Things Your English Teacher Won't Tell You

Giving Your Characters A Voice

When it comes to writing fiction there are a lot of ‘rules,’ things like ‘Show, Don’t Tell,” or ‘Don’t Jump Viewpoint,’ and like any rules in a creative field some are obviously more important than others. One of these so-called rules is that every character needs a voice and that it should be distinctive enough that a reader can tell who is speaking without any attributions. In other words, we should be able to tell Bob is speaking without actually writing ‘Bob said,’ at the end of the sentence.

Easier said than done.

When you listen to two people in the real world talk to each other you don’t need to worry about which one is currently speaking because, obviously, you are watching them and listening to them in real time. I know it’s Bob and not Maria speaking because, well, Bob’s lips are moving and he sounds like a Bob, not a Maria. But, if you were to transcribe that conversation word for word you might have a bit more difficulty knowing which was which. After all, assuming both our conversationalists are native speakers of the language, we all sound surprisingly the same. We use the same words, same grammar, same syntax. Sure, there are regional differences – someone from South Texas will sound different than someone from Southern California or the South Bronx – but in the end the way we talk is more similar than different.

Which brings us back to how do you, as a writer, make each character sound unique? One way is to simply identify them with attributes. There is absolutely nothing wrong with adding ‘Bob said’ or ‘Maria said’ to their bits of dialog. In fact, it’s a good idea to do exactly that especially at the beginning of a conversation or during long blocks of dialog. And if more than two people are involved the attributes become even more important. It never hurts to reinforce in the reader’s mind who is saying what in our fictional conversations. But, what about using all those other great words that mean ‘said,’ great words like shouted, or cried or blurted and all their many kin?

The short answer is don’t use them. They are distracting and tend to throw the reader out of the scene you have worked so hard to establish in their mind. The long answer is, like everything else in this craft we call writing, a bit more complicated. There are times using something more forceful or descriptive than said is perfectly legitimate. But you want to use them sparingly and make sure that the word you use is appropriate to the situation. For example, which of these sentences has more impact?

‘”Mom said dad ran over the cat,” Bob said during the middle of dinner,’ or “Mom said Dad ran over the cat,” Bob blurted out in the middle of dinner.

Blurted is more precise than said, and in this case more dramatic. It’s fine to sprinkle words like this throughout your dialog. Just don’t abuse them. When in doubt, said is your best bet. There is another approach, however, which takes a little more effort but can serve the scene better.

‘Somewhere in the middle of dinner, without warning, Bob set down his fork and said “Mom said Dad ran over the cat.” Everyone at the table stared at him, the sudden silence deafening at what he had just blurted out.‘

Take that approach just a little further and use the way someway communicates to help establish their character.

‘My brother Bob had a knack for saying the right thing at the wrong time. Last night during dinner, without a bit of warning, he set down his fork and said, “Mom said Dad ran over the cat.” No one spoke. Mom stared at her plate, red-faced, while Dad managed to look both angry and guilty at the same time.’

Now we have established in the reader’s mind that Bob is the sort of loose canon who blurts out inappropriate comments at the worst moment, the next time you write something like, “Hey, Fred, I heard your girlfriend dumped you because you got caught picking your nose in study hall,” they will automatically think Bob. In one fell swoop we have shown that not only is Fred a nose-picker, but that Bob deserves his reputation for blurting things out.

But what about the actual way a character says something? Can you set one character apart from another simply by the way they talk?

Of course you can! We all have patterns to the way we speak that are as unique as our fingerprints. The trick is to catch the little nuances of those patterns, the subtle verbal tics and habits we all have and transfer them to your characters in a convincing way. And to do that you need to become a good listener. Not in the sense that people love to unload their worries on you – although that is never a bad thing – but in the way that you listen to the people around you talk. What expressions do they use and abuse? Do they throw in a lot of jargon or technical terms? Do they have an extensive vocabulary and love to show it off, or do they stumble through every conversation? All of this sets individuals apart as we speak. The same holds true for the characters you write.

Listen, also, for the filler words, the yeahs and ums and wells, we all use when we are framing our thoughts. Remember, the rhythm of the words is important, too. In the same vein, listen for the way different people ask or answer questions, because while we can add punctuation marks to our pages, when people talk they rely on tone and inflection as much as word order to indicate a question. For instance, while the difference between “Is it cold outside?” and “It is cold outside,” is a no-brainer, “It’s cold outside” and “It’s cold outside?” rely on the rise and fall of the syllables to determine if someone is asking or telling.

Finally, there is the thorny question of writing out conversations phonetically, attempting to capture the way someone with a different accent or dialect delivers their words. And, as always in the world of writing, the answer is it depends, but on the whole don’t do it. Not only do you run the risk of offending the cancel mob – something we as content creators shouldn’t have to worry about, but sadly now accept as part of the job – you run a greater risk of losing your reader’s interest. While an occasional gonna or y’all might add a bit of flavor to a passage, long stretches of it feel cartoonish. The same holds true for swearing. If you are going to let your characters swear (some publishers still frown at the use of our rich lexicon of Anglo-Saxon curses, especially in work for younger audiences) use the ubiquitous four-letter words as spice, not as a base. Yes, we all know people who can’t utter a complete thought without adding a few swear words, but to a reader it looks lazy, as if the writer is simply throwing in long strings of expletives in a failed attempt to add realism.

Remember, the ability to communicate complex thoughts and ideas is what sets humans apart from every other species on the planet. The ability to show the nuances of how we deliver these communications is what sets we as writers apart from the rest of the people around us.