salary in the millions) and poorer attorneys (those in small practice or NPO/government work making 45K-80K) all share the same language. The phrase but-for is common parlance in any attorneys lexicon. I can't tell you how many times I (a third year law student), my brothers (both lawyers), and my brother-in-law (another attorney) (as an aside when we all die we'll take your slip and fall cases in Hell [that's a joke and not a serious solicitation]) use the phrase "x would have happened but for y doing z." This further breaks down into subgroups within the profession. One brother works for the DOJ and when he's working his cases he uses phrases of case law and statutes that he's working on. My in law works complex litigation so words from that practice creep in, though not as often as but-for.

Education level plays a huge role, and I recognize education level is tied to socio-economic levels, in word usage tone and voice. A person with a high school degree only is much less likely to use phrases like lexicon. A college grad only will never use the phrase "proximate cause." Most attorneys will never ever ever utilize notions from quantum physics.

Language, it seems, is a product of our situations. As such so is our voice, which includes tone, word choice, syntax, sentence structure, and overall conversational organization.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

Perhaps think of the role you want her to play and not her appearance. Is she a support for another character, a sounding board, an authority, someone with little experience, tension relief or builder, a person with special insight, someone closed-minded. I'm sure there are more, but you get the idea.