~ Aethereal ~

I went scouting through the internet for words to describe a character’s voice. Here’s a handy list for all you writers:

Adenoidal/Nasal - Some of the sound seems to come through the nose.

Appealing - Shows that you want help, approval, or agreement.

Breathy - With loud breathing noises.

Brittle - You sound as if you are about to cry.

Croaky - Sounds as if they have a sore throat.

Dead - They feel or show no emotion.

Disembodied - Voice comes from someone who you cannot see.

Flat - Spoken in a voice that does not go up and down.

Fruity - Deep and strong in a pleasant way.

Grating - Unpleasant and annoying.

Gravelly -  Low and rough.

Gruff - Has a rough low sound.

Guttural - Deep and made at the back of your throat.

High-Pitched - Very high and shrill.

Hoarse -  Low rough voice, usually because their throat is sore.

Honeyed -  Falsely sweet voice.

Husky - A husky voice is deep and sounds hoarse often in an attractive way.

Low - Quiet and difficult to hear / in a deep voice.

Matter-of-fact - Used about someone’s behavior or voice.

Modulated - Controlled and pleasant to listen to.

Monotonous -  Boring because it does not change in loudness or become higher or lower.

Orotund - Loud and clear.

Penetrating - So high or loud that it makes you uncomfortable.

Plummy - This word shows that you dislike people who speak like this.

Quietly - In a quiet voice.

Raucous -  Loud and sounds rough.

Ringing -  very loud and clear.

Rough - Not soft and is unpleasant to listen to.

Shrill -  Very loud, high, and unpleasant.

Silvery - Clear, light, and pleasant.

Singsong - Rises and falls in a musical way.

Small - A small voice or sound is quiet.

Smoky - Sexually attractive in a slightly mysterious way.

Softly Spoken - A quiet gentle voice.

Sotto Voce - A very quiet voice.

Stentorian - Loud and severe.

Strangulated - One that someone stops before they finish making it.

Strident -  Loud and unpleasant.

Taut - Shows someone is nervous or angry.

Thick - Voice sounds less clear because of an emotion.

Thin -  High and unpleasant to listen to.

Throaty - Low and seems to come from deep in your throat.

Tight - Shows that you are nervous or annoyed.

Toneless - Does not express any emotion.

Tremulous - It is not steady because you are afraid or excited.

Wheezy - Has difficulty breathing.

When we write, sometimes a story comes with all the pieces stuck together for you. Most of the time, it comes piece by piece. Here’s to finding the pieces to go with the ones you already have.

Need a Genre:

I think this will help

List of Genres (play darts with it or something)

Need a Plot:

Adventure Generator (Fantasy)

Plot Idea Generator (can get a little wacky)

Plot Twist Generator (General)

Genre-based Plot Generators 

SO MANY PLOTS

Really random plot generator 

“Put your character in a bad situation” Generator

Need (a) Character(s):

Name Generator (Fantasy)

Name Generator (All Genres, including Surnames)

All the Character Generators (I’m not kidding.)

EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER GENERATOR (You still think I’m kidding)

Another character description generator (General)

Character Backstory/Details/Appearance Generators

Or just look through Pinterest “Character Inspiration” boards. So many good faces on there. I like this board and this one.

Need a Setting:

World Generator (Fantasy)

Fictional Location Generator (General)

City Generator

Fill out your Setting Generators

Need a Scene:

Ask These Guys for a prompt!

Prompty prompt prompts

I Just Need Something!:

First Line Generator (you will spend most of your time laughing)

Prophecy Generator (to make you feel all foreboding and such)

This link has plot and genre and character building helps. 

All the generators!

Title Generator

Just search for writing prompts! Tumblr has SO MANY, and Pinterest has just as many.

It is very important that the language in your novel reflects the time and place in which the story is set.

For example, my story is set in Italy. My characters would never “ride shotgun”, a term coined in US in the early 1900s referring to riding alongside the driver with a shotgun to gun bandits. 

Do your research! A free tool that I found to be very useful is Ngram Viewer. 

You can type any word and see when it started appearing in books. For example…one of my characters was going to say “gazillion” (I write YA) in 1994. Was “gazillion” used back then?

And the answer is…YES! It started trending in 1988 and was quite popular in 1994.

For example, did you know that before 1986 people never said “I need to”?Instead, they were far more likely to say “I ought to”, “I have to”, “I must”, or “I should”.

Don’t believe me?

Anyway, most people won’t notice subtle changes like that. But your reader will notice and be confused when characters in your medieval world use metaphors involving railroads and rockets.

One of the things you can do besides use Google Ngrams is to read books or watch movies written in the time period you want to set your story. The key here is that they can’t just be set in that time period, they have to have been made in that time period.

kids tend to hypercorrect — this means that they tend to say things like “sleeped” instead of “slept,” “writed” instead of “wrote,” “goed” instead of “went,” etc

kids tend not to make errors such as omitting verbs (“i hungry”)

kids also tend not to make errors in the i/me, she/her department (“me am hungry”)

simplification of difficult sounds — consonant clusters especially, so things like st, sp, ps, etc., as well as f, v, th-sounds, ch-sounds, etc.

“babbling”-type utterances (“apwen” for “airplane,” using one babbly word for multiple objects, things like that) generally occur in children under the age of three and a half

say it with me: an eight-year-old child is not going to be saying “me hungwy”

do not confuse child speech with stereotypical learner english mistakes, that’s not only incorrect but also gross on the stereotypical learner english front (“me love you long time,” anybody?)

Past the age of about five or six years old, children can have deep, intellectual conversations about the most bizarre of things. I HAD A CONVERSATION LAST WEEK WITH FOUR THIRD GRADERS ABOUT THE GAS PRICES AND TAXES IN HAWAII.

Were they entirely correct in the facts they were giving? No, because it was all from what they had heard from parents or on the news. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that I was having a genuine conversation with four eight and nine year olds about taxes.

Just about the only speech problems most kids have, unless they have a speech impediment, is not being able to pronounce certain consonants (replacing ‘th’ with ‘fw,’ for example, and some letters are harder to form with your mouth than others) and doing exactly what the person above said: using the English language the way they know how, which isn’t always the way English works.

If you need (plotwise) to emphasize that the child is specifically childish … have them tell the same joke to everyone they meet, cracking themselves up before they get to the punchline … have them ask “Why?” incessantly … have them fidgeting and possibly breaking things (”Oops.” “What?” “Nothing!” “WHAT?!”) … and if you have more than one kid, even of the same age, you don’t have to write them at the same intelligence level or emotional maturity. Some kids are messy and some are obsessively neat. Some are quiet, some loud. Some giggly, some surly. They basically come in the same range of personalities as adults. 

Birth–3 Months

Startles to loud sounds

Quiets or smiles when spoken to

Seems to recognize caregiver’s voice and quiets if crying

Makes pleasure sounds (cooing, gooing)

Cries differently for different needs

Smiles they see caregiver

4–6 Months

Turns eyes to the direction of sounds

Responds to changes in tone of voice

Interested in music / toys that make sounds

Babbling is reduplicated repetitions of different easy to pronounce sounds, (i.e. ”papapa,” “bababa,” “mamama”)

Chuckles and laughs

Vocalizes excitement and displeasure

7 Months–1 Year

Enjoys games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake

Turns and looks in direction of sounds

Listens when spoken to

Recognizes words for common items like “cup”, “shoe”, “book”, or “juice”

Begins to respond to commands and requests (e.g. “Come here” or “Want more?”)

Babbling has many different sounds (”pabamima”)

Uses gestures to communicate (waving, holding arms to be picked up)

Imitates different speech sounds

Has one or two words (hi, dog, dada, mama) around first birthday, although words may not be intelligible

1-2 Years 

Points to a few body parts when asked.

Follows simple commands and understands simple questions (“Roll the ball,” “Kiss the baby,” “Where’s your shoe?”).

Points to pictures in a book when named.

Vocabulary size increases every month

Child over generalizes words (i.e. every four legged animal is “doggy”)

Uses some one- or two- word questions (“Where kitty?” “Go bye-bye?” “What’s that?”).

Once vocabulary size reaches ~250 words child begins to put two words together (“more cookie,” “no juice,” “mommy book”).

2-3 Years

Understands opposites (“go-stop,” “in-on,” “big-little,” “up-down”).

Follows two-step requests (“Get the book and put it on the table”).

Should be able to listen to story books for longer periods of time

Vocab size increased to the point where they have a word for almost everything, new words every day.

Uses two- or three- words sentences.

Speech is understood by familiar listeners most of the time.

Often asks for or directs attention to objects by labeling them.

Asks “why?” but may not be able to answer (**asking questions comes far before being able to answer them!!)

May stutter on words or sounds (this is normal unless it distresses the child)

3-4 years

Will respond when called from another room.

Can talk about familiar activities that happened at school or at friends’ homes while the listener was not present.  Uses about 4 sentences at a time. (Not yet a full adult-like narrative, but making progress.)

People outside of the family understand child’s speech.

Answers simple “who?”, “what?”, and “where?” questions.

Asks “when?” and “how?” questions.

Understands simple meta-linguistic structures such as rhymes (i.e. “hat-cat”)

Uses pronouns, such as I, you, me, we, or they

Uses some plural words, like toys, birds, and buses (may overgeneralize plural or past tense “

Sentences have 4 or more words.

Usually has outgrown stuttering behaviors.

4-5 years

Understands sequencing words like first, next, and last.

Understands words for time, like yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Follows 3-4 step directions, like “Put your pajamas on, brush your teeth, and then pick out a book.”

Says all speech sounds in words. May still make mistakes on sounds that are harder to say, like l, s, r, v, z, ch, sh, th.  **Mistakes on /r/ are common until 7 years of age

Uses sentences that have more than one verb.

With adult support can construct a short narrative about something the listener is not familiar with (i.e. “What happened in the movie?”)