Different Voices for Different Characters

Today I have a little tip for you, on writing dialogue. Someone was asking me recently about what mistakes I see most often in dialogue, and one of them is that their characters all sound too similar.

The way people speak will denote their character. A bold person, for example, will speak boldly. A timid person will use completely different words, and express them in a different way. The bold person will be direct. The timid person may beat about the bush, go red, fumble and look at the ground. The bold person might fold their arms, stand their ground, and look you in the eye.

So show how your characters are feeling, and their personality, in your dialogue, by their actions as well as their words.

Listen to the episode and you might glean a few tips for your own characters, and their dialogue.

Until next time, be blessed!

Janet

Transcript

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Welcome to the Write for a Reason podcast. My name is Janet Wilson. I'm a publisher of Christian fiction for young people with Durnier Publishing. If you're a Christian and new to writing stories for kids and teens, stay tuned for encouragement, creative writing tips, and actionable strategies you can implement immediately to become a better writer. Today I have a little tip for you about writing dialogue. We had three tips on dialogue a little bit earlier in the year, and I promised you there that there were some more things that I wanted to talk about, and one of the things that I mentioned in passing would be really useful to dig into a little bit more deeply is when your characters tend to sound a little bit too alike in dialogue, and so your readers are struggling to work out who it is that's speaking. Of course, we have dialogue tags and we have he said and she said and Ronald said or whoever it is. So, in some ways, of course, we can delineate who is speaking, but at the same time, it's also really good to give your characters completely different voices. So, problem number one with this is that your characters aren't different enough in the first place. So if you think about your characters, you perhaps have a protagonist who will probably be a kind of a hero figure in a way, perhaps an unlikely hero, and he will certainly have struggles and challenges and difficulties as well as a lot of bravery and whatever. Um, you know exactly the sort of thing that I mean. Um but he may also have a sidekick who is perhaps very different from him. That would be a really useful thing. Your antagonist, of course, would be very different again. It will depend entirely on your story what type of characters you have. But the suggestion is to make them very different so that when they're having a conversation, you can readers can tell immediately who it is that is speaking. So you may have one character who, for example, is let's say very bold, very bold, very courageous, uh, likely to run on in, you know, perhaps is not quite so sensitive in the way that they they talk. So you will have uh this person who will perhaps speak in a very brash way. He will use different vocabulary from somebody who is perhaps more timid and nervous and a bit more scared of sharing their voice in case they get knocked down. This is actually a really important point that you have different types of characters in your story that different readers can engage with and identify with. And of course, this is absolutely true to life. Even in a family, you will see siblings who are just completely different, and you think, how come they had the same parents? But that is what life is like, isn't it? And if you can do this in your stories, that's great. So make your characters very different. It's also useful to give your characters completely different names. So when you do come to say Anna said or Georgina said, we can see straight away that Anna and Georgina, they just sound very different. Don't have an Anna and an Emily and uh Eliza, for example. Then it's very easy to get mixed up with your characters then. But if you had a Liam and a Jean-Pierre, for example, then your readers will be able to see so much more easily who the character is. They can see them in their heads. And while we're talking about the characters and their differences, even though we're talking about dialogue, do a lot of show not tell. Now here's a little exercise for you. And your next home group or your Bible study, have a listen to what people are saying, how they're saying it. Do they want to sound important? Or are they nervous to share their voice? What other things can you notice about their personality from the way that they're sitting, they're leaning forward, whether they've taken care with their appearance or not. All this kind of thing will really help you delineate your characters so that when they talk it will sound very much as if it is that person talking, rather than an author trying to bring in a dialogue to move the story forward. So spending time on thinking about your characters, walking with your characters will really help. Have a think about their personality and how that will transform into what they're saying, how they're saying it, their little movements. We've talked about show notes, so you know, he peeped around the curtain might be a person who is more nervous, rather than he ripped away the curtain and walked straight out, would be somebody who is a lot more bold. Bringing out these things will help you with your dialogue. Vocabulary will also be different according to perhaps their education or where they come from, their culture, so you use that to your really good advantage as well. And you may have a character who perhaps says actually all the time or just, that's my word, I'm always saying just, I'm always having to cut it out of whatever I'm writing. But you can have a character who who does something similar to that, who's always saying actually or never mind, or I'm sure you can think of something that you could use for your characters, so as soon as they say that person, your reader will know exactly who it is that's saying it. Good. So bold person might fold their arms, stand their ground, look you in the eye, or you may have a character who might stammer and use vocabulary which is very simple. So get to know how your characters are feeling, get to know them really well, and this will come over in your dialogue. I do hope this writing tip has helped you with your stories. So if you'd like lots more free creative writing tips, hop on over to writeforareason.com where you'll find lots more resources, encouragement to help you write excellent, relevant, fun novels and get them into your readers' hands. If you haven't yet done my free course, Gripping Beginnings, you can sign up on the website and start straight away. And that will help you grip your readers from the very first page of your story. And that's what we need, isn't it? We also have a membership group. Again, all the details are on WrightforReason.com and a writing course, Wright for Reason Academy. I would love to see you there. So don't put off your writing, folks. Today is a gift to use wisely. Only you can write your story. And if you've been called to write, someone is waiting for it.