1. naruzeldamaster

    naruzeldamaster Senior Member

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    How do I make a character who doesn't talk much interesting?

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by naruzeldamaster, Mar 25, 2023.

    I have this idea for a short story that I want to write but I am unsure how to make the main character interesting.

    He's a guy that doesn't talk much (as in less than 100 lines of dialogue, I'm estimating barely over 60 in the entire story) and that's the whole gimmick. The story is about how he interacts and impacts people, much less about how he talks.
     
  2. JBean

    JBean Active Member

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    Are you familiar with Jay and Silent Bob? When I read this post it brings them to mind. Do you have any concrete examples of how he impacts people? If he the guy who pops out of no where and saves the baby that has fallen out of an upstairs window? Is he the main character? Only character? etc.
     
  3. naruzeldamaster

    naruzeldamaster Senior Member

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    He's one of those guys who plays the role of the 'listener' in the group. His main thing/gimmick is observing, and being concise but informative with his replies.
    In one scene he meets a floosy of a royal knight lady looking for companionship.
    He initially finds her mere presence troublesome but decides to head her woes. (of which she has many)
    He surmises that her troubles (from other Royal Knights, and other people) are a result of her not doing anything significant lately, in spite of her past achievements.
    She eventually asks him what he thinks of her, he elects to do the old sandwich of compliments trick. (though he does it in reverse, flaw, compliment, flaw) But the main takeaway from his response is that her recent behavior means that the country is at peace. And that she should be proud of her hard work in obtaining said peace.
    When she questions why he only chose to speak up right then. He responds with "Such knowledge is only valuable to those who seek it" or something.
    This of course shifts her perspectives on how she interacts with the local men a lot. This results in a later scene where she actually stands up to men harassing her rather than flirting with them to take advantage of them.

    The actual impact he has on individuals is small but the rough idea is that they all tie together and kind of has a butterfly effect throughout the story.
     
  4. AntPoems

    AntPoems Contributor Contributor

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    You say he's the main character - is he also the POV character? If so, it should be easy to make him interesting just by sharing his thoughts and feelings with the reader. If you're telling the story through another character's POV, that gets trickier, but if you make your narrator curious about him and actively wonder what he's thinking, why he's doing things, etc. (like Watson describing Sherlock Holmes) then the reader should share your narrator's interest. Good luck!

    Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, The Watson/Holmes dynamic might be the best way to do it. Keep the reader at a bit of distance so your MC is more mysterious.
     
  5. naruzeldamaster

    naruzeldamaster Senior Member

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    Wait, Watson is the narrator for those stories? I always thought it was Holmes. (or maybe that it went back and forth) I might have to pick one of those up and give it a look. I might do that approach though, though now I have to come up with an equally interesting 'Watson' character I guess if I do that approach.
    I think I could generate intrigue with the Watson/Holmes approach. What I could do to make it a bit more mysterious is have the 'Watson' be a telepath. Maybe not with psychic powers, but someone good at 'reading' people.
    Now to come up with an intriguing twist to make the dynamic itself more interesting.
    I actually have an idea that might be a neat twist. Although, it might come off as lazy if I reveal it too soon or too late...hmm...
     
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  6. Glenn Middleton

    Glenn Middleton New Member

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    Make them interesting by giving them an emotional backstory.
     
  7. Earp

    Earp Contributor Contributor

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    For some reason, your description made me think of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories. Might be something there.
     
  8. AkaSimonn

    AkaSimonn New Member

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    The main character can be intresting if you let the readers know atleast what's going on in his mind! yk many people who do not speak much are always the one talking to themselves a lot so having your character speak in his head and for replies he can use small simple boring replies like a dry texter
     
  9. Mogador

    Mogador Senior Member

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    Its hardly a storytelling masterclass, but the Half-Life PC game series takes this to its extreme by having the silent protagonist, Gorgen Freeman, talked up and up and up until he's universally regarded as a hero by those talking to him, even though he's never said a word.

    There are probably YouTube lectures that cover how it's done better than I could. In short I would say its done by a lot of people saying in passing things that affirm the important of Freeman to them and he world, despite is apparently lowly status at the start (some sort of research assistant).

    Its not Shakespeare and it is blatently stroking the player's ego and you wouldn't get away with doing it so plainly in a book, but it definitely turns a silent protagonist into an 'interesting' person very efficiently.
     
  10. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    So, "Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought wise, than to open it and make it clear you're not?" I suppose that would have a lot to do with how a person looks and what kind of personality they project while remianing silent.
     
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  11. naruzeldamaster

    naruzeldamaster Senior Member

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    The amount my character talks is more that he's one of those 'I only speak when necessary' people. He would rather devote his energy to sussing out a new invention, or solving a problem he overheard in the rumor mill. He talks frequently enough that people can get a good reading of him, but also rare enough that most average people are surprised/amused when he DOES choose to speak. If that makes sense? He'll even hold a full conversation if a person is interesting enough to him, but it's rare that someone piques his interest in that way, so he'd rather keep quiet as to not offend them or something.

    It'd be like if they decided to give Link from legend of zelda full dialogue, but those dialogues were always short/brief on top of being rare by comparison to the other characters. My main character has enough dialogue to glean personality cues from, but that's about it.
     
  12. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    One hundred lines of dialog is a lot for a character who is supposed to be somewhat silent or one who doesn't really talk much. I write a lot of short stories and I don't think I've ever reached 100 lines of dialog with all my characters combined in any given short story. If a chapter talks that much in a short story, I would not think of them as the quiet type.

    That being said, I do think being the silent type can say a lot about a character. I wrote a play where the main character never speaks. Readers or viewers learn about this character through the catalos of others (what they said and did). It was a fun experiment and I think it turned out pretty good.
     
  13. naruzeldamaster

    naruzeldamaster Senior Member

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    100 lines is a lot, maybe I'll cut it back to 50 or even 25, but the thing is it's for the entire story, period, not so much per chapter. I think the story will be long enough that 50 or 60 lines will be plenty. My characters tend to talk a lot between eachother. I actually have a problem where scenes drag on for too long due to the amount of dialogue. I want him to talk so little that he appears as the silent type in comparison to the other characters (some of which are insanely chatty) but just enough to glean personality from.

    For reference: My chapters tend to be 15 - 25 K words long. And a large part of that is the dialogue (as I said, I kind of have a problem with too much dialogue lol) and most of my stories tend to be 10 - 15 chapters long. They aren't short by any stretch but they're not exactly long either.
     

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