Blue

Well, who’s warmer than the fire guy! Have some dad Roy :D

Hey, so, I started doing a writeup a week ago about how to get character voices in your fanfic to sound “in character,” in response to a comment from a new writer I was beta-ing for. 

I’ve been told this is a thing I do well.

As someone who studied dialogue extensively for a theatre degree, I tend to do this reflexively now, and I don’t write out each individual step. But I put some thought into how I might break down the process if I was new at it and looking to get better.

I don’t think it’s actually that different than an actor studying character accents, except as a writer you’re breaking down meaning rather than sound.

Let’s take a look at what makes dialogue unique to a character. I’m gonna list these as bullet points first, and then I’ll suggest some exercises to explore these aspects of speech.

Most important aspects - focus on these first

Vocabulary - the words they use. As subset of this:

Complexity of words, which can include:

Syllable length

Likelihood to be used in casual conversation - a character can be very smart and still use very informal language.

Cultural touchpoints

Culture can include pop culture references - think Tony Stark’s nicknames for everyone, i.e. “Point Break” and “Underoos”

How in or out of sync the character is with the story’s setting with regard to both time and place - are they from a different country or era of time than their peers?

Important - Check these out if you have time

How likely the character is to speak their mind vs. change the subject - this could be for any number of reasons, from fear to duplicity

Amount they say / Introvertedness / how reticent they are - This is somewhat related to the above point, but not necessarily, and should be researched from different angles. Subverting a topic is not the same thing as being afraid to talk about it.

Different ways of speaking with different characters - this could be a function of story (i.e. how a character who is captured speaks to their captors as opposed to friends) as well as pure Code Switching

Deep cuts - Advanced aspects of speech

Fluency in the language they are speaking

Accents - You do not have to write a character in an accent, i.e. spell the words differently to show the accent, if you don’t want to. It really depends on the piece (usually how light hearted or humorous you want it to be) whether you do or not.

Okay, this is all well and good, you say. But HOW do I incorporate this into my writing?

Dialogue analysis exercise

Find five (or more, but at least five) representative lines from your character’s canon dialogue.

If they don’t speak, don’t have five lines, do the best you can. (I imagine other forms of communications can probably also be analyzed in this way, but I’m gonna focus on dialogue for now.)

These are going to be your key phrases. They need to be from canon and they need to be words that really show off who your character is.

Say the words out loud. Read them again and again. What do they sound / feel like?

What is the average syllable length? How many long words do they use?

Do any words jump out at you as archaic? What about modern pop culture references?

What is a different way they could have said this? Write some alternate versions of this phrase and figure out WHY the character didn’t say it this way instead. What is the difference between the canon dialogue and the alternative? Try to be as specific as possible. It’s as important to know what they wouldn’t say as what they would.

Look up any of the more complex words and find some similar ones, with a similar level of complexity. Use a thesaurus you trust and possibly also Wordnik. If your character doesn’t use ANY complex words, reflect on that. Why? What’s their reason? How does that fit with the rest of their personality?

Think of some other characters from other pop culture pieces who speak in a similar way. It doesn’t have to be 100% the same, but if it can help your ear get used to some new-but-different phrases, it’s enough. You’re training your brain to speak like the character. Start to sort phrases they would say from ones they wouldn’t. How do these two characters differ?

Now that you have worked thoroughly through your key phrases, start to imagine these lines said in something other than the original context. What if they were said to a different character? WOULD they even be said? What would change? What would happen if your character was scared / hurt / overjoyed / sick?

Finally, after all that, write some NEW dialogue for your character, either as practice, or right into your fic draft. Keep using your key phrases as a guide and go back to canon as much as you need to! You can do this!

After all of this, you should feel significantly more confident in writing that existing character into your story. Huzzah!

Sometimes where writing, particularly dialogue, can feel funky is the problem of voice, of that just doesn't sound like him, which can come down to individual words used. What's really interesting is this sense can ping even for characters you don't know at all, NPCs and background characters, not just the big main canon favorites that everyone knows intimately.

For example, I was writing a fic recently where I had typed out a character saying

"He was lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt."

And immediately had to backtrack because the word lucky felt wrong. I knew exactly what needed to go there instead without really thinking about it, but let's break it down a minute first.

Okay, so imagine you're me and lucky feels off, so what do you do? You turn to the thesaurus. This is what you get:

[alt text added to image; should pull through]

These aren't... wrong. (Well, some of them are.) Most of them are synonyms of lucky in various contexts, but they're not one-to-one by any means. So first you have to know that, in this spoken context of describing a person who avoided a potential negative outcome, only some of these will work, because it needs to be an adjective that has to address a moment of good luck (as opposed to a pattern or a lifetime) and avoiding that potential negative outcome by chance. Most of the time, you can sort these out by saying them out loud in your chosen sentence.

"He was lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt"

✅ Original sentence, construction works.

"He was serendipitous he wasn't more seriously hurt"?

🚫 No. That doesn't make sense at all.

"He was blessed he wasn't more seriously hurt."

✅ Yeah, that works, in a vacuum, too.

Of the above, in the sentence of dialogue I created, the following work:

Blessed

Fortunate

Lucky

Only three. (If I changed the sentence structure to "It was ___ he wasn't more seriously hurt," I could try out a few more, maybe, like fortuitous and providential, but I'm not going to.)

Even with only three options, especially in dialogue, you have to be able to parse out what kind of person would use which. That was why lucky pinged as off to me, even though it works perfectly well in this context in a vacuum.

In my scenario, the person speaking was a highly educated, upper socioeconomic middle-aged man of authority for whom American English is a first language speaking to another man with whom he has only a professional relationship, a reason to worry about his standing within the state of said relationship, and a vested interest in maintaining a healthy level of respect and trust.

That is not a man who is going to say lucky.

I knew immediately and instinctively that he would say

"He was fortunate that he wasn't more seriously hurt."

He wouldn't say blessed unless I wanted to imply something about his religious and/or spiritual background and beliefs, which I did not. Lucky has a more common feel to it, a little more casual, and just wouldn't be the word of use for this kind of character in this situation. Reaching for the three-syllable word instead of the two, the one that echoes with a tiny bit more pomp.

You'll notice, too, that a that appeared as well, because a man like the character I described would be more particular about the formalities of grammar, even in cases where his meaning is clear without them.

A different character, someone of a lower socioeconomic status and/or in a much more casual situation might even say

"He got lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt."

Do you see how those four ways of saying the exact same thing sound and feel different?

"He was lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt."

"He was fortunate that he wasn't more seriously hurt."

"He was blessed he wasn't more seriously hurt."

"He got lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt."

The exact same sentiment, just tweaked to match the speaker.

Skulls by Age Tutorial by paintable.cc

Source: [X] By: Laura Whitcomb

We’ve all been there: basking in the glow of a finished manuscript, only to read it over and realize something is wrong with the plot. Finding ourselves unable to identify the problem only makes matters worse. But take heart! Here are some common plot gaffes and sensible ways to revise without starting over.

1. THE PLOT ISN’T ORIGINAL ENOUGH. Go through your pages and highlight anything that you’ve read in another book or seen in a movie. In the margin, write where you’ve seen it. Then list these sections and make a note for each one about how it could differ from its lookalike. A mental patient escapes by throwing something heavy through a window. Too much like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? Instead, the patient walks out with a visiting grandma after convincing her he’s an old friend. Quick notes like these can help you detach from unintentional imitation.

2. READERS ALWAYS KNOW EXACTLY WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN. This may be because you’ve chosen a plot point that’s overused, or because you keep giving away the answer in advance. Readers know the villain is going to whip out a picture of the hero’s son and blackmail her by pretending to have kidnapped the little boy because you showed the villain taking pictures of the child and driving away from the schoolyard. You could be less obvious by only showing the antagonist sitting in the car watching the boy on the playground, and no more. 3. THE PLOT IS BORING. Take each page and imagine what different writers might do with the same plot. Choose extreme examples. Would a comedy writer have the cab driver and the villain coincidentally be childhood friends with unfinished business? Would the mystery writer have the taxi pass a clue on a street corner that makes a new connection for the hero? Would the horror writer have the cab driver channel a ghost? Or, imagine the most surprising thing that could happen in a given scene. It doesn’t matter if these ideas don’t fit your story. You’re not going to use them. But often, after thinking of wild ideas to make the story more interesting, you begin to come up with workable ones that are just as stimulating, but better suited to your book. 4. THE PLOT IS ALL ACTION AND THE FRENZIED PACE NUMBS READERS. Let them breathe. Give the readers a little downtime now and then in your action story. Look back at your favorite action novels. Notice the conversations, summarized passages, meals, introspection and releases of emotions that are set in between the car chases, shootouts and confrontations. List them. Then give the readers a chance to breathe in your own manuscript. Find the dramatic respites that come from your characters’ needs, flaws and strengths.

5. THE PLOT IS TOO COMPLEX. Often, a complex plot can be trimmed into a sleek one by cutting out some steps. Does your protagonist have to visit her father in the hospital twice—once to bring him flowers and talk about Mom, and then again to find he has taken a turn for the worse? Couldn’t he take a turn for the worse while she’s still there the first time? Does your villain need to have three motives for revenge? Would one or two be interesting enough? To find the messiness in your overly complex story, summarize it out loud to yourself. When a section takes too long to explain, make a note. When you find yourself saying, “Oh, wait, I forgot to mention that …” you’re probably in need of a plot trim. When deciding whether or not to simplify the plot, ask yourself over and over again,

“Why does she do that? Why didn’t she just do this?” Making a plot less complicated doesn’t have to make it less clever. 6. THE PLOT IS TOO SHALLOW. Sometimes as writers we get caught up in the action. The symbolism. The metaphors. The witty dialogue. The great character names. The slick descriptions. Sometimes we ride these skills over the surface of the story and forget what’s really important. If you or your first readers (friends, family, agent) complain that the novel feels insubstantial, step back and ask yourself these questions: Why am I bothering to write this story? Why does the outcome matter to the characters? How do the characters change? How did my favorite book affect me the first time I read it?

7. SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF IS DESTROYED. Readers need to buy into the reality put forward by what they’re reading. You may go too far with a plot point or not far enough with preparing your audience for that plot point. If something that sounded right when you outlined it is coming off as farfetched even to you, look back at the stepping-stones that led to the event. If your murderer turns over a new leaf at the end of act two, make sure you’ve given her reason to.

8. TOO MANY SUBPLOTS MAKE THE PLOT OVERLY COMPLEX. If you start to feel weighed down by your numerous storylines, start cutting them. List the subplots (shopkeeper with a crush, neighbor’s dog that tears up the garden, accountant who threatens to quit every day), and then list under each title all the ways it’s necessary.

Only subplots that are so vital that you could not remove them without destroying your novel get to stick around. Be bold. 9. THE SEQUENCE IS ILLOGICAL. Sometimes the sequence set down in an outline starts to show its true colors when you’re writing the chapters. If you feel the order of scenes or events in your story is off, list each scene on a separate index card and, in red ink, write a question mark on every card that doesn’t feel right where it is in the story. Shuffle the cards. I’m not kidding. Mix them up completely. Lay them out again in the order you think they might work best, giving special attention to those with red question marks.

Something about these scenes tricked you the first time. This time, really look closely at the proper place for those tricky bits.

10. THE PREMISE ISN’T COMPELLING. If you fear that a mediocre premise is your holdup, take out a sheet of paper. Make a list on the left-hand side of everything that’s dodgy in your present premise. Then write a list down the right-hand side about all the things that work great in the premise of a similar favorite book, play or movie.

See where you might make the stakes higher, the characters more emotional, the setting more a part of the overall plot. Remember: The premise should make your readers curious.

More ref sheet time YEAAAHH this one is my favorite he’s very nice. He’s holding the bow in the wrong hand considering only one of his eyes works but jus ignor it!

The legend behind Siorghlas, a piece of land surrounded entirely by impassible mountains and ocean, is that it sits on the grave of a dead god.

The God of the Void, or as the people of Siorghlas call it, “the Eigengrau,” was struck from the cosmos after a particularly violent spat with its divine brethren. When it landed, it created a crater in the barren soil beneath it and from its corpse it bled life. Not long after sprung up flora and fauna, and eventually, people and settlements.

...

Leon groans, pressing his back against the wall as he works to catch his breath. He needs to keep moving, he can’t leave Marvin waiting, but his everything hurts. The low throbbing ache he’s been dealing with for the past week, even before Raccoon City turned into a hellscape, has been steadily getting worse. Before he could pop a few painkillers, but that’s not an option anymore. They have better things to spend such things on than Leon’s lousy muscle cramps. 

iPad be dying and with how work is treating my shifts I fear I won’t be able to save enough before it finally breaks, I’d be very grateful if you shared or ordered something<3

my ToS

GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(uncrunched version under the vut :])