Thread: writing tone

I'm not sure if that's the right word, but I couldn't think of another word.I had someone read my short story and he told me the characters sounds like me, I'm trying to avoid that. I want the character to have his or her own personality. How can I overcome this challenge?

To a degree, you can differentiate with word usage, speech patterns or even dialect. Using obvious things like verbal ticks or repeating certain words or phrases or using slang could work in small doses -- but all of these could come off as contrived if you're not careful.

Some of it depends on what might be obvious differences -- for example a young teen talking to an adult. That should be something that you can think through based on experience and/or observation.

But to me, it's more of a character development issue -- so -- more about what a character says than how he or she says it. And that's going to be a lot more subtle. I don't know if that's something that can be explained.

I'd read a lot of dialog and see how others differentiate between characters. But I think you’d need to do it within context -- not just read the dialog -- and pay attention to how the dialog refects overall traits and behaviors.

Also, you might want to post something. There could be some obvious things that make your characters sound the same -- things others could catch that you're not seeing.

Kay, for the most part, we all write from experience. Try thinking of the way you spoke 10 years ago and the way you speak today. Chances are, there are a few differences.

You should also go sit at a public place where there are a lot of people and listen to their conversations. Note differences. And like Joseph said, read more. Find books with heavy dialogue.

You can also break up a certain character's dialogue with an action specific to them. For example, the uneducated boy that talks too much but is always wiping his runny nose: "And so we gone down the cave in these, like, rubber boots but mine didn't have no tread, so I slipped and..." He paused a moment while he wiped his nose again with the sleeve of his shirt. "And so... I slipped. Yeah, And so I slipped and..."

You get the point... =)

Tripp

yeah, i get it. thanks.

thank you.

Kay,

If you want your characters to sound like characters, then write them as characters.

If you want your characters to sound like people, then write them as people.

I like to use people I know as a jumping off point for my characters. I know a guy in Mexico. He's Mexican and he's a family man. These two kernel became the basis for an entire character (who was not the guy I know--but did share his name...). Write a father character the way your own dad would speak. Write a friend, not as you would imagine a friend to speak, but exactly the way your friends speak to you and each other. Realism comes from realism.

I've found that 'overlistening' to a conversation held in a public place the the richest source for genuine dialogue. You don't need to steal the conversation--just the flavor of how each participant expresses their position. Become a good listener--a good observer of the human animal--and you will have the answer to this quandary delivered in spades!

Good luck!

hi! i think what would help is build the character's background first. Give him/her a history, an origin. Like, for instance, create a secondary character, maybe a domineering father figure with traditional values always riding on his/her back but how he/she handles it makes the person's character. Give his/her name a story as well. Say, due to an unfortunate misspelling that was an oversight by everyone involved, he/she ended up with a name that read Hernia instead of Hernie. Maybe throw in a tic. Something that drives the character crazy.

I usually have a page for these things and writes it under my character's name in point form so I get to know my character as another person and understand his/her voice, sees where he/she came from, what is expected and what kind of things they'd do or not, and how they'd talk. What they'd say.

It's easier to visualize and get excited about the character once you've done this. At least, that's how I feel with the exercise.

All the best!

Originally Posted by kay hall

I'm not sure if that's the right word, but I couldn't think of another word.I had someone read my short story and he told me the characters sounds like me, I'm trying to avoid that. I want the character to have his or her own personality. How can I overcome this challenge?

Hopefully I won't be repeating anyone here, I haven't read all the replies.

One very significant way to get characters to sound authentically different is to pay attention to what they care about, what they emphasize, what they ignore.

You may have a character who is very empathetic, for instance, and so everything they say and do can be colored by the awareness of how other characters feel about things. In contrast if you have a character who either honestly doesn't have much empathy at all or someone who just really doesn't care, they'll 'sound' entirely different.

A character who is impatient and brusque by nature will be written differently than a character who's thoughtful and slow to speak.

A character who has a strong interest in a hobby or a person will slip references about it into a lot of conversations.

A character with a background as a librarian might 'sound' different from a character who has a background as an auctioneer. (okay, so you can play that one for laughs)

Think of the different people you know. If they were chatting with you on an instant messenger the exact same way as they speak, how would the 'sound' be written?