Hi everyone, Writing dialogue is really starting to get to me! The problem is that I can't find a particular voice for each of my characters. I was reading about this in a writing book, and learnt that your book can be judged greatly on the dialogue. It can be judged by taking away any beats or narrative amidst the dialogue and just read alone; so basically like a script. From this you can tell whether your characters gan be distinguished by their dialogue. Well, I fail. I fail because I can't come up with different individual voices. Let me talk about the voices I am trying to develop: (S) 1st character - Speaks better than the rest and is a little eccentric (K) 2nd character - Speaks your average english (A) 3rd character - Speaks a little "girlyish" (C) 4th character - Speaks a lot of "girly" slang (J) 5th character - Speaks a lot of "guyish" slang (A) 6th character - Is sarcastic and not bothered most the time. (A) 7th character - Is simply nice. I have the basics of how to develop their dialogue (the above, lol), but it's hard for me to go further, i.e. actually writing the dialogue... Any advice would really help!
Observe conversation. Take notes about speech idiosyncracies you notice. But don't think in terms of adjectives about the person. Think simply of individual variations
That's easier said than done (the bold). Most of the people I know talk similarly... But I guess I could be nosey on the train... :redface: I guess I'll have to do this for a week or so before I return to my story.
You have to get into their minds and figure out what they'd say. Try to come up with a conversation they'd have that reflects their personalities: Character 7: "Did you need some help putting together that bookcase?" Character 6: "Yeah when's the last time you built something that didn't fall apart?" etc etc.
to save time and train fares, just start paying attention to how various characters speak in movies and on tv... download the scripts, to see how it looks in print...
I wonder whether trying to develop the voices might not be the best way to go about it. How about concentrating on developing the characters, and getting to know them to the point where you will recognise whether a particular utterance actually sounds like the sort of thing they'd say?
