Distinguish big Character Voices

Sometimes it seems inevitable that characters will blend into each other if they are of similar ages, live in the same area, have the same economic background, are the same age as each other, etc. they can be diverse in other ways, yet they just blend. Does it depend on who is reading? Some people might trace each character’s development and see differences while others suggest that they react the same way to the same sort of situation.

Distinguishing features and adapting characters to their specific situation could balance what you actually want to convey and how your readers feel about your characters.

How can we revise our characters to overcome this particular obstacle and monitor their behaviors without getting stressed as writers? This is intended to be an opportunity to take a closer look into the motivations of each of your characters.

If we base our characters on real people we’ll see that different upbringings lead to varied priorities and measurements of subjective meaning and interpretation. For example, different religions interpret law and affection in very different, but also very distinct ways.

Given the experiences each character has accumulated throughout their lifetime, that character’s reactions (instinct and neuronal can be natural or sociological based on the individual stimuli) and their responses (a combination of thought and reaction) may differ, even when presented with identical scenarios.

One tool is use of the Enneagram. The types (#1-#9) include the reformer, the helper, the achiever, the individualist, the loyalist,the investigator, the enthusiast, the challenger, and the peacemaker. Reformers want to be good and fear disorder. Helpers want to be loved but fear being worthless. Achievers want to be worth and fear failure. Individualists want to be authentic and fear devaluation through inanity. Investigators want to be adequately informed and fear being incompetent. Loyalists want supportive, predictable systems and fear distrusting. Enthusiasts want happiness and fear pain. The challenger wants to have control but fears vulnerability. The peacemaker wants equilibrium and connection but fears being stuck in conflict. This will give you a more solid foundation to build on their reactions.

Once you have a set of traits related to an enneagram typr, it should be consistent and unique to that character to stand out from other characters’ particular choice of reaction.

For example, an enneagram 6 may differ in a social situation with a trait of considering all factual variables and details, think and fear coming across as pretentious. Enneagram 3 might get carried away discussing that certain area and leave people feeling alienated. This leads to underlying feelings of guilt, sadness, anger, shame, which may be different for each type.

Another trait could be fixation. Enneagram 1 is fixated on making things their idea of right, whereas enneagram 3 is fixated on success for everyone.

Enneagram 3 might fixate on success, and in an. Extreme, may be overconfident about a certain area or topic and they fear other people’s opinions.

The motivations of this particular character hinge purely on fear. The enneagram links what we fear the most directly with what motivates us as people. So, when constructing your character, think about what they fear above all else. This will lead you to their motivations for each and every situation that you place them in. See this link here.

In regards to discomfort about change, considerations include thought patterns, how their interactions influence their way of thinking, and if and when their opinions are swayed easily. Eventually, readers could learn why if it’s part of the evolution of character conflict. Over the course of the character at , they could act confused or self-doubting, or lash out or revert into hiding? They could finally listen and challenge previous beliefs to ensure a positive character arc.

When you’re creating a character and aiming to create a unique personality, it’s important to consider response to ai information? How do others perceive and react to the narrators in genuine self and the facade they might put on?

Consider distinguished backstories causing trauma. Think about environmental, situational, and experiential knowledge differentiations fear. Do they fight, flee, freeze?

Maybe one could show a certain biased reaction or a fallacy for one character but not any other.

This can tie backstory and character conflict in plot development. For example: a character is passionate to understand why their parents died and uses physics to find an answer. While another character might use art to figure out how to understand the same thing. Another character might have a draw toward math because they like uncertainty versus draw toward history because they like to see how to think about the past differently than people who might react and expect a certain reaction from those around them.

Tracking quirks and body language or how traits correspond to described responses may help readers recall distinctions. For example, one character may tinker with a bracelet on their wrist when they are nervous or tie their hair back when ready to go for a run.

When revising your draft, and identifying places to distinguish voices, writers could start by summarizing the situation in a scene on a sticky note. Differentiate different characters' responses. Different sticky notes could signify their unique reaction, behavior, body language, thoughts, phrases, or defense mechanism.

Different synonyms could be assigned to different characters to convey a certain meaning or phrase only one character uses. Maybe the metaphorical differences could work, such as having one character associating metaphors with their prefered sense. Hobbies also offer specific sets of phrases only people in their club would know. These could trickle into their thought patterns elsewhere.

What methods do you use to track distinctions amongst your characters?

This template is meant to act like generator and encourages people to research voices for books with multiple narrators. Story craft is considered while writing this. With examples of topics like humor and decision-making style, you could hone a set of vocabulary for one character and each has their own.

Ways to distinguish narrative, voices in fiction writing

1. Based on enneagram analysis, what is their desire, fear, and the lie they live throughout the story?

2. What is their communication style? What are things that they might say but other characters won’t say? What are influences and hobbies – centric groups and unique things that set them apart from mainstream socialization, outside these groups?

3. What do they prioritize when they are making decisions? What thoughts come to mind or are associated with the prioritized significant state applied to their decisions? For example, in anagram type one might do things based on her idea of what is right or fair while an enneagram type five will do things based on what is empirically true or with information they are able to make inferences about. An Enneagram type Six might do things based on what they feel. Certain will be safe while in anagram nine might do something based on whether it will ensure the end result promises harmony between people.

4. How character arcs and story structure may allow the character arc two to show what is probable for one character to talk about and for another character to talk about. Examples may apply with different perspectives on the central conflict or other characters' conflicts. For example, one character will view the overarching story about Crime in one way, well, another use it in another way. Regarding character arts; a character may view another person's fear as something they don’t have to worry about where, as they made for you another concern as a worry. For example, worry about abortion will be more pertinent to someone who is religious. Where someone who is not religious may have less of an internal struggle with this decision.

5. What do they focus on as they are describing the world that they are walking through? How are they really certain details? How is the tone and how is it emulated with the description? For example, someone may be humorous, cynical, metaphorical, or use tones. Phrases may relate to instances in their upbringing, lingo in their jobs, or preferred senses. For example, mixing a critical tone with a metaphor imply a narrator is listening might give way to idioms like: keep an eye out. Researching tone and metaphors may be fun as an excessive to discover and create lists of things each narrator may think or say.

6. What do they think about other characters? How do their thoughts about those other characters differ between narrators? What descriptions about those characters they focus on when they describe them when meeting in a room? For example, someone might notice their hair quicker than another narrator, while someone might notice their clothing style first. A character trait might be associated with an experience that the two characters shared. It also can be translated into a description that conveys what they feel about the character, such as the emphasis and comparison between freckles and dead leaves on an autumn afternoon, versus having adorn hands with henna.

7. What stands out about a particular personality? Treat that one character has versus another character based on intersection of the Myers-Briggs test and the anagram types? For example, the intersection of Myers-Briggs into an underground type night distinguish one anagram six from another anagram six depending on how they feel about social events and whether being an extrovert or introvert, depends on how long an event is or how many people are there and who they know versus who they don’t know.

8. This next suggestion may be something worth approaching care, but it might be worse, suggesting that the way we word things and the words we chose shows the cultural differences rather than the idea that it refers to educational level or ability to speak English. For example, certain synonyms refer to certain places in the world, such as saying, “irk” versus “annoys” or dialect differences such as “sneakers'' versus “trainers.” If they travel a lot, perhaps they tend to spend time with the British.

8. Style differences might also be fine, but colors can be expensive when printing and fonts can be hard to read. However, which fonts are most pleasing to the eyes? Maybe there’s a statistic to it?

9. Humor styles may differ and depend on context and timing. One character may be linguistic, observation, surreal, witty, or sarcastic.

Links Referenced and Cool Sources to Check Out:

https://www.integrative9.com/media/articles/58/communication-styles-of-the-nine-types

https://www.psychologyjunkie.com/the-decision-making-style-of-every-enneagram-type/

https://www.albert.io/blog/ultimate-list-of-tone-words/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G-G80OORLk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17yV5yRVXec

https://theeditorsblog.net/2013/04/19/tone-mood-style-the-feel-of-fiction/

https://livinginthelayerscom.wordpress.com/2019/09/16/revising-at-points-of-need-narrative-revision-stations/

https://www.scribophile.com/academy/reactions-to-characters

https://www.metastellar.com/nonfiction/body-language-master-list-for-writers/

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/9-positive-character-arcs-in-the-enneagram-2/

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/9-positive-character-arcs-in-the-enneagram-2/

https://goldenmayedit.medium.com/how-plot-character-intersect-4fa520c8d1eb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=012OMrKp85M

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/how-to-balance-multiple-povs/

https://www.servicescape.com/blog/how-to-effectively-use-dialect-in-fiction-writing

https://images.app.goo.gl/NCa7DPSYEaZ3oWK79

https://enneagramexplained.com/the-most-common-enneagram-types-for-each-myers-briggs-type/#:~:text=While%20there%20are%20definitely%20certain,pairings%20are%20definitely%20very%20rare.

https://www.journalppw.com/index.php/jpsp/article/view/11958

https://www.psychologyjunkie.com/the-lie-that-each-enneagram-type-believes-and-how-to-avoid-it/

https://enneagrampaths.com/2021/05/05/remember-how-each-enneagram-type-seems-vs-how-they-actually-are/