#speech analysis

General Traits

Speaks in fluent, clean English with a steady, controlled rhythm. Sentences are usually well-structured, but it does loosen when he gets vulnerable or drunk. Occasionally cuts himself off or restarts mid-thought, showing the cracks in composure. When tired or vulnerable, he trails off or repeats phrases

“I should’ve just said that but… yep, I’m still talking.”

The way he phrases himself comes off measured but human, like someone trained to stay composed no matter how tired he is. Rarely stumbles, but when he does, it’s small, trailing phrases, half-laughs, interruptions. It’s not uncertainty. It’s evident of the human exhaustion crawling into his voice. 

When emotionally involved, he unravels. Sentences grow longer, words rush to fill silence he doesn’t like to sit in. Has a habit of self-interrupting to redirect emotion, usually into humour. It’s a nervous reflex. Every time that vulnerable sincerity creeps in, he covers it with a joke or a smile. His rhythm breaks most when he’s being honest, talking faster than he’s ready to feel. 

When he uses filler words, it’s small, hesitant, easy to ignore. It’s signs of the internal disruption to his thoughts rather than carelessness.

“uh” / “yeah,” / “I guess”

Overall, his syntax mirrors restraint; deliberate and efficient when serious, scattered and almost awkward when caught emotionally off guard.

He keeps a clean conversational tone, alternating between professional conciseness and casual deflection. He doesn’t exaggerate or decorate his language. He speaks with the kind of efficiency you’d expect from someone who’s lived by responsibility and duty for too long. When the pressure’s high, he turns directive—his precision becomes evident from his years of experience. His speech narrows to essential words only.

“Go. Now.” / “Clear the channel.” / “Invisigal, stay calm.”

He’s practical when he speaks, knowledgeable of modern slang but casually technical. He switches easily between conversational and professional diction depending on what he's speaking to; one moment he’s running system checks and commands, the next he’s making jokes about Skittles and viral videos. His vocabulary carries a sense of someone who’s smart but never pretentious. Everything is phrased for clarity, never to show off.

His diction is  grounded and pragmatic, doesn’t utilize technical jargon unless he’s in command mode, even then he’s purposeful with the way he speaks. When off-duty, he mixes his plainer language with light sarcasm, like he can’t stop being self-aware for even a second.

“Calculate the damage per second hitting shields.” / “Whatever the case, I'm enough to lead with a pack of fuckin' skittles idiots like you.”

His tone rests between dry wit and quiet melancholy. His delivery is rarely an outburst. Even his anger sounds weary rather than explosive. When he threatens someone, it comes out steady—controlled. It’s never cruel. It’s just frustration sharpened with precision. His calm is both disarming and tragic. It’s learned restraint, not natural composure.

His humour is subtle, coming out both defensive and self-deprecating. It’s never theatrical, always offhand. The kind of humour that lands like he’s tired of the joke before he even finishes saying it. It’s used to deflect intimacy, to redirect tension, or to disguise how lonely he feels about conversation.

His humour isn’t actually about being funny. It’s about surviving the silence in between sentences. To keep up his guard from being close enough to have that laugh.

His speech is a push-and-pull between the man who runs the operations and the man trying to talk like he’s still a person outside of the armour.

He’s a functional communicator. He speaks to organize, to move things forward. Rarely speaks for the sake of being heard. Even emotionally charged conversations carry efficiency. Every word carries a purpose.

He’s polite even when irritated, assertive without aggression. He doesn’t talk over people—he redirects them. When teasing, it’s quick—almost instinctual to create distance or lighten heavy moments. When personal, his speech grows awkward, softer—like he’s unused to being given space to be human.

Overall, when he speaks, it’s evident of a lifetime of inherited pressure. He speaks like someone taught to uphold a legacy he never asked for. It’s heard not through outright words spoken, but in the tone of his voice—the echoing weight of people before him who were remembered better. He tries to be what they were, and it bleeds through the crack in his calm.

Everything about him—the humour, the restraint, the professionalism—it’s all coping mechanisms. His speech isn’t about a control that mirrors the way he speaks to his suit, it’s about the survival of it. Every joke, every sentence, every offhand command, it’s all to keep him from falling apart with his composure being the last line of defense.

Example Lines

“Why would I be trying to find the man who killed him if I didn’t love him?” — defensive, emotional logical disguised as reason; anger covering grief

“Ya know, for being a real piece of shit, you’re pretty easy to talk to.” — ironic empathy; making connection sound like mockery

“I suppose I want them to know I did my best.” — rare sincerity

“Can we just skip to the part where you reveal your bullshit superpowers so we can fight for real?” — irritation laced with sarcasm, tension broken with humour

“The suit isn’t what made me a superhero. It was how I did my fuckin’ job.” — looser tone, the weight of his years of experience weighing into his voice

“I guess I just like helping people” — simple honesty that becomes evident of what he’s trying to avoid.

“Hey assholes. Yeah. All you assholes.” — humour-laced authority, evident of fatigue under tried anger.

“I should’ve just said that but... yep, I’m still talking.” — endearing awkwardness; anxious humor

“Alright, just one more, please. I gotta get back to, uh, just one more. Preferably someone from this century.” — momentarily lapse of vulnerability in injury, sarcasm laced back to defensive

“Yeah, I basically burned through my entire inheritance keeping it going. Last couple of years have just been duct tape and sheer determination” — blunt, straight to point; underplays the hardship he goes through

“Just your run of the mill sad superhero origin story. The family tradition, if there is one, is dying in that suit. Which I guess I don't have to worry about anymore.” — again underplays the severity of what he feels

“Right, that's why you brought me to this conference room to strip down in front of you. Profesh.” — unashamed, speaks like he’s not even within the situation to distance himself from it. 

“I can't promise it'll work, I can only promise that I'll do my best.” — most of his speech around this part shows his resolve and his innate desire to follow a duty; it’s plain, it’s simple, but it shows he knows what he’s talking about and he commits to it.

Addressing Others

Refers to others casually, mixing irony with familiarity. Uses titles or roles when he’s keeping emotional distance. It’s playful but protective, lets him connect without opening up.

“Kid” / “Bro”

When serious, reverts to direct address. Titles, names, plain tone, no fluff. The sudden formality in speech signals authority or emotional control returning.

Rarely uses endearments or overtly emotional terms, if he ever does, it’s accidental. His way of addressing others is a friendly professionalism. Never too close. Never too cold.

Even when he insults someone, it’s collected and articulate. Never uncontrolled rage. When he calls someone an “asshole” or “piece of shit”, it sounds like punctuation, not fury. He insults people like he’s tired of even talking to them.

Speech Summary

Robert is a man balancing two versions of himself. The man in the suit weighed by decades of legacy and just a normal human being unrecognized without the mask. His speech is built on discipline and composure, but the tone underneath is tired, frayed—a man lonely for so long quietly searching for a connection. He’s articulate, intelligent, even, but constantly runs on a filter between his thoughts. His speech, similar to his mech suit, is an armour. It’s structured, deliberate, occasionally sardonic—all to hide the uncertainty he actually feels. He leads through clarity, not charisma. When he commands, he’s efficient. When he’s vulnerable, he fills the silence with humour or self-correction. His rhythm changes with his comfort level. Short when confident, longer and rambling when he’s emotional. Overall, he is a subtle tragedy. A man trying to keep something alive inside him that’s long since been burning out. Everything about his speech is just an attempt to keep that humanity intact. He’s a man trying to take control of his narrative. A boy that learned too fast to sound capable before he ever felt like it.

Writing Him

Write Robert like he’s always staying two steps ahead of breaking down. Every line should sound like it’s doing double duty; what he’s saying, and what he’s actually avoiding saying. Keep his composure deliberate—it should feel like effort. 

Keep his sentences tight in command mode. Efficient, almost mechanical. When personal or emotional, loosen them. Let him overtalk, backtrack, joke mid-thought, stumble. Let his humanity crawl.

His humour should never feel written to entertain—write it as what he uses it. Deflection. It’s instinct, not confidence. Let it cut through tension naturally. The funnier the liner, the sadder it should feel if you look at it twice.

Emotionally, he isn’t loud. His sincerity is restraint, it’s the words he doesn’t say, the pauses before he moves on to the next topic, the nervous laugh after a slip up into honesty. He’s a man terrified of earnestness.

Dialogues sound like he’s performing a normal man, not a comfort. Let him be polite as an armour, his sarcasm as a distance, professionalism as a survival. 

When angry, keep his tone even. He doesn’t shout—he tightens. When hurt, make him lighter. Let his humour land a little too soft, let his sentences run.

Reflect an internal conflict through the rhythm alone. He should sound like he’s undecided if his identity even belongs to him or if it should be decided by the expectations of the populace. Even when he’s confident, let there be a flicker of self-doubt.

Culture and Group Dynamics

Depending on the setting, there’s a decent chance you’ll be writing characters from different cultural backgrounds. Even if you’re focusing on a single culture, there will be subcultures. Even if you’re focusing on a single narrow group of people, there will be age and generational differences.

Think about where your character is from. If it’s a fantasy world, that’s still (and even more, in some ways) important. What country, what ethnicity, what mother tongue? Did they grow up urban or rural? High socio-economic status or working class? What sort of educational background and peer group did they have growing up (and presently) and how does that factor into their vocabulary and mannerisms, if at all.

All of these can influence how people talk. There are regional accents and different modes of speaking to signal your group membership. There is code-switching across groups, for those who have had to learn multiple linguistics codes to survive and thrive in society. 

How much slang does this group and therefor this character use? What references (modern, outddated, topical, etc) do the rely on? What kind of references (pop culture, music, academic, etc)? What colloquialisms and proverbs do they say? Are these the same or different to their characters, even within the same culture, subculture, or group, and is it because they’re from a different place/sub-group or because of their idiosyncrasies?

You can use these to help your reader get to know more about your character’s background without having to spell it all out directly. Speech patterns and style are a great way to show instead of tell when it comes to details that are hard to drop in organically in other ways.

An important caveat: don’t write a bilingual character who switches languages in speech unless you’re ready to do a bit of research on that. In AATJS I did an absolutely horrific job of this because I was thinking more about fronting the fact that character was Italian rather than thinking through how people actually talk, and it came out exotifying and embarrassing. It’s important to make sure that the way you use language to bring in a character’s cultural and/or ethnic background feels authentic and manifests is a way that respects that language and its users. You can write a character with a complex cultural history without using multiple languages if you’re unprepared to do research and talk to bilingual speakers.

Personality

Probably the most salient thing in a writer’s mind when they’re trying to write character voices: is this the funny character? the serious one? the brainy one? etc.

Don’t overuse stereotypes and archetypes for creating speech patterns (or characters in general) if you’re trying to make a rounded, 3-dimensional character. Instead, go about three levels deeper.

Think about whether they’re introverted or extraverted, whether they are neurotypical or neurodivergent, whether they are introspective enough to express their own emotions clearly or whether they stumble when asked why they did a particular thing or feel a particular way (most people don’t or can’t clearly articulate exactly why they did something or how they feel, and come at things a bit sideways to circle around their motives and interior realities when pressed to make them external and concretely verbal).

Is this character calm, is their voice soothing, do they speak slowly? Are they excitable and loud and is their speech free-flowing? Are they angry? Do they swear? Do they use references for humour or are they more into puns? Do they laugh at their own jokes? Do they talk with their hands?

This character has social anxiety: how does that manifest in her speech? Does she clam up and get very quiet when she gets nervous, or does she go rapidfire and a little too loud (does she process by turning in or by distracting herself by turning outward)? Does she get very careful and deliberate in choosing her words (is she a bit high-strung?)? Ask yourself which fits best with the other elements of her personality and what you want the reader to know/interpret about her. 

This character is incredibly smart and a bit awkward: how does that manifest in their speech? Do they tend to use 5-dollar words, or do they expend a lot of energy choosing their words more carefully (how considerate are they to their audience when speaking and does that influence their speech)? Do they stumble over their words and explaining things, or are they good at making points with clear language learned from a lifetime of tutoring and helping others?

This character is the bff, who tries hard to make sure everyone else is happy first: how does that manifest in his speech? How does he switch between his happy-mask versus his more authentic self, and what changes in tone, word-choice, and inflection come in when he does?

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Personal History

I’m only drawing a distinction between this and personality (archetype, really) so that I can draw attention to ways to add simultaneously unique and shared layers to characters that are distinct but related to group dynamics.

Here’s sort of what I mean: the level of education of a mother (or primary caregiver) of an infant can determine that infant’s vocabulary size. While we can break down all the ‘why is that’ layers to this, the one I want to point is to the simple truth that the more education a person does, the more specialized language they end up learning over time. This doesn’t have to be formal education though -- the more you learn about something and the more you read and access new knowledges and perspective, the more and more words you learn, and then if you start using those words, they trickle down to those close to you.

So.

What’s your character’s educational background? Is it the same as their friends who you are also writing? Is the same as their family’s? How does this character’s family influence their speech? Are they formal, informal, warm, authoritative? 

If you’re writing siblings, they’ll have some shared things! But also some very different ones! Me and my sister talk nothing alike in terms of vocabulary, but a lot alike in terms of mannerisms whenever we spend a bit of time together!

If your characters grew up around each other, they’ll have a lot of the same references. People from the same cities or regions will have things specific to that region, either due to sub-culture effects or because of local references. 

The city of Calgary, Canada for instance has the Plus15 which are a connected pedway system between the buildings in downtown, so named because they are 15feet above the ground. Drive 3 hours north to the city of Edmonton, and you have an underground pedway just called the pedways, no special name. Go a few provinces east to Toronto and their underground pedway system downtown is called PATH. These are all known to locals and part of the vernacular, but are opaque to people outside those cities. And the whole idea of them is probably opaque to people who aren’t from super cold cities that don’t require building-connecting pedway systems for pedestrians to get around high-density areas like downtown (or university campuses) without going out into the cold. 

Friends, families, and groups are like that too. In-jokes, shared histories, speaking in references. What are your characters’ relationships to each other and how does that history influence the way they approach talking to each other?

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Gender

I don’t want to spend too much time on this one because ugh, gender. What even is it?

But like it or not, it has an impact on our speech patterns. There are cultural and societal norms in how men and women are likely to speak, and breaking those norms will be noticed regardless of whether you’re trans, enby, queer, or not. There are norms that people who are queer may fall into as well, sometimes without even noticing at first. A lot of these aren’t about word choice per se but instead about mannerisms and tone and body language, but some overlap or are specific to language.

Speaking in broad generalizations here, women use more emotional language and tend to speak with more hesitancies/qualifications. So more “i think, i feel” and less “it is”. More conversations that front emotions and dig deeper into those, with longer sentences to explain in detail. The obvious caveat is that personality matters more (i.e., is this a person who likes to talk about their emotions in detail or not) but it is something to consider because there will be general but subtle differences that you can use to help further distinguish your characters’ voices. 

Sidenote: this can also be exacerbated by different cultural backgrounds and languages (a simple example is Japanese which has different words for “I” depending on your gender as well as your personality, familiarity with the other persons in the conversation, and situational appropriateness, so interesting ways that gender and social expectations intersect in language).

Anyway this isn’t typically a huge problem except that I’ve found that a lot of writers have a tendency to overgeneralize the speech patterns that fit with their ascribed gender due to early-life socialization, or conversely to overgeneralize patterns that fit with their gender identity (when not cis) either due to heavily identifying with their gender identity’s speech model (or sometimes possibly due to a knee-jerk sort of backlash). I say this as an enby who both struggles with it and notices it and tries to edit and correct for it. 

I could get into all sorts of examples of ways this can lead to voice issues, but in general i think the point here is to make sure you’re writing any given character in view of that character’s personality and history, with gender only as a modifier for how some of these might come out in subtle ways but which can be important to help tell us about your character (and if you’re writing queer characters, it’s all the more important to consider how their relationship with gender and socialization might impact which speech models and styles they identify more with).

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Idiosyncrasies

So, you’ve got a character. You’ve got their personality and history down. You know how they manifest in their speech. And you’re still getting some ‘same voice’ issues.

People really are unique snowflakes. Let that be reflected in their speech.

This person uses contractions differently than that one. This one says “ain’t” and that one says “isn’t.”

This person makes Simpsons references and that one doesn’t like Simpsons, and makes Brooklyn Nine Nine references instead. That other one doesn’t use referential humour much at all. This one loves old movies and hasn’t seen any of the new stuff so they make references all the time but no one ever notices.

This one loves the word “excoriate” and that one doesn’t even know what it means because what the hell, who uses the word excoriate?

This one talks about food a lot, it overlaps with their interests. This one uses metaphors. This one grunts in response. This one exclaims. This one says “like” and that one hates it. That one refers to themselves in third person. This other one uses reflective language an usual amount (e.g., “love me some candy”). This other one keeps misusing the word inconceivable and that one speaks almost without contractions but still comes off as more charming and humorous while correcting him.

I have an aunt who says “girl” or “girlfriend” a fuck-ton and she has been my whole life and I don’t know why because none of her sisters do, but she does and it annoys me so much the way she says it. I swear a lot when I’m feeling casual despite never ever doing it in a professional or even slightly-less-than-relaxed space, so the idiosyncrasy of comfort levels has a massive impact on my vocabulary in ways which, I promise, almost no one who meets me first in a professional space expect.

Let your characters be individuals and try to make them as unique as possible without overdoing it, or over-relying on a single verbal tendency or habit. 

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And ... that’s all I’ve got for now. Completely failed at being concise. I meant to give like 2-3 bullet points or examples for each, not paragraphs, but here we are. That’s one of my verbal tendencies: long flowing verbosity :)