It ’s one of the biggest problems plaguing fiction — and it seems to hit genre fiction especially hard sometimes : the characters who all sound exactly likewise . How do you keep your characters from all having the same voice ?
This is something I ’ve struggled with in my own fiction , and it ’s a much messy job than you would conceive . Even when you feel like your tough woman space headwaiter and your sensible new astro - biologist are incredibly well drawn and full of role and neuroses , and nobody would ever ideate they were the same person . And then you ’re look over your novel for the tenth time , and you realize that they ’re all sounding absolutely identical .
It gain sense , in one style — your eccentric are all aspects of you , after all . They all do out of your foreland , unless you based them on your acquaintance or other fictional characters . ( And even if they ’re based on someone else , they ’re still your creations , when it come down to it . ) You ’re speaking through their mouths . But that does n’t imply they ’re doomed to sound like you , or like the same person . This is whole a solveable problem .
Here are some solutions to the payoff , ranging from least rough to crudest . If the least crude solution works for you , then you do n’t need to worry about the balance of them — but I ’ve used all of these methods at various prison term , and there ’s no shame in using tough measures on your characters .
1 ) hear to how the great unwashed talk . I have a feeling this is what “ veridical ” writers do . Do n’t heed to how people spill the beans on television or in the movies — go to a bar or coffee shop and just hear to the conversations around you , and hear to get word how people are speaking . If you may save down snippets of people ’s conversation without being a total creep , then do that . V.S. Pritchett writes about doing this when he was a young writer — and one of those snippets of conversation even found its way into a short story that he later print . prove to get a feel for the calendar method of conversation , and the way dissimilar multitude form prison term . Bottom line of descent is , if your character all go the same , then they ’re not sound like natural dialogue at all .
2 ) essay to “ listen ” your character ’ individual voices . This is not really cruder than the first one , actually . If your case are really that vivid in your top dog — if you really finger like they ’re real , breathing masses that you ’ve brought to spirit inside a living story — then you should be able to hear their voice . And they do n’t just sound dissimilar because they choose different words to express themselves — they are say different things .
Say Space Captain Starjumper do set of definitive program line , because she ’s father lots of points to get across , while Astrobiologist Second Class Sparrow is constantly promote tentative half - question . Maybe Captain Starjumper has an undercurrent of insecurity , and that ’s part of why she has to make sharp statement all the time . And Sparrow really knows more than he ’s saying . The way in which people say the thing they say also supply the proofreader with more data .
3 ) Realize your characers are not talking to you , or directly to the reader . Unless you ’re really doing some kind of post - mod 4th - wall - shredding recitation , your part are talking to each other . And think about what sort of reaction your characters are hoping to get when they say something . Not the reaction they actually do get — it ’s too easy to rise direct to that — but the response they await . Fine , Navigator Angstrom ’s revelation that he turns gay whenever the ship is in hyperspace satisfy with a stunned silence . But was Navigator Angstrom hoping for a stunned secrecy ? Was he essay to provoke an angry reaction , or some kind of accepting , reassuring program line ? Was he trying to guilty conscience - trip the captain for take a crap so many hyperspace jumps late ? It sound obvious , but it ’s often hard to remember : the response you ’re hoping for shapes the room you verbalise . And every one of these characters has a book in his / her head for how this conversation is conk to go , whether it go that way or not . You , as the generator , know the way you want / need for the conversation to go , but you need to know what the characters desire / ask as well .
Update : Zack Stentz , writer on Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Fringe , manoeuvre out another helpful way of looking at this : “ Every interaction between two multitude is on some story a talks for status . ” Remember that , and your characters ’ address will mechanically get richer and more interesting . manifestly this advice originates with Terry McNally , atomic number 27 - writer of Earth Girls Are Easy .
4 ) Try give each character a few unique verbal tic , or habitual word . Maybe Captain Starjumper tell “ I declare ” a lot , in between all those asserting statements she pull in . ( Okay , bad example . ) perhaps Navigator Angstrom give lots of puns , or tosses lots of sarcastic jokes into the end of every comment . Give
each character a few habit of spoken language , and maybe after a while those prop will serve you hear each theatrical role mouth differently . You may even be capable to go back and take out some of these tics , if they get too repetitive , and if the delivery around them has started to differentiate itself from the rest .
5 ) Go one step further , and give them apprehension phrases and material . This cultivate for Dickens , after all . A slew of Dickens character basically have the same verbal habits over and over — the most famous of these , of course , is Mrs. Malaprop , who always use parole incorrectly , and contribute us the condition malapropism . ( Update : Various people have pointed out this is not true . Sorry about the mix - up . I ’ve read almost every Dickens novel , and somehow I believed this wrong . My regretful ! )
But it ’s true of a flock of minor Dickens characters . And especially if you ’re die for humor , there ’s nothing wrong with bear a eccentric who comes out with variation on the same funny line on several occasions . perhaps your astrobiologist part always states the obvious , but prefaces it by say , “ I have made a cunning observation . ”
6 ) realise that you may have , at most , three or four character “ voices ” and down those . As steady readers of this blog know , I utterly , unreservedly love Joss Whedon . But he is a consummate instance of a writer who has a few spokesperson that he use over and over . There ’s always the stilted British mortal ( Giles / Wesley / Adelle ) , the funny , quippy nerd ( Xander / Topher / etc . ) and the suffer / screwball girlfriend ( River / Echo / Fred / etc . ) And the amazing thing is — those characters are all wildly case-by-case and have tons of deepness . You would never mistake Giles for Adelle , even leaving asunder that she ’s way pretty . ( Well , slightly prettier . ) Whedon may have a few basic voice that he recycle over and over again , but he finds other ways to make his characters singular and distinct from each other . He ’s also work , over the age , to elaborate each of those vocalism and make the most of their military strength .
7 ) diverge your sentence lengths , and work with punctuation mark . If all else fails , try this . In tangible biography , some people run to talk in longer prison term , others in curt unity . ( really , we all variegate our sentence lengths all the meter , but our average sentence length vary quite a act . ) There ’s nothing incorrect with just deciding arbitrarily that Captain Starjumper ’s average sentence will be five word long , while Navigator Angstrom ’s will be twenty . Also , you could try giving one reference lot of emdashes or colons in his / her speech — but do this sparingly , and only for one character . In my raw fantasy novel , I have one type who includes bunch of parenthetic statements , and I put those in existent parenthesis . But I made certain to stave off any funny punctuation secret plan with any other character ’s speech , so it did n’t start annoying the lector too much .
- Adjust the French / Anglo - Saxon mixing . Those of us who write in English are golden — it ’s actually two languages in one . ( Plus random spoken communication dust from a dozen other languages . ) We ’re speaking a mixture of Anglo - Saxon and French , the linguistic communication of the Normans who seize England in 1066 . And just as the go-ahead ’s engines are a mix of matter and anti - matter , your lecture is a mix of Gallic and Anglo - Saxon . And some masses definitely habituate more words of Romance origin than others — it ’s often a badge of education and upper - class status to apply lots of evidently Latinate word . So if all else fails , prove experimenting with having one of your fibre utilise more Anglo - Saxon tidings than the rest of them , or more fancy Gallic words . Grab a dictionary of etymology and think about which Logos amount from which language — you could give your characters a more Teutonic or more French “ representative ” without actually puddle them speak a extraneous language at all . You could also just test having some graphic symbol use more one- or two - syllable words than the rest , but this might be subtle and more fun .
representative fromJovike , vivir_descalzo_mxandTerry McCombson Flickr .
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