Insantiy - Writers Forum

Renos Babe · 04-27-2007, 02:12 AM

What the best way of making it sound like a character is hearing voices?

G. Palmer · 04-27-2007, 03:11 AM

Add dialogue in quotation marks when the character is alone?

At least that would work for me I guess, as I tend to write their conscience as I would just write their thoughts, I'm not that sure, I've never written a loon before, maybe something like this?:

Quote:

Johnathan pulled the gun out of his jacket pocket and, with a trembling hand, pointed it violently at Denny. The old man's eyes widened with shock, his botox-filled face was expressionless. His response was non existant. "Go on, shoot him," the voice hissed into his conscience, disabling his sense of morality, silencing reason and shooting the puffy white little angel that had dug him into a rut for his whole life.

*edit: bad example, try something else*

Short Tooth · 04-27-2007, 03:42 AM

Alex pulled the orange juice carton from the refrigirator. He hesitated.
You know you shouldn't be doing that.
Alex shook his head, he wouldn't listen.
Oh, but you will, wont you Alex.

At least that's how I'd do it. Italicise and place it on a new line.

Destroyer · 04-27-2007, 04:59 AM

The italics work well. You just need some way to differentiate them from regular thoughts. The method I use for my slightly unstable character is to actually specify straight afterwards that the voice is not her own. I write them exactly the same way i do her own thoughts, but since she's hearing other people's thoughts, and some that don't belong to anyone in particulaar, I find it helps to be a little specific.

Loulou · 04-27-2007, 05:06 AM

Short Tooth and Destroyer are right I think. Use italics. This seperates it from the spoken dialogue. I wrote something where a woman still had the voice of her imaginary childhood playmate talking in her head. I pasted a little example below.....

The curtains were still open and fluttered in the breeze from the cracked window. Greta went to close them but changed her mind, spellbound by the stars scattered across the sky like disco glitter. She studied them for a while and then caught her own reflection in the glass.
Look at the state of you, said Vera suddenly. Are you just going to pretend today never happened like you pretend everything else never did? Shut your eyes and pray it goes away? Because it won’t.
Greta touched her cheeks. She remembered the day she was trying to forget and began to cry.

imrhati · 04-27-2007, 07:38 AM

I would have the voice as a normal dialogue, except leave no 'he said' atthe end. This would make the reader puzzled as to who said it. In the enxt paragraph I would jave the character wondering the same. The voice coems back and goes through stages of insanity.

Azmakna · 04-27-2007, 08:04 AM

well i use double quotes for speech, single quotes for thought and italics for emphasis on certain words, so personally, for an inner voice, i would use italics. but be sure to give this inner voice a distinctive tone.

chez1710 · 04-27-2007, 05:09 PM

Definitely agree with the use of italics.

Banzai · 04-27-2007, 05:26 PM

If you want the reader to immediately know that the voices are in the character's head, then italics are the best to use, as I've found that thoughts are most often shown in itallics. But if you want to have a little mystery around it, put it as standard speech and have the character show confusion at the identity of the speaker, before you reveal it. Also, if it is a first person story, then putting it as speech might give it a sense of reality from the point of view of the character in question.

rosenthalpiano · 04-27-2007, 05:53 PM

I think a few steps need to be taken in order for the reader to understand that the character is clearly insane, that he/she is hearing voices in his/her head. The first step is that the reader has to be familiarized with that character's primary personality. We have to know how the character normally acts, how they think, before the secondary personality comes out. The second step is that the secondary personality has to be somewhat different than the primary personality. There may even be a tertiary personality, depending on how insane you want this person to be. If these steps are taken, it will be clear to the reader that the character is insane.

A good example I can think of is in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, when the personality of Lews Therin Telamon starts to be revealed in Rand al'Thor's head:

Rage rose up in Rand till his vision filmed red. He had spoken of things he should have no knowledge of, had probably birthed a dozen rumors about himself and the Forsaken, all to make this fellow's deeds seem less dark, and the man had the audacity to speak of compacts? Lews Therin raved in his head, Kill him! Kill him now! Kill him! For once Rand did not bother to quell the voice.

imrhati · 04-27-2007, 06:36 PM

Rosenthal makes a good point, though I would not have given the same example.

killned3 · 04-27-2007, 07:52 PM

Spell "insanity" correctly... that misspelling bugs.

penforhire · 04-27-2007, 08:10 PM

POV should be from the main character. Perhaps she is seeing a pink fluffy bunny always following her and talking to her? She talks back, perhaps?

rosenthalpiano · 04-27-2007, 08:13 PM

I don't think the POV has to be from the main character (that is, the character who is insane). The POV could be from another character, revealing the insane character's strange behavior.

mammamaia · 04-27-2007, 09:14 PM

Quote:

well i use double quotes for speech, single quotes for thought

totally incorrect, sorry to say... no editor would allow that to stand... in the us, 'single quotes' are used only for a quote within a quote... in british usage, it's reversed, with the single version used for the main quote and doubles for the interior quote...