Today in creative writing class, Mr. Kirby did something sort of cool. I was the only one that got it (the bell rang before he could explain completely), but it was still way awesome.
He went around the room, pointing to different people and saying, "Speak in another character's voice."
Of course, a lot of people refused, hating to be put on the spot. And the ones that didn't refuse either recited lines from books or movies or imitated famous accents. Somebody pretended he was Michael Jackson, another was Mickey Mouse, and another was William Shatner. But nobody really got where Mr. Kirby was going.
I almost didn't, either, but then Mr. K said this: "Gee, folks, I hope you can do this when you write."
Bam. There it was.
He was talking about creating distinct voices for each character. And that, folks, is one of my favorite topics.
In any writing, each character or speaker has to have his or her own voice. And I'm not talking soprano, alto, tenor, or bass. You guys know what I'm talking about.
We were discussing this on the forum not so long ago, and one of the members (I forget who at the moment) suggested this neat-o little exercise:
Take all dialogue tags and speech indicators out of the scene. If you can't tell who is speaking without the tags, go back and make their speech more distinct. Readers need to know who is talking, number one, but more to the point, characters with distinct voices are more alive and vibrant.
I've tried it. Fortunately for me, I've done a decent job and I only need to tweak a few things. :) So woohoo for that.
I don't really have anything more to add to this topic, since everybody and their brother (or sister or whatever) talks about it, and often, but I thought this little exercise was worth sharing. The only think I have left is the...
QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS:
How do you make each character's speech pattern distinct?
When I write, I'm like...
When I blog, I'm like...
7 Writer(s) Joined the Discussion:
I try to really channel them when I'm writing. For the novel I am rewriting now the distinct character voices are a key element to it, and as I look back over it, I worry that there are times when they are not quite distinct enough.
Jenna, I do things like pretending I am the character I'm writing at that moment. I think about what he/she would say. It works for me. :) Glad you got it girl.
Great post Jenna. That exercise is really neat, though I don't know if I'd be able to sit and talk like my characters without my wife wondering if I've lost what little sanity I have left. I may have to try that though, the exercise you mention where you take out the portions of speech and see if you can still identify who is speaking. I think I am doing okay with respect to this, but I may have to check it out just to see for sure.
Funnily enough I have been thinking of voice today - character voices and writer's voices.
I don't think my characters have distinct enough voice. That's something I am working on, and more importantly, that's something I am figuring out how to work on.
I think this is a very important aspect of writing that most writers don't pay enough attention to. I've read whole novels where the dialogue was confusing, and all of the characters seemed the same. Bo-ring.
If your readers can’t figure out who is who, how do you expect them to love or hate each person?
Personally I always try and make sure that there are very distinguishing aspects to how each character speaks. One may be more formal and have dry wit while another may be bubbly and painfully obvious.
Great post!
Great exercise suggestion. Thanks!
You've raised a very valid point with this post, Jenna. In fact, this has been something that I've been thinking about. Over the weekend, I read Erica James' novel, Paradise House, which was a struggle to complete because the characters had the same tones and no distinguishing voices except for one character. The whole story is rendered from one woman's perspective. Thats fine but when all the other characters in the book talk, behave and have no real identities etched out, it became so boring to read it. Still, I managed to and then I saw this post. This made me realize what was the big mistake in that book. It was the tone, the lack of distinguishing aspects between characters. It was like one character speaking through several characters.
My personal favorites when it comes to characteristation is Mary Higgins, Clark, Jodi Picoult and Maeve Binchy. Their characters are so interesting, so wonderful to continue reading and they grow on you as you read, even the minor ones.
Keep writing and make us think more seriously about the books we read and the writing we pursue.
Post a Comment