Stepping into your characters' shoes

Hello Everyone,

One of the worst critiques I ever got from a creative writing teacher came back in high school when I handed in what I thought was the perfect short story.

"Interesting ideas," she wrote with a red pen down the right margin, "but all of your characters talk and act like they're the same person."

Later, I found that this is a common problem.

Some folks try to solve this rather artificially by giving each character a unique habit or a pet expression. While this might help, it often results in characters which still sound like they're the same person who are pretending that they're not by limping in one scene and brushing back their hair in another.

I think I'm doing better at separating my characters from each other by stepping into the shoes of each one while I'm writing their dialogue and narration.

How does everyone else here make their characters into unique individuals who act and sound like themselves instead of each other?

--Malcolm

I think I'm doing better at separating my characters from each other by stepping into the shoes of each one while I'm writing their dialogue and narration.

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Good idea. Imagination is the key. Also, once you get into the story, make notes: a descriptive list about each character. Music, colors, food, that they like, etc. You don't necessarily add it to your story, it just helps you get into each character's head.

Observe how people talk. A 20-year-old college student talks differently than a 14yo teenybopper or a 35yo corporate lawyer with a dark secret... Listen to people talk at coffee shops or restaurants (that's why I love writing at coffee shops) or your friends and family.

Your dialogue does not simply advance plot -- it should also reveal characters. As an author, there's a certain "pretending" involved -- much like how an actor consumes his role. The more you do it, the more natural (and real) you will sound/act without giving off the impression that you're acting/pretending..

Definitely learn a lot about your characters even if you don't use their favorite food or anything. I found this really huge character chart that lets you fill in everything about them, and I found it really helpful. I"ll see if I can find the URL.

Taping

I have found that taping different people and listening to their speech patterns helps. I write a lot of nonfiction which involves interviewing people. over the years, I have found it helpful to just run the tape and listen to the way the subject talks - not so much the content, but the rhythm. You might want to try taping different people - a teacher, a business man, a skateboarder, and listening to the different rhythmic patterns.

sound alike

My advice is to avoid character charts at all costs. Making characters sound like different people is really just a cnscious choice, and isn't even something to worry about in first draft. . .one more reason not to let anyone read a first draft.

Voicie really has several components; occuption, eductaional level, accent, brevity/longwindedness, humor/seriosness, bluntness, timidity, vulgarity, loudness, cadence, rhythm, word choice, social status etc.

Mostly, I think it's best to just let characters speak. When you put words into a character's mouth, not much can be done to help anythng about the dialogue. Just let them speak, and don't worry how much they sound alike or not. This is second draft stuff, and often has nothing to do with the dialogue itself, but with the writer's failure to let the reader know how a character sounds the first time he opens his mouth.

It's also a matter of vocal cords. If you write "His voice was like a rusty hinge," readers will hear that voice differently.

You have to have an ear for dialogue, but you also have to remember that having all the characters sound too much unalike is as bad as having the sound exactly alike. Neither is realistic.

The main voice to establish is that of the protagonist. That's the voice that should have somethng different about it.

Re: sound alike

I personally have a visual of each character in my head. When that character speaks, I hear their voice.

Yep, I hear voices in my head. Don't know where they come from, but I actually do hear them speaking. I hear the pitch, intonation and pattern. The little things that make that character different seem to transfer to the paper.

Does that make me weird?

Re: sound alike

The voices in my head tell me the voices in your head are weird.

I'm one of the voices in my head weird people too, but with the difference that sometimes I run over a scene in my head several times, like a director making actors practice their lines.

RE: Stepping into your character's shoes

>>notes<<

Those notes help me later when I'm concentrating on an action scene and don't want to say "the wind blew her red hair into a tangle" if, in fact, she has dark brown hair. <g>

--Malcolm

RE: Stepping into your character's shoes

>>how people talk<<

The more one does this, the more one hears. My wife, who grew up in the South, can easily tell the difference between a faked Southern accent (as in a cheap movie) or a real accent. And, she can tell you whether the speaker comes from North Carolina or South Georgia. Everyone else has to do a lot of listening to hear these differences and, as you suggested, the differences between the teeny bopper, the student and the lawyer.

I used to hang out in greasy-spoon diners when I grew up. It was an intiation into dialogue, dialect, and Rolaids.

--Malcolm

RE: Stepping into your character's shoes

Hi,

I've heard other folks talking about those character charts, whether they "borrow" one on line or create their own using a table in their Word program.

Personally, I prefer allowing the character to "tell me" who they are and what they will do under certain circumstances before I start jotting down notes about their traits. That seems to work better for me than starting with a list of traits and dealing them out amongst the characters.

How about you?

--Malcolm

RE: Stepping into your character's shoes

Tish--

Both my wife and I worked as reporters at different times and later as recording secretarties at board meetings. In both cases, we'd tape what we were hearing. It not only worked as a good memory aid, but made speech patterns really stand out.

At a board meeting, for example, there may be lots of people from both the board and the audience talking at once whenever a rolling discussion gets going and the chair loses control. A good ear, though, can separate out who is saying what...from pet phrases...voice tone...dialect.

Sounds like you glommed onto the value of this technique early on.

--Malcolm

RE: Stepping into your character's shoes

>>Mostly, I think it's best to just let characters speak. When you put words into a character's mouth, not much can be done to help anythng about the dialogue.<<

This is so difficult at first, but one can usually tell when the writer has finally started allowing this to happen.

At the beginning, the author's agenda for the dialogue passage gets in the way...Bob must tip off Jim about Stella...by innuendo, Jim must cause Bob to wonder if he already knew about Stella...etc etc etc.

If one steps out of the way and lets Jim and Bob speak, the passage will sound more authentic, and Jim and Bob won't sound like the author.

--Malcolm

RE: Stepping into your character's shoes

>>I hear their voice<<

Yes, I hear my characters' voices, too, but I don't go around saying this for fear of being locked up. <g>

Beethoven wrote music after he was deaf. Mozart could hear an entire symphony inside his head.

My characters talk to each other inside my head and, I find, that the more slack I give them, the better the result.

--Malcolm

Re: RE: Stepping into your character's shoes

I definitely hear my characters speak.

Re: RE: Stepping into your character's shoes

I can hear them. I just can't see their faces... not yet, anyway.

Re: RE: Stepping into your character's shoes

I read a bit of advice somewhere once and it somehow got stuck in my head and now I see I can use it. They suggested that you highlight each character's dialog in your novel with a different color. Then read just that character's dialog to see that they all "sound" consistent.

Re: sound alike

The voices in my head tell me the voices in your head are weird

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Thanks, Jim, I think I'll take that as a compliment :grin

Re: sound alike

I'd like to say that I envision certain actors(namely the actors that would play them in the movie version) and base some of the varying characteristics on that. Usually that helps me keep them seperate. I did say base...not copy, those actors, for those who might comment on that.

Just something that helps me.

Re: sound alike

Keeping character "voices" different is not a problem I have, but i do on occasion make some characters too one dimensional. UGH Have to watch for that.

Shawn