Finding Character Voice

justawritingaid:

“Character voice” is rather self-explanatory, simply being the unique way a character speaks or narrates. Every character has a voice, some may just stand out more than others, and part of becoming a better writer is learning to work with voices that are unlike your own. Here are some ways to get started on finding a character’s voice once you have a character concept in mind:

Look into their background. What’s their education level? Does the area they come from have any specific sayings? Speech patterns are influenced by a surprising amount of external or upbringing-related elements, especially when it comes to slang and some aspects of grammar, so learn to look beyond the “now” for finding voice.

Personality and mood affect voice. A laid-back person is unlikely to speak or narrate in a snippy tone, unless that subject matter is super important to them. Likewise, a critical person may judge other characters more than another narrator. 

Everybody has quirks of speech. Can also be known as ‘verbal tics’, though ‘quirks of speech’ refer to general unique speech patterns as opposed to a specific sound. 

Voice is more than just tone. It’s related to perspective and how the character comments on the things they notice. Two characters may see the same tree, but the artist may describe the tree with specific colors whereas a nature-lover may know the species and its stage of life. The information that’s given to the reader through the narrator is a form of voice. 

Some techniques for teasing out potential voice are:

• Interview your characters with a series of simple questions that get harder and harder. Get personal. See what comes out in how they respond.
• Write a letter as if by their hand, about a subject they’re passionate about.
• Try acting things out as if you were that character. Have imaginary conversations or test different tones spoken out loud to test the effects. 
• Create a scene, then test it witch each different character. What do they notice that’s different from others? What’s the order of things that they notice?
• Throw each character into the exact same problem. How do they each handle it differently?